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IT HAS BEEN officially confirmed that the Leaving Cert written exams will not go ahead as planned on 29 July, and instead students will be given ‘calculated grades’.
Students’ teachers will give a percentage mark per subject, based on what teachers conclude they would have received had the Leaving Cert gone ahead as in previous years.
Education Minister Joe McHugh, who has expressed reservations previously on this “predictive” model as being unfair, has said that the system isn’t perfect, but it was the best option given the circumstances.
He said that one of the strong points of the Leaving Cert is that there is anonymity in the system, which this current plan doesn’t offer. He also said that it would be “vulnerable” to legal challenges from students and parents in the future.
The postponement of the Leaving Cert is the first time this has happened since the Leaving Cert in its current format was introduced in 1925, so there are a lot of questions about it.
Here, we’ve answered the main ones based on the information given by the Minister for Education Joe McHugh and the Department of Education’s Inspectorate Harold Hislop at today’s announcement, as well a number of other sources of information.
If we’ve left anything out, email your questions to us: answers@thejournal.ie
How will students be graded?
The students will be graded based on their classwork from the past two years: this might include Christmas exams, summer exams, Mock exams, and orals and practicals.
It is at the discretion of the teacher what subject matter they use to estimate a grade, but the Department of Education has stressed that teachers have a code of practice, “underpinned by the values of Integrity, Trust, Care and Respect”, which will guide their system of marking.
They will give a percentage to their students per subject. Teachers will also have to rank their class of students in order – so if three students get 70%, the teacher must rank them in order of who is most likely to have received the 70%.
This final grade is given to the Department of Education, which will view these grades by comparing them to Leaving Cert averages in previous years.
The teachers’ estimated percentages from each school will be compared against previous years’ Leaving Cert results, and against this year’s Junior Cert results. Here are the sets of data this year’s Leaving Cert exams will be compared against:
This ‘algorithm’, or standardisation, will result in a final ‘calculated grade’ for students.
Is this fair? Doesn’t it leave teachers open to favouritism?
McHugh had great reservations about predictive grading for this exact reason – but this isn’t predictive grade, it’s a calculated grade, and so he has said he’s changed his mind.
“It’s not a ‘teacher’ grade,” McHugh said, adding that his reservations about the Leaving Cert were about the teacher being the sole person relied upon in grading students.
“Fairness is going to be central to what we do,” McHugh said at the press conference yesterday.
“One of the things we talked at length about was the professional judgement of teachers,” which he says “is central to this”.
There will be three steps after the teacher awards a student a percentage, to ensure that there is oversight of the process:
Gráinne Ní Aodha / TwitterMcHugh on the issue of fairness, says: "It's not just the teacher that gives the calculated grade."
— Gráinne Ní Aodha (@GNiAodha) May 8, 2020
It will be others within the school, then the principal who will engage with the teacher, and who will forward the grades to @Education_Ire. Here's that process: pic.twitter.com/ngZ3XfBtQ6
When will students get their results?
The Department of Education document says that “ideally”, the percentage assessments from teachers, then to teacher groups, then to principals, should be submitted by the end of May – so three weeks’ time.
McHugh has said that he would like students to receive their claculated-grade results as close to the Leaving Cert results date as possible, which is the end of August.
How do appeals work?
The appeals process is limited. It involves a three-step process:
Chief Inspector Harold Hislop explained at the Department of Education briefing that it wasn’t possible to ask teachers to reopen and reassess the mark that they gave the students officially.
“What you can’t reopen is the actual estimated score that the teacher gave,” he explained.
“When you think about it, if that score was allowed to be reopened, there would be an incredible pressure on the teacher to increase that score.”
It’s understood that part of the reasoning behind this is the loss of anonymity: if teachers were asked by the Education Department to reassess a student’s exam if that student were to appeal, they would probably be inclined to increase their student’s grade due to that pressure.
Remember, it would be the Irish State effectively asking a teacher to rethink a student’s grade.
After an appeal, if students are still unhappy with their calculated grade, they can take a written exam – a date for which has yet to be decided, but is likely to take place in the autumn after the third-level semesters begin.
It hasn’t been decided whether oral and practical projects will be included as part of these written exams, and that decision is dependant on how many people opt to sit the written exams.
Most importantly – if you sit the written exams, and then get a lower result than the calculated grade, you can choose the calculated grade, or a mix of the two methods of assessment.
A mixed assessment is where a student gets a calculated grade, but can decide to sit a written exam in one or two subjects if they are unhappy with their grade in those subjects.
Why can’t the written Leaving Cert go ahead on 29 July as planned?
In a nutshell, because so many restrictions would have to be put in place, and so many changes would have to be made to the exam to keep students and staff safe, that “it wouldn’t be the Leaving Cert exam”.
Education Minister McHugh explained during a Newstalk interview last evening:
With the health advice that we had, in terms of social distancing, we were looking at a Leaving Cert that would start in July and end in September, a Leaving Cert that would have one subject per day, and papers that would be one-and-a-half-hours long, and basically, it was not the traditional Leaving Cert.
It’s understood that the Education Department was advised that it would take 15 minutes to bring students into the exam hall and 15 minutes to take them out of the exam hall, and they could only be in the room together for a maximum of two hours to comply with social distancing advice.
