FAST FACTS: Auckland Girls’ Grammar School’s NCEA and UE results for 2024 are out – and they’re outstanding.
Success rates are:
NCEA Level 1 - 90.1% NCEA Level 2 – 94.7%
NCEA Level 3 – 94.4%
(*This when 2024 saw a national drop of 12% at level 1 NCEA)
AGGS’ UE success – 87.6%
(*UE national average 48.2%)
Auckland Girls’ Grammar School has delivered near-perfect academic results for 2024.
Following excellent 2023 results, AGGS has notched it up even more, with all its NCEA numbers in the 90 percentiles and its UE success rates pushing 90.
For perspective, The national average for NCEA Level 1 for 2024 is 44.9%. AGGS’ 90.1% success rate is more than double that.
And for UE, 48.2% is the national average so AGGS, again, at 87.7% is almost double.
“Our numbers just keep growing year-on-year,” says Deputy Principal Gavin Morgan. 64% back in 2019, up to 80% in 2023. And now into the nineties. It is extraordinary.”
The constant improvement has come under the reign of Principal Ngaire Ashmore.
“Every year in my years at Auckland Girls’ we’ve increased and we’ve been really proud,” says Ashmore. “We feel so good – incredible – about where we have landed this year.”
AGGS is also shouting loud and proud about the stats for its Māori and Pacific students.
80% of Māori students and 85.5% of Pacific students achieved UE at AGGS – soaring above the national averages of 29.9 and 30.1% respectively.
“Everyone’s in this realm of it’s so doom and gloom and bad for Māori and Pacific students,” Ashmore reflects. “And here is a story that bucks that trend. In fact it reverses the rhetoric completely.”
So how has a school previously challenged turned around so dramatically? Let’s not forget when Ashmore took over the school was under Limited Statutory Management. Things were grim.
Now, under Ashmore and her Senior Leadership Team, AGGS experiments with bespoke programmes for each and every student. You won’t find ‘rinse/repeat’ in the vocab of any staff member.
Deputy Principal Maree Flannery, who’s starting her 15th year at AGGS in 2025, explains:
“There’s a belief that everyone can achieve – and we’ll do anything for our students. For that, you need staff who are willing. And they are,” she grins, “they are amazing.”
In 2024 the staff focus was on early identification of students who needed a different approach and continual tracking of how every pupil was progressing – the aim to leave no one lagging and having to play catch-up at year’s end.
“We knew the students who needed different opportunities,” details Flannery. “We took them off timetable and created bespoke programmes for them. And from term three we introduced mentors (who worked one on one) for students who we felt needed additional support.”
Ashmore reiterates: “I think considering all the changes to the NCEA level 1 last year, we were determined that our co-hort of Year 11 NCEA Level 1 students would not be left not achieving and we did everything we could to ensure they had the best chance of success.”
2024 Head Girl Samarah Basir, who’s entering Law School this year, is testament to the success of this evolving AGGS ethos.
“The staff are incredibly prepared and they’re incredibly kind and they’re always willing to help us,” Basir says. “They’re not only there as a staff member, but as your friend and guide too – and I think the connections they make with every student definitely helps us succeed and not only get excellence in our education but know that we are looked after as well.”
Co-Head Girl in 2024, Delilah Vale – who hopes to be a surgeon – agrees: “From year nine teachers are very vocal about all the opportunities and possible career pathways so when we enter senior school we’re not overwhelmed. And during senior school our teachers are there to steer us to the right subjects to get into the right uni courses for our careers.”
Principal Ashmore elaborates: “We’re all in this together. Everyone involved continues to work with the student at every level. There’s follow up and follow through. Mentors, Deans and the student herself all doing their job and their best. This is the success of everyone in the organisation working collectively.”
Achieving such high numbers for the second consecutive year puts AGGS on a consistently even playing field with its inner-city rivals heading into the 2025 school year.
“We compete against schools like Epsom Girls, private schools like Dio and St Cuths, St Mary’s, Marist… and I think we’ve always felt a little bit that we are the poor cousins,” says Ashmore. “Now our results indicate we are now right on par for academic achievement.
“We’re really, really proud to be able to say if you choose Auckland Girls’ you will get an absolutely amazing education and the possibility of achieving at the highest level.”
Oh, and don’t think such remarkable success means Ashmore and her team will rest on their laurels. They’re already thinking where to from here.
Ashmore nods: “What we know is that we can do this. And that we have a proven track record now. We want to continue to grow. Student achievement is an area that doesn’t stop, so we are continually developing, refining and understanding what works best.”
Deputy Principal Flannery agrees: “It puts a spring in your step, for sure. And at the start of a school year there couldn’t be better motivation to keep on the up-and-up.”
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