Good article Patrick. Best of luck with your future plans.

Every student who takes these exams has the same opinion year in and year out. It is a joke of a system. Great piece though.

Well written A1 – did the Leaving 20 years ago, nothing seems to have changed. It’s a memory test and while fair in that respect, it doesn’t really play much of a role in preparing you for third level or the ‘real world’. I think the challenge is how to combine continuous assessment and maintain anonymity and do it cheaply. Who would want their own teachers marking them for a state examination system?

Very well written piece. I’m sure the absence of your favourite poets will be irrelevant in your goals.
I have a great memory and had no problem learning off essays to answer every past paper question and every potential question known to man. But with my hand on my heart I will say that 48 hours after an exam I could not recite one paragraph of my pre-prepared work.
Did I learn anything? I’m sure I did.
I just can’t remember!

He’s right, continuous assessment is the way forward in my opinion too. Starting from 5th year onwards. There should be essays and projects completed along the way and students should be marked at both Christmas and Summer of both 5th and 6th year This gives them time to improve if they’re falling behind and will be an easier integration to the College system too.nnI would make 4th Year compulsory too, but that’s a whole other issue! :) Done right, it can be invaluable to a students development, I’m speaking from experience.

Having just completed my first year in college as a mature student, I have seen first hand that the Leaving Cert is not fit for purpose. Sitting in lectures with all these people who supposedly got 450+ points in their Leaving Cert shows just how little students actually understand. Sure, they know about a lot of things, but they don’t actually comprehend it.

The way I see it, the problem is three-fold: students are taught to learn stuff off by rote, teachers teach what they think will come up on the exam, and the exams are too close together. My solution would be to stop asking questions on specific poets/ novelists/ plays and ask general questions which allow the student to use whatever quotes/ novel they wanted to answer. Space the exams further apart. Give the students time between exams to do some constructive revision.

The Leaving Cert should allow students to show that they can think for themselves and that they can use what they’ve learned. It shouldn’t be about just regurgitating information. These days (nearly) all the information of the world is just a Google search away. The ability to make use of it is much more difficult.

The only issue that I can see is that spreading out the exam would impact when results may be made available and college places offered. If the results are not available until September then let the college year start in October.

Nice piece. I pretty much agree with everything there. I did my LC four years ago and heard the same calls being made then for some changes to the system. It needs change. The exams test your ability to cram in information and regurgitate it onto a page, not understand and engage with it and if possible, put it to practical use. Like you said, people just learn off essays. I did that too. More continuous assessment needed, absolutely.

Very good article! Glad someone is challenging the system. As someone just writing up a masters on the Junior Cert assessment as we speak, I could talk all day over this! A couple of key points:

Of course continuous assessment is a better model, being used from Swansea to Sydney. It shows a process of learning and the development of the learner. However in Ireland we have a CAO system among one of the most competitive college selection systems in the world. If the reliability to discriminate between students is altered even a tiny bit (which continuous assessment would completely change it), the CAO, parents, colleges, grind schools would be up in arms. The Leaving Cert in Ireland is now unfortunately just another intern exam until an undergraduate/PLC course.

Secondly, on CA – how does one prevent the teacher methodically step-by-step doing the projects/portfolios etc. for the students? In my school alone, I see whole classes doing the CSPE project step by step one class at a time. Teachers in their professional practice should be accountable for the learning they impart to their students (I say this as a teacher myself).

And finally our Leaving Cert is sat by a much younger cohort of students than comparative exams worldwide. University students of 16 and 17 years old are non-existent outside Ireland (for the most part). Therefore critical thinking skills must be prefaced by knowledge recall. Critical thinking is not easy to teach in 40mins. We all need to know facts about things – our times-tables, spellings, counties in Ireland, etc. Obviously this is different to learning an entire essay off. Those instances should, in my opinion, be brought back to the teacher to answer for. But memory recall is necessary, any researcher will tell you that. It should then be supported by critical enquiry and discussion, however for the Leaving Cert to change, I’m afraid we’ve to start changing at Junior Infants first.

