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THE LEAVING CERT is set to get a major overhaul with a new CAO points system that reduces the number of grades from 14 to eight.
The new points scale, first announced in April, was confirmed by education minister Jan O’Sullivan at a launch today.
Bonus points will still be available for higher-level maths under the revised scale, which will apply to students entering fifth year this week.
Additional points
Another major feature of the reforms is the awarding of CAO points for higher-level grades in the new H7 band, which comprises marks between 30% and 40%.
Under the current grading system, students are awarded no points for higher-level marks below 40%.
Students who achieved an E grade (25-39%) under the current scale will be awarded an additional 37 points due to the change.
The extra points will be valid for entry into higher education from 2017.
Minimising random selection
Points will no longer be awarded in steps of five and 10, something the Department of Education says will reduce the likelihood of students achieving the same overall points score.
“The new scale has been designed to minimise random selection for third level entry, which can be a source of huge frustration for students and their families,” O’Sullivan added.
It will also reward students who aim higher, both where they take the risk of sitting a higher level paper and for succeeding in those papers to a high standard.
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The education system needs to stop pandering to the lowest common denominator. What kind of understanding of a subject can you really have if you get 25% in an exam for it? There is something fundamentally wrong with a system that sets the reward threshold as low as possible just to decrease the rate of fail grades while doing nothing to disincentivise students only doing the bare minimum.
Students would be much better off if we stopped treating a fail in an exam like it’s the end of days. If you fail an exam, you fail an exam it’s that simple. There should be support structures and mechanisms in place to make sure that students who fail have an opportunity to go back and do better and achieve the grade they want, rather than giving them these token points (which are the equivalent of getting a medal at the sports day just for showing up) just to pass the problem onto the third level institutions.
Great point.
People fail at things all the time.
They learn from mistakes, try again and move on.
If you fail an honours paper under the current system you get nothing, however if you pass ordinary level you do get points. I think there is room to award some points even though you may have failed a higher level paper. The all or nothing approach probably discourages many from taking the higher level exams.
The two papers are completely different, an A1 in ordinary looks to be about a mid C in higher. It *should* discourage people from taking higher level exams, that’s my point. If you are incapable of passing a higher level paper then you shouldn’t be sitting a higher level exam it’s that simple. Stop lying to students about their abilities and moving the goal posts to fit these increasingly low standards. Some students are better at maths, some are better at English, some are better at art and so on. The varying grade levels are there to accommodate students of different abilities across the curriculum, you’re doing secondary level students no favours with this way of thinking because as soon as they leave secondary school that hand holding mentality is gone. Play to your strengths and recognise your weaknesses.
or, scrap compulsory Irish and let them focus on Maths & Science – watch those grades go up
@Reg
What’s the point in doing a high level exam in a subject if you’re not good at that subject?
Well for Maths currently there’s an insentive Ciaran with additional points on offer if you pass the higher level paper. Some kids may be unlucky and come away with nothing for scoring 38%.
Not being a A or B student shouldn’t stop people from doing higher level.
It would be great for people going into college if they knew that failing an exam is not the end of the world, and that you are not a failure. Obviously, no one likes to fail, but the way the school system drums it into people that failure is not an option does far more harm than good.
Not being an A or B student isn’t stopping anyone from doing higher level. You can be an A, B, C or D student and still get the extra points in higher level because you’ve passed the exam. If you don’t pass the exam, why would you be rewarded for failing? Show me any other similar exam environment where we go out of our way to reward failure? Encourage students to do ordinary level and get their A’s or B’s in ordinary instead of shoehorning them into higher level where they’ll very possibly fail and get nothing.
Another problem this raises is the fact that higher level maths classes are becoming bloated with students making the jump from ordinary level who are only barely scraping by, holding on by their fingernails just for those extra points even though some likely won’t even pass the exam. In a class of 30 or so students the teacher can only progress at the speed of the ‘slowest’ student. This raises problems for those who are actually capable of doing higher level who are effectively held back because we refuse to acknowledge that different students have different abilities.
You would rather have a whole class of students dragged backwards just to give less capable students this false sense of comfort rather than playing to their abilities and letting them know that sometimes ordinary level is the better and more logical option.
Dylan, dyslexic people get loads of help in the leaving cert (extra time, reduced points admission, spelling and grammar wavers in English etc). Do you agree with this, and why? If so, why shouldn’t people who are bad at maths get such advantages. I think it makes a mockery of the whole system.
Alan – Because dyslexia is a learning disability and being bad at maths is not?
Such a horribly ignorant statement. A learning disability like dyslexia is not the same as someone who just doesn’t have an aptitude for a subject. Your ignorance is even further highlighted by the fact that you paint students with dyslexia as having some sort of “advantage”, as if there’s a single student struggling through the leaving cert with dyslexia who wouldn’t change places with a non-dyslexic student in a heartbeat if they were given the chance. On the flip side of that, show me a student who isn’t dyslexic who would willingly become dyslexic for their exams. It shouldn’t be hard seeing as how it seems to come with so many advantages. You’re an absolute fool.
Why is dyslexia a learning disability but being naturally bad at maths not??
By the way, people with “dyslexia” can get 600 points, so yea I think the help given to them is ridiculous and goes against the whole point of the leaving cert. Why have the leaving cert if not to differentiate students by intellectual ability?
