MRGS consistently achieves outstanding results, and a personalised education underpins this. We measure student progress against individual improvement. We offer support across all learning capabilities. We offer a wide range of subject choices, co-curricular opportunities and university and career pathways to suit different talents. It’s this individualised learning that enables students to experience personal success, which instils self-belief and resilience.

Junior Curriculum

The junior programme of learning will encourage students to be successful powerful learners striving for excellence and experiencing enjoyment as capabilities are developed. Learning pathways will align with NCEA as the senior school measure of achievement. The learning will be experienced by our learners through effective and quality teaching practice that will be tailored to each individual student’s ability with the aim to extend students to their full potential.

Our MRGS Junior Graduates will be competent at Level 5 of the curriculum and have developed the learning capabilities to succeed at NCEA level 1.

The eight learning Areas of the New Zealand Curriculum will be studied to develop core knowledge and skills that will lead to success in the senior school.

Key attributes will include:

• A range of powerful learning dispositions
• A range of core transferable skills
• An opportunity to be involved in the life of our school & our wider community
• Progress along the curriculum levels to enable the achievement of academic potential
• Quality formative assessment practices
• Success and celebration of success

Students within the junior programme will work towards achievement in the school’s Junior Diploma, which works in tandem with NCEA achievement and reporting. This enables students to achieve success and recognition with a school wide award.

We encourage everyone to be a successful learner with the ability to understand how to develop skills and extend their subject knowledge. Through the junior curriculum and Junior Diploma, students will experience passion-led learning and can develop an awareness of their own processes to progress towards being a successful, powerful learner.

Just like NCEA, students achieve the Junior Diploma by gaining 80 credits and will receive a certificate that celebrates their success in achieving the Junior Diploma.

A student can attain an endorsement in the Junior Diploma.

To be endorsed with Excellence, just as in NCEA a student must gain

50 credits at Excellence in their Year 9 or 10 year.

Likewise, a student who gains 50 credits at Merit (or Merit & Excellence) will be endorsed with Merit.

Our junior assessments are based around SOLO taxonomy. SOLO describes 5 levels of increasing understanding of a subject. At MRGS within junior assessments, this is represented by 5 grades: Excellence, Merit, Achieved, Developing and Not Achieved. Year 9 assessments are based around Level 4 of the NZ Curriculum and Year 10 assessments are based around Level 5.

As assessment information is entered, it is live on the Kamar Portal to parents and can be tracked. This enables us to work with our students along their learning journey to establish and communicate learning goals, track progress, identify students in need of interventions and celebrate success.

Senior Curriculum

Our students study NCEA as our senior curriculum.

We empower each student to be a successful learner with an understanding of how to extend their knowledge and develop skills. Our student will gain an awareness of their own learning processes and the resilience to progress towards achievement and qualifications.

Our results year on year are consistently above national averages and above those achieved by comparable schools.

In addition to the year 11-13 students studying NCEA we also provide a number of Year 10 students with the opportunity to accelerate in Mathematics and Science by studying a year ahead.

We also offer and excel in Scholarship examinations with our students gaining top placings in the country for individual subjects and top scholars who achieve across a range of subject areas.