Good piece – if that is anything to go by , you won’t have much to fret about come August. I agree with the need for CA though and far less emphasis on one exam on one day. Furthermore, the exam needs to cater for different skill sets better i.e. for those of a more practical than intellectual persuasion. How many hugely successful business men and women would have been considered failures by the state because of their inability to rattle off some Shakespeare quote on demand? It’s ridiculous. nnAlas, it doesn’t necessarily end here. My the majority of my four year business and computer science degree also hinged largely on one exam in my finals despite the very nature of the course being more suited to continuous assessment. By comparison to the LC though, it was a walk in the park. Subjects I understood and actually enjoyed (for the most part!).nnWhatever the outcome for you and many others in August – it’s not the be all and end all. Sometimes, things happen for a reason…

Good piece Patrick. I don’t think there should be an element of gambling at all in the exams. It makes no sense.

I agree overall that the system does not reward true intelligence, but at the same time I’ve found that to get top marks as opposed to high marks, you do have to have something of your own (in English at least – especially in paper 1). Although, from what I remember of history, it involved perfecting an essay, and learning it to a tee. How does that ability make one a good historian? That’s a feat of data storage and retrieval, nothing more. Same in the Irish exam.

I think that the Leaving Cert is way overemphasized… it is far too stressful of a thing to go through. It’s made out in some schools that it will determine the rest of your life, when nothing could be further from the truth. Even college doesn’t do that. Some people do well in this system (I did, but didn’t like it), and many others do not… It should not be the standard measure for everybody. The words ‘state’ and ‘machine’ which you mentioned about sum up my views on it.

Anyway… at least people who will perform well in all kinds of other ways (all kinds of creativity, innovation, personal skills, and talent for business are outside the scope of the LC) are probably gonna get on with it in life, LC or no LC. It takes the education system repeatedly pushing it, but it also takes individuals buying into it for the whole thing to keep going the way it is.

In a few months you’ll have forgotten all about it. It’s done now so move on and enjoy your life

I sat the Leaving Cert last year, got good enough points, got my first choice. However, the ones that did the best are the ones that sat at home, learning off note after note after note. The Leaving Cert isn’t an exam, it’s a test in memorising and regurgitating notes. I got on well because I remembered a lot. People in my course who just scraped the minimum requirements are insanely intelligent, much more so than I am – but still got over 100 points less than I did.
In the end, the subject I got the most points for was Art, which has a fairly balanced marking scheme for history and project work. I also did well in LCVP, which the project is also marked high enough, from what I remember. From my own experience, project work and more balanced marking schemes work – and I believe that bringing this across more subjects would help out a lot of students that should be scoring more points.

I would love to see the exam system reformed, I really would. I just find it hard to see it happening

I finished the LC last Friday so Im in a position I feel to perhaps counter some of the arguments made above. You began the piece looking back to the now ‘infamous’ English 2 talking yet again about the disguist at not seeing Plath or Heaney on the paper!! Well sorry to tell you but anyone who went into the exam hall banking on a particular poet or two, and lost, is a poor gambler…..end of!!! I went in without either of the two ‘dead certs’ and of the 4 I chose to study, 3 popped up so I know I certantly adored the paper :-) What I love then is your harking back to the good old ‘wrote learning’ debate………yawn!!! The LC is what a student makes of it. Starting from day 1 of 5th year, or TY in some subjects, the whole course is laid out in front of you and then its the weaker students who resort to learning essay after essay or answer after answer rather than actually learning the subject area and information. The LC is in all honesty all about taking calculated risks and being able to forsee wether they will pay off, hence why they’re calculated!! If someone rolls the dice and loses, surely it is their own fault and surely doesnt warrrnt an attack on a system that rewards fairness and creates a well known structure to Irish schooling???

How much of this resentment is because your favourite poets didn’t come up? Would this article be written had Heaney come up and the History exam was easy?nnI’m not a fan of the leaving cert format or the way it’s taught. Teachers gamble on the questions rather than teaching the whole syllabus. It’s a rote learning exercise that puts too much pressure on a single exam.

It seems the teachers agree!

http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15559:claremorris-principal-lambasts-leaving-cert&catid=23:news&Itemid=46

Great points, well made Cian. It has flaws for sure, but there is enough there for any student who takes some responsibility for their own learning to prove their worth.

Great article. Continuous assessment is the best way to go. Ireland is not producing critical thinkers instead our system produces people who need to be spoon fed. I recall learning off essays all those years ago, I forget the content of those essays now, that is not being educated. It’s merely testing my memory capacity.

