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With NCEA exams coming up next term, a resource that offers free online assistance to students is gaining traction.
The couple behind the learncoach website, David Cameron and Deborah Lambie, were brought to the Hibiscus Coast last month to speak to Rotarians, the CYC Trust and schools.
Deborah, 25, is a doctor at Wellington Hospital and David, 28, is a teacher; they started a very basic website four years ago to help a small group of students that they knew were struggling with NCEA exams. Within a month, 4000 students were using it and the vastly expanded site has since attracted around 60,000 unique users.
Currently it offers help with STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects, from Level 1–3. It includes nearly 200 free tutorials that go through the skills needed for each achievement standard. Student can submit questions, and there are free workbooks.
The couple fund the site themselves, through the LearnCoach Charitable Trust and David now works on it virtually full-time. There is also a Facebook page run by comedian Dean Watson, a writer for TV3 series 7 Days.
Deborah and David put its success down to the fact that it’s NCEA-specific, and that students are most comfortable sourcing information online.
“We approach it from the point of view of advice from a cool older brother or sister, not teachers,” David says.
He says Dean has made the Facebook page fun – one of his recent, tongue-in-cheek headlines was ‘how to cheat your way through NCEA’.
David says he wasn’t a fan of NCEA when he was sitting it himself but thinks that it has developed over time and compares well to what is offered in other countries, particularly China where he says there is a big focus on rote learning.
“There are still some quirks, but the core is that you compete against a standard, so whatever class you’re in, you have an equal chance,” he says. “They are making it more modular so you can do broad learning that includes practical subjects – recognising that you have done good work, even if it’s not academic, and that it counts for something. It’s nice for students to be valued for a wide range of things because everyone is so different.”
Deborah says they are finding that many students don’t know where to start when it comes to studying for NCEA, despite sitting mock exams in Term 3, and that stress levels are rising.
“It’s much more competitive to get into a student’s first choice of university and with that comes more stress and pressure,” she says. “We are trending towards a real focus on the need to get good grades.”
Info: learncoach.co.nz