@Reg
The points incentive is still no justification for a pupil who is not good at Maths to do the subject at Higher Level.
Not really a “major” overhaul is it?
I’ve always wondered if continual assessment would be an option as the leaving cert set up expects you, after studying a wide variety of subjects, to perform for 3 hours during an exam.
Should be totally scrapped and reviewed with an alternative.
All it is is a glorified memory test anyway.
As we’ve seen with attempts to change the Junior Cert there would be massive opposition from the vested interests i.e., teachers.
Time for open book exams methinks.. It should be about what you can produce with the information at your disposal plus external knowledge rather than what you can cram into your brain over a day or two.
@Reg
Teachers are not opposed to reform; it’s just that they oppose the idea of correcting their own pupils’ exams.
There is no other way to test ability, if u think there is then show me
totally agree, memory test under massive pressure, scrap it, continuous assessment would work better, at least if you have a bad day to rest of your life is not effected,
Problem with continuous assessment is if you get a teacher that hates you.
If a teacher works from a marking system it doesn’t matter if they hate you of not. The risk is too high for them to do something which is so petty.
That would only apply if there was a sanction. Of course, there is no need of this as no teacher is petty, nasty or downright incompetent (at least according to the various unions).
Continuous assessment leads to plagiarism and those with more support doing far better
This only reduces pressure for students who are sitting the higher paper and fear they will get below 40%. Otherwise it’s a very untidy cosmetic change to a CAO system that needs reform.
Reducing the amount of grade categories from 12 to 8 seems a step backward. Surely more grade categories offers a fairer representation of the mark you actually received. A 1% change in your grade could result in 11 point swing in your points whereas before it was only 5 points. Seems counter-intuitive.
Lastly, who thought award points in intervals of numbers like 37, 56 and 88 was a good idea. Unnecessarily confusing for people.
The difference between A1 and A2 at both levels has been 10 points for almost 20 years.
Whoops, I meant to say that.
It’s kind of the exception rather than the rule though. Makes little sense to do that across the board.
why can’t it just be done that the points you get reflect your exact grade in each subject? if you get 50% you get 50 points or if you get 67% you get 67 points. thats always made sense to me but im just wondering is there a reason thats not done?
Well, there has to be banding at some level. You could mark out of a thousand and use those figures. When I did my exams, it was based on A-B-C-D and that was it… I know of no evidence that this had any noticeable effect on third – level education. In fact, it is at least possible that the greater dropout rate now is related to unable students scraping in due to getting *some* marks for ordinary C and D grades, which didn’t happen 20 years ago.
The problem is not entirely the Leaving Cert point system and its accompanying university points entry system. Once the students have filled in their CAO forms then it should be possible to give the number of points needed for each course and try avoiding the present lottery system. Pupil rejoices at getting say 520 points and a few days later finds this 5 points short of what is needed for the course. Great result followed by greater disappointment. At least if you know the required points beforehand the pupil will be less disappointed if he does not achieve them. Nothing as bad as feeling you have succeeded only to have the goalposts moved a few days later to make your success a failure.
The ability to regurgitate semi relevant info is definitely ‘education’. Slow clap for our current model, heavens forbid we might even consider allowing our teachers to guide students through an education programme that rewards students who think for themselves. Better off letting them think that they’re learning relevant information.
When our best and brightest finish the leaving cert they’ll be well equipped to fit into our society. They’ll have all the training on how not to ask questions, because that’s not what the exam corrector is looking for.
The minister must be joking, how could reducing the number of grade bands result in less people being stuck on the same points ? A student on 89% gets the same points as one on 80%, despite doing almost 1/10 better. This will leave much weaker students level on points with stronger students and then robbing their place in college through random selection.
If you look at the points awarded per grade, an A & 2 Bs will not be the same points as 2As & C…
This reduces the chances of getting the same overall points.
The catastrophic dumbing down of our education system continues apace.
Continuous assessment is the only way to go, surely?One exam for 2 years worth of study is an insane system and not equipping students for a college situation.
But is, unfortunately, teaching them a lesson. There are many situations where one gets one shot only at an opportunity. It also occurs that some work better under pressure. Continuous assessment *might* cause more problems than it solves. (I don’t actually think this is true, but there is no data that I know of to say otherwise)
Hopefully this will end the ‘my daughter got 3 honours’ when in reality they got 3 B1s in pass subjects!
Is yer wan on yokes??
“Students who achieved an E grade (25-39%) under the current scale will be awarded an additional 33 points due to the change.”
Are you sure about this Catherine?
The DES website shows that if someone gets 25 to 29% at Higher level under the new system, they will get 0 CAO points. If they get 30 to 39% at Higher, they will get *37* CAO points.
http://www.education.ie/en/Press-Events/Press-Releases/2015-Press-Releases/PR15-09-03.html
My mistake! I’ve read the press release again, and this refers to students holding an E grade at LC Higher, *before* the changes coming into place in 2017. These students will be given 33 CAO points for that grade.
It’s like a Project Maths exam question, and I should have read it more carefully! :-D
If the grade bands are getting wider how will it reduce random selection?
in colleges a pass by compensation is 37 if you’ve passed everything else. it should work like that in schools too
Joan ?
So im assuming that a student can now matriculate with a H7 in English and Maths with the New system if they have the required points Previously with a HL E grade in these subjects, students failed LC and could not matriculate. is this the case ??
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