Frank article which speaks for everyone (whether they agree or not) on the atrocity that is the LC. The emotional & psychological burden that is attached to this filthy demon doesn’t end. I did it twice coupled with HPAT (no aside intended). It took me until 2nd year of college to begin really engaging with the way one needs to ‘think’ to succeed in academia and the applied working world. Many of my peers would say the same. Half of the battle is forgetting every part of it- forgetting the cramming; the glass-half-full content. Moreover, forgetting how frustrating it was not being able to research something on an iPad, or laptop. Ignoring the annoying reality that the entire course could be delivered comfortably over one year was another key thing for me.

I wish the writer well and his generation of LCers the best in their post event trauma. It’s about the ability to find knowledge in 2012, not the storage of it. Be free… be creative and go build pretty things with no rules.

Good article and I agree with the Author. However does the Author offer an opinion as to how he would structure the Leaving Cert?

I just cannot grasp why people got so upset over English Paper 2. You are advised to learn a minimum of 5 poets so that whatever poets appear you can answer a question, no matter what. The students sitting the exam will be the first to know and I just don’t know how people can rely solely on predictions. Learning 5 poets isn’t that difficult and is worth the work in the end when you are faced(in my opinion) with a lovely paper.

As an examiner these comments are refreshingly true because the fact that candidates believed what Facebook, blogs and private grind schools told them and it turned out to be untrue doesn’t merit castigating the whole system.

Some interesting points raised in the article. However I do feel that the current system mostly rewards those who have put in a good solid two years work and not those started cramming for half way through 6th year and took short cuts. Will continuous assessment not just lead students to rote learning a little less information more often? How can we ensure that the integrity of the exam is not affected if we go down the project work route? All too easy to get someone else to do an essay/project or copy someone else’s and submit it. Not sure what a student would learn from this. At least in an exam they have to go to the bother of learning something off. I am open to suggestions but in my opinion the current system is the fairest for all students involved.

Well said Patrick. As a secondary school teacher and an examiner I entirely agree with you. Students who have good memories are the ones that get the high marks. It is unfortunate that more marks are not awarded for critical thinking and personal analyses.

History was not easy, scuse you. I also thought it was fairly predictable that the SEC wasn’t giving us Pleaney. Matter of opinion I guess. Well written article. A2.

Nice article, but at the risk of sounding condescending, you really wont care in a few years. You will begin to see how some people who failed their leaving took other routes and went on to get phds and very successful careers, you’ll see how some people that get high points have no interest in college and did something else instead after dropping out.

You’ll also begin to realise how young a 5th year student is and how it would be unfair to have continuous assessment applied from that age. Maybe the more enthusiastic students would be fine but I know some vert bright people who didnt start applying themselves till late teens, early 20s.

Best of luck though, good article and whatever you decide to pursue, you’ll probably do well if you’re writing stuff like this.

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Continuous assessment should be the way forward for a fairer, more inclusive and more realistic form of assessment. The only way continuous assessment could be brought in effectively is by extending the Leaving Cert course by a year, i.e. make it a three year course instead of two as the courses are too broad to be taught over two years while having continuous assessment in that two year period. I would be completely in favour of this for two reasons. The first is that I think our students are leaving school too early at 17-18. 18-19 would be more appropriate and give our students a better chance at adapting to college/university/work/trade by being a year older and (hopefully) more mature. The other is that continuous assessment it is fairer. Yes it is harder to stop cheating and in Ireland where everybody seems to know everybody else undoubtedly, there would be pressure from parents on teachers to give their students better grades for assessment. Any form of continuous assessment would have to be directly linked to the skills acquired in the course. A final examination should be kept, but should have less of a weighting towards the overall grade. The problem with all this is that the government want a cheaper form of education and they are investing less in education than ever before. The extending of the Leaving Cert by a year would require more teachers in the country and there would be expense at maintaining independent evaluation of continuous assessment. I don’t foresee the government making this investment at a time when they’re trying to cut teachers from the system and want to abolish the independent evaluation of the State Examinations.

