In New Zealand, group work is aided by a curriculum that has only eight levels over 12 or 13 years of schooling. There is an explicit understanding that students are promoted from one year to another automatically, but any individual student could be achieving at a number of different curriculum levels, depending on the learning area or subject. Classes are offered at different grade levels at the same time, allowing students to study in the class that best suits their achievement level. In this way, a student nominally at a particular year level may be taking classes from a year below or a year above their nominal year level.