Year 12 Overview

The Year 12 Subjects

Students at this stage have completed their first three years of foundation studies (Years 9-11). Personal strengths, a greater awareness of future career directions and personalised course counselling, enable students to plan an individualised course of study tailored to their future learning and career needs.

Students are able to select specially designed Vocational Pathways courses. Only Religious Education and English are mandatory to take (and Mathematics also, if individuals have not yet attained the minimum University Entrance requirement). Students need to select four or five courses to make up their total of seven subjects.

In Year 12, students study the following: 

• Religious Education
• 6 other subjects, the rest chosen from the curriculum and dependent on individual circumstances and needs. 
  • A Mathematics course must be selected if the minimum numeracy requirement has not been attained
  • English is not compulsory, though students that do not select it will need to consider the courses and standards they will need to achieve to meet the University Entrance Literacy Requirement. See below for more. 
• 7 Subjects in total 

Other Programmes: 

• Club Garin Activities (Sport/Arts/Service)
• The Journey Programme
• House Competitions
• Special Calendared events - Mahi Toi

Guidance Notes:

You can browse courses by faculty area or search for courses using the links in the navigation bar on the left. 

Students assess for the Numeracy requirements in year 11. There is no further numeracy requirement for University Entrance. 

In Year 12 learners complete Achievement Standards that have Reading and Writing credits attached to them. In order to reach University Entrance Literacy requirements learners must achieve 5 credits in Writing & 5 credits in Reading. Each Level 2 and Level 3 course lists the standards at the bottom of the description and flags the reading and writing credits.

Planning your pathway to further study after school is really important. Mrs Helliwell has put together this document which describes the best preparation you can do for tertiary courses that Garin students commonly go on to study. 

Students normally get their first choices, but timetabling clashes may occur which require students to re-select alternative combinations of programmes. The timetabler will advise you if this happens.

NCEA provides the opportunity for true multi-level study. Students doing Level 2 may select from Level 1 courses also if these fit their timetable.

As always, students should be asking the central question: ”Is this programme selection progressing me in the future direction I have identified for myself?”

If numbers are insufficient for a course it may not be offered.

A very small number of courses may have a finite number of spaces and it may be necessary to limit class numbers. In these cases Heads of Faculty will have indicated limits on course pages and students should complete selections for these courses at the earliest opportunity to avoid disappointment.