As somebody else who just sat the Leaving, I’d have to agree with what you’re saying but I actually think half the problem stems from the CAO and Irish college entry system. It’s the pressure of the points race that encourages rote learning and banking on predictions .. Wrote about this a few days ago, fairly similar views!

http://callmechives.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/education-the-irish-way/

The Leaving Cert is supposed to be about testing subject knowledge, but what it actually tests is slightly more important.nnIt tests organisation. You don’t need to be smart to succeed, you do need to be organised, and what you learn along the way will stick with you whether it’s on the paper or not.nnSubjects like art and music are slightly different, but the exam is not the issue, the lazy approach to the syllabus is, which shows poor organisation.nnIrish school leavers are more rounded as different competencies are developed through a broad subject range.nnThe furthest I would go if I were Quinn would be to modularise the system, but that would require an extra school year and 4/6 different sets of state exams.

Students are required to use their skills to engage with the question that is asked on the paper. Rote-learning won’t get you too far with that, so teaching has to concentrate on instilling those skills and techniques.

I have to say full respect to any teenager who approaches the leaving cert with the mature attitude of putting in the work from day one in 5th year .. If I had done that I might have achieved great results .. But I was far too busy being 17 !!

As an examiner these comments are refreshingly true because the fact that candidates believed what Facebook, blogs and private grind schools told them and it turned out to be untrue doesn’t merit castigating the whole system.

As far as I know, there is plans afoot for a new Junior Cert which will involve shorter courses in different subjects with more emphasis on project work and continuous assessment. There will be much less emphasis on a big ‘final’ exam.

It this is to take effect, I would assume there must be some changes to the Leaving planned too. It would be very difficult for students to move from this new junior cert straight to the leaving cert in its present format.

Great article. Couldn’t agree more. This September you will realise how the leaving cert system fails to prepare students for third level education.

There should be 4 or 5 exams instead of 6 or 7 and all should be set at a higher standard.

Much more of the points for subjects should be earned through project work and orals in the 1st year of the LC cycle.

Orals should be 50% and preparation for actually speaking the language should begin 1st year. Each student should be required to prepare and give a specialised presentation through the language at some point over the two year cycle.

History projects should be longer, worth more and perhaps there should be 3-4 projects over the two years.

There should be Much greater emphasis on maths and science. It would be better if bonus points were offered for the sciences too.

There should be science research projects as with History so students can have some interaction with the subject and actually gain an interest in pursuing these subjects afterwards. Project work gives an element of choice to students who can deal with an aspect of the subject they are interested in and which allows them to delve deeper than the syllabus might otherwise require.

Irish should be NOT be mandatory. Again it should be treated like a modern language meaning more emphasis on speaking it.

OOh look government and you media types …. even the young are stating to question why all this rubbish is the way it is …. if they recognise they are machines in school, wont be long before they cop on they are slaves to banks too . Just as was admitted all over NON Irish tv and media. The youth have the internet , its teaching them to be critical . Something the schools tried to stop. Maybe the journal.ie’s editors should take note , the mainstream is failing , maybe you too need to jump on the honest media wagon rather than being a political soundbyte voicebox. :)

Patrick your thesis is underpinned by several incorrect assumptions. The leaving cert is a test to prove that one has not been asleep in class for the previous 12 years. It is nothing more. Critical thinking skills are not innate in most people and are not easily learned. Leaning by Rote is a vital part of education. It is a natural means by which young children acquire skills through repetition. (a fact lost on most teachers due to fashions) Most education takes place in the home, if home is not able to support and facilitate education is very difficult for children to soar with eagles. Finally we all have a tendency to overestimate our abilities especially with regard to intelligence and critical thinking!

I also think the Leaving still offers those students with intelligence, creativity and the ability to think critically and apply information the chance to shine. It may only be small parts of some of the exams (English Essay, increasingly important oral and aural sections of the language exams, the more open ended questions in Business/Economics, Mathematics, Physics, Art, Composition sections of Music etc) but this allows those students to prove their worth and they generally do so. It might only be the difference between an B3 and a B1 or and A2 and an A1 but at least it is something.

Well done on getting your leaving cert done.

You’re quite correct in asserting that the LC is not an intelligence test. It’s also not fair that it’s compressed into a couple of hours. That said, it is reasonably fair. I don’t think the Irish people could cope with a continuous assessment system. You’d have parents onto the teachers/TDs every week.

Also, you do realize that if you get what you’re asking for … then every paper will be like the English exam. As it should be.

