School startup to nationwide reach

A year after Marlborough Boys’ College students made headlines with their Young Enterprise Scheme startup WordFrame, the same entrepreneurial spirit has produced something considerably bigger.

This time, Year 13 students Sanjiv Singh, Kahu Hoeta and Lawrence Piesse have launched NZGrader, an AI-powered marking tool built specifically for NCEA. It gives students feedback on their work while helping teachers with the marking process.

The school business idea has quickly grown to 2,023 users across 186 secondary schools throughout New Zealand. For the students, however, the journey has been about learning from their first attempt.

“WordFrame taught us a lot, particularly about the importance of marketing. We spent months building and improving the product, but forgot that to generate revenue, we also needed to market it. This time, we’ve put much more focus on selling the product,” says Sanjiv.

“We took WordFrame’s most popular feature, the feedback tool, and went all in on it. Most of the changes we make are backed by data. We want to be efficient with product development so we can put more resources into marketing and growth.”

NZGrader differs from general AI tools by assessing student work against specific NCEA achievement standards. “Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are pretty good at telling you whether your writing is good, but they can’t necessarily tell you whether it meets a specific NCEA achievement standard. NZGrader starts with the standard, not the writing.

“Students select the achievement standard they’re working towards, submit their work, and the model assesses it against the criteria. It then provides a predicted grade and feedback explaining what is missing to reach the next level.

“For teachers, it’s about saving time – doing a first pass or double-checking their own grading. We’re careful to say ‘predicted’, never ‘guaranteed’. We’re not trying to replace a teacher’s judgement; we’re giving students and teachers a clearer signal earlier, while there’s still time to act on it.”

One surprise has been where the users have come from. “A lot came through TikTok. We assumed a student scrolling TikTok at home wouldn’t stop to open a study app, but they did – constantly. It shows how much anxiety around NCEA can weigh on students if it’s strong enough to interrupt a TikTok scroll.”

The students are now focused on growing NZGrader and exploring how it can support teachers. “We’ve been running influencer campaigns that bring in 80 to 160 new users a day, with a good proportion converting to paid trials. We’re also starting a full teacher trial at Marlborough Boys’ College. The trial will help us understand how it can best support teachers with the marking process.”