We've been helping students crush the Numeracy & Literacy assessments since 2022.

How we do it

Is your child sitting the Numeracy test this year?

Numeracy skills student checklist resource

Download our FREE Numeracy Skills Checklist (self-evaluation) here. It is a 'checklist' of all the skills students need to have a grasp on to pass the assessment, along with past exam questions.

Download the Numeracy Skills Checklist

How our students perform...

NCEA Common Assessment Activities (Numeracy and Literacy (reading and writing)) Trajectory results

NCEA Common Assessment Activities (Numeracy and Literacy (reading and writing)) nationwide results

About the CAAs...

The Numeracy and Literacy Common Assessment Activities (CAAs), also known as the 'co-requisites', are three tests which are usually sat by Year 10 or Year 11 students.

From 2024, to gain an NCEA qualification at any level, all students need to complete the CAAs (or gain equivalent numeracy and literacy credits by completing separate assessments). The usual way to achieve this is by passing the Numeracy, Reading, and Writing CAAs.

The Numeracy test is worth 10 credits. It requires students to master the Math and Statistics concepts at Level 4 of the New Zealand Curriculum.

The Literacy test is split into two tests, being:

Reading (5 credits).
Writing (5 credits).

How we teach these assessments...

At Trajectory, we've been guiding Year 10, 11, and 12 students to success in the Numeracy and Literacy (Reading and Writing) CAAs since their introduction. Our tutors are specifically trained in the structure, content, and demands of the assessments.

We know the format inside and out, and we've developed a proven approach that gets results. We focus on what works and skip what doesn't.

We're also big on homework and independent learning, between tutorials. Read more about our 1:1 tutoring approach here.

Numeracy

For Numeracy, our method is based on:

plenty of exposure to real exam questions from previous years. Many students struggle not with the math itself, but with interpreting what the question is asking. Getting better at spotting keywords, thinking critically, and reading carefully, helps students build self-confidence in an test context;

identifying knowledge gaps and targeting them directly. If a student's class moves on to another topic before the student has properly grasped a concept, this open up 'knowledge gaps' which are difficult to fill. We start from square one, making no assumptions about what students already know, and build up from there.

Read our recommended resources for Numeracy self-study.

Literacy (Reading & Writing)

For Literacy, our method is again based on exposure to past exam problems to build familiarity with the type of questions they can expect, and instilling in students the best approach to solving them.

The Reading assessment requires students to think critically about what they're reading. This is a skill which does not come naturally to some students (particularly ones who haven't done much self-led reading), but it can be learned.

The Writing assessment requires students to create two pieces of writing (usually in the form of a letters, emails, or articles) and complete a set of multi-choice questions on spelling and grammar. There are lots of pitfalls here, but the most common ones are:

structure - using text conventions which are appropriate to the text (for example, signing off an email with 'Kind regards');
spelling/grammar - students need to produce writing which is relatively free from grammar/spelling errors. They have access to a spellchecker for this assessment, but it's the punctuation/grammar which usually trips students up (for example, capitalising place names);
topic - a super common misstep is straying too far from the essay topic, or not including details which are relevant to the topic.

For Writing, it is essential students read and familiarise themselves with the marking criteria.