Thousands of school students have chosen to skip their end of year exams this year.

Reports of as few as 15 per cent of students are turning up and taking the unexpected event grade they've been given.

Papatoetoe High School principal Vaughan Couillault told Heather du Plessis-Allan that he didn’t want students to turn up for exams as he thought exams in lockdown was a bridge too far with the Auckland lockdowns and wanted to do the work in advance.

"The sort of compromise to that was the unexpected event grade area was declared in Auckland and so students can get the grades that they want in advance with the work that they've done in class and the buildup, the flurry of activity that happened when schools were able to open, and then that takes away the pressure of cramming kids into a hall for a few hours."

Auckland Grammar School Headmaster Tim O'Connor says the unexpected events grade should be used as a fallback option and not a starting point.

"Why would we say take a UEG when you can actually go into an examination, actually test yourself and measure yourself about what you know so that you can be better and if necessary, fall back on the UEG grade."

O'Connor also reports a 95 plus per cent attendance for exams at Auckland Grammar.

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