Senior School
Our Senior School offers Year 11-13 students a solid foundation for academic success through the choice of National Certificate of Educational Achievement or International Baccalaureate.
In Year 11, our students follow a contemporary curriculum, the St Margaret’s College Senior School Foundation Diploma. This has been created by SMC academic staff and is designed to ensure our girls maintain the strong pathway for achieving their full potential in Year 12-13 and beyond.
Following the positioning of NCEA Level 1 partly as a high school exit qualification, and with this, the loss of specialist subjects in science and humanities, our Foundation Diploma ensures we continue to meet the needs of our girls, all of whom continue their studies into Year 12, and who have a strong desire to study a range of specialist subjects.
The Foundation Diploma provides for increased teaching and learning time, specialist subject options, and a tailored and rigorous assessment model that lays the groundwork for success in NCEA Levels 2-3 and International Baccalaureate. Students undertake three compulsory courses in English, maths and at least one science, supplemented by three additional specialist subjects from a wide range of options.
The Foundation Diploma is based on SMC’s commitment to provide opportunities for holistic growth and wellbeing, with modules designed to strengthen character, service and leadership.
In offering the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, we give our students the opportunity to follow a philosophy of education and an internationally recognised qualification in Year 12-13.
Our IB students develop an attitude to learning that prepares them for university education, through a programme that develops the whole student – physically, intellectually, emotionally and ethically. Students are required to select one subject from each of the following subject groups – language acquisition, studies in language and literature, individuals and societies, mathematics, the arts, and sciences – as part of a programme that balances subject breadth and depth. Students also participate in the Diploma Programme (DP) core – Theory of Knowledge, Extended essay and Creativity, activity and service, which aims to broaden students’ educational experience and challenge them to apply their knowledge and skills.
Our students consistently outperform IB students globally, and have gone on to attend leading universities in New Zealand and around the world, including Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge.
The IB’s mission is to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through education that builds intercultural understanding and respect. It is taught in more than 5,700 schools in 160 countries, and SMC is the only girls’ school on the South Island to offer both the IB and NCEA Level 2-3.
SMC is an IB World School, and we share a commitment to improve the teaching and learning of a diverse and inclusive community of students by delivering a challenging, high-quality programme of international education that shares a powerful vision.
This is the New Zealand qualification framework that students in Year 12-13 can opt to study. Assessment for the qualification is both internal with inter-school moderation and external through public examination for each subject.
Students select six subjects in Year 12 to study at Level 2, with English the only compulsory course of study, and five subjects in Year 13 to study at Level 3. A Curriculum Handbook, published annually, provides up-to-date information on each course, entry requirements and assessment procedures. Students are supported in selecting combinations of subjects that meet their individual needs.
NZQA Scholarship examinations are offered and supported in each NCEA subject at SMC, and are designed to create academic stretch and challenge for students who are passionate about particular subjects.
NCEA is underpinned by the New Zealand Curriculum and the Key Competencies for teaching and learning – thinking; relating to others; using language, symbols and texts, managing self, and participating and contributing. Around 150,000 students study each year towards NCEA, and it is considered a credible and robust qualification both in New Zealand and overseas. We are proud that our students regularly achieve amongst the highest academic results nationwide in NCEA.