The Leaving Cert is administered by old people who are clueless about the workload and quantity it now entails. There is no quality anymore because students are juggling their limited time to study as much as possible in a short timespace.

English needs to be made optional – this subject produces no industry (unlike Science or Math).

Well said Patrick. I have been saying the same thing to anybody who will listen for years. The Leaving Cert is heavily weighted towards learning by rote, stock answers, essays etc., without having to display any actual understanding of the topic being asked or discussed in the question. Also it comes to be one hell of a shock to those who developm a penchant for rote learning (because they have a great memory and ability to memorize) when they enter 3rd level education. The biggest difference between Secondary School and College / University is that your understanding of the topic is continuously assessed and continuously scrutinized. If you dont develop a deep understanding of your course work you fail…simple as. It isnt good enough to just memorize facts or topics, if you cant display an understanding and how to develop your understanding to solve a problem, or offer a personal opinion or develop beyond the mere words on the page to a stage where you actually contribute something back…you fail. The Leaving Cert doesnt in any way seek to achieve this. Possibly because the typical classroom structure doesnt lend itself to teaching like this, because you will have a much greater divergence in intelligence and attitudes in the students in any class. You are always teaching at the level equivalent to the slowest learners in the class. Also continuous assessment puts the onus on the student…not the teacher. You learn it, or you dont. And to place such responsibility on the individual student at the age of 15 to 18 is maybe too young to do this. But then again…its what they face in the big bad world of College / University. In 3rd level, the teacher is merely a facilitator, sets the curiculum, and gives an assignment timetable. You as an individual or in working groups work out your own timetable to complete the assignments, chose the material contained within it, and interpret the material and produce your own conclusions. I personally knew 2 hotshots in college…who got amazing Leaving Certs and dropped out after first year because they couldnt think for themselves. If the answer couldnt be learned off, or copied from a textbook…they didnt know how to answer the question or finish the assignment.

In conclusion…haha…you will be writing that an awful lot from now on in college Patrick…I think it would be very difficult to change the Leaving Cert from a rote learning exercise to continuous assessment, too many attitudes would have to change and a new level of responsibility be heaped on maybe shoulders that are too young to carry it. Also 6 to 8 subjects is maybe too much to develop such an understanding of in just 2 years…that should maybe be reduced. But undoubtedly some kind of criteria that establish if a student actually understands the subject rather than just memorizing it should be looked at. Then it wouldnt matter if Heaney or Plath came up or not…

I did my leaving cert in 1996 and 1997. Not much seems to have changed since then! I did it the first time in a normal school in Sligo, got v good results but not quite good enough. The second time I went to the Institute of Ed in Dublin where I was helped to get the results I needed to get the course I wanted.
What I would like to say is that I never learned off any essays, or was encouraged to predict any questions. Got As both times in English. I would hate to think that the LC is reduced to this. Surely it reflects more on the quality of the teachers than necessarily on the exam itself?

change the school structure,are ya mad!!! then all the teachers that signed up for their cosy job rather than vocation will go on strike! you’ll be an old man retiring on your head masters pension before that happens.if ya can’t beat them yada yada……

Good article. Continuous assessment definitely a better system if correctly implemented. Good news Patrick your Irish Oral exam worth 40 per cent this year. Things are changing have a look @ NCCA website.

Nothing changed since I did LC in 1981. Seems the whole of the British Isles need to update their leaving school certs/exams. Uk is below par and about to be more of a mess with the reintroduction of ‘O’ levels etc. Ireland needs to update theirs dramatically. At present they won’t, why, because it would cost the government money. Too busy making sure they have their pensions in tact before they leave office to really care about other more pressing matters.
Very well written Patrick by the way, I’m sure you have done well in your English despite the poets. Good luck for the future.

Well done Patrick! Super proud sister here! :D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9EVQWBLRGg&list=UUaAWWp4L5KxJy80ywp5kM5g&index=1&feature=plpp_video

Congratulations my darling lil bro. Super wow. And you’re right. A major makeover needs to come!
I think school just favours a certain group of people & leaves the rest with self confidence problems – Which of course are not dealt with or even recognised!
LC students are not seen as individuals, but numbers in the system.
Furthermore, I’m pretty sure at aged 17/18 you’re MORE than capable of making your OWN decisions at which subjects you choose to study for your exams, and english, irish & maths should NOT be mandadory..