“So we came to the conclusion that we wouldn’t be able to put the Leaving Cert together,” McHugh said, adding that he received advice on Wednesday this week from his Department’s advisory group that they couldn’t stand over being able to execute “a safely run Leaving Cert with the welfare of students at the heart of it”.
“Predictive grades is not a perfect system,” McHugh said, but added that it was the best way of doing things during the Covid-19 pandemic.
What does this mean for the CAO?
The CAO has said that it will treat this year’s Leaving Cert results like any other year – meaning that they will still accept students based on this year’s Leaving Cert results.
If you need a minimum grade in a particular subject to gain entry to a third-level course, then that will still apply.
For more information and supports, click here: https://www.education.ie/covid19
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No reason the exams couldn’t go ahead. We have loads of primary schools which are empty, loads of colleges which are empty, and other locations. We also have loads of people on the state payroll with capacity to invigilate the exams. The department and minister are being lazy with this decision.
@Paddy Lambe: if you keep banging that door you might eventually get the answer you want.
@Paddy Lambe: what do you still not understand about how a virus works ???
@Paddy Lambe: That’s theory and preposterous tbh, but your missin the point about no school for these kids since mid March!! Plus the stress and suffering some have incurred with being virtually locked up for 2 months or the loss of loved ones to covid19? Hardly great preparation for the most important exams of their lives is it? Said early April on here they won’t go ahead.
@Johnny O’Hooligan: failed you’re predictive grade already
@Gerard Heery: if I do what difference does it make I’ll appeal them and sit the exam at a later date. You just want to hold onto your tradition and have students waiting in limbo for months but that’s the fairest solution right?
@Dougal67: preposterous is funny! When most schools hold mocks on the entire syllabus and say other months are revision! What’s preposterous is people being given a grade on respect, trust, care and integrity. A lot of which, if you explained, is zero of what they will get! It’s laughable and if I was an employer, I wouldnt employ anyone who graduated in the years 2024-26! No trust or integrity as can’t be judged on the same merits as those previous. won’t obviously be in any HR processes but we all know those, who make my coffee at least have done the same as me. Kids stressed at home, most stay at home revising anyway or so is their excuse. A year with an astrix and an excuse, just when we were getting over those who use the recession as an excuse for learning laziness! Great!
@ThatLJD: Yawn
@Paddy Lambe: They are absolutely not being lazy.. The logistics of organising the exams under the current circumstances are a nightmare. They have made the best possible decision given the fact we are in the middle of a pandemic. What about students like my son who has a severely compromised immune system he could not have possibly gone back into school for classes mid July. How could a teacher who has a class of 30 socially distance that class group for 2 weeks. Denmark has seen a rise in Covid cases since it opened the schools back up.
@Paddy Lambe: I agree with you apart from minister and the dept bring lazy.
This decision was populist and to appease the media and the unions.
@Bleurgh: Rubbish!! Damned if they do and damned if they don’t!
@Wayne Connor: and the minister just released 61,000 students from their ‘lockdown’. Let’s see how that works!! :)
@Paddy Lambe: I totally agree with you. It could have been possible to get the students back. There are 100 students in my sons class. 25 class rooms and a huge staff that could have supervised. I think the government took the easy option and have no doubt this will be repeated as it comes to opening other businesses along the way. No training, no planning no PPE to help get business open and the economy going. We have the best governance for fire fighting but have never been able to forward plan.
@ThatLJD: ya I suppose sitting two weeks of poxy exams is going to undermine 14 years of education. Moronic. Are we just going to turn a blind eye to a workforce of 61000 people in a few years? The WRC would have something to say about that.
@Johnny O’Hooligan: they can go cold calling with you in a phone centre I suppose.
@Greeneyes17: get used to yawning, call centres ain’t the most exciting place little buddy!
@ThatLJD: clearly public health advice doesn’t matter a sod to you. You must be troll.
@Johnny O’Hooligan: what public health advice? It’s all just an easy excuse and way out of everything. Public health, don’t make me laugh. You’re perfectly capable of going out and about and to the shop and probably on other articles criticising why you can’t get a mani pedi etc. It’s a complete cop out. I don’t have anything to do with the education system, but to be honest I’m glad I dont as it’s a shambles, run by idiots, manned by the lazy and attended by a combination of both!
@ThatLJD: tony holohan’s a fraud what would he know.
@Johnny O’Hooligan: he’s hardly the shining beacon of health care advice before, during or after this. Can barely get a conclusive answer from him without a load of waffle. Much like yourself. Get on with things and stop making excuses! You’ll be tired of that if that’s all your life is amounting to. Now have you no car accident claims calls for making you fool.
@DeeM: and Germany has seen a return to numbers rising , Seoul has returned to lockdown after numbers rose from nightclubs .
Every other country has this done for the lea certs why would u put teenagers through that for 3 more months is there something wrong with people !
Get over it, get them into college get going with 5th years they have 3 months lost as well
Is a bright, hard working leaving cert kid from a disadvantaged area going to be penalised because his work will be handicapped by the overall performance of his school? Would you be surprised considering which party made up the new assessment?
@The Risen: slow clap for trying to create a narrative that hasn’t happened and, yawn, the party in power are to blame of course. Your own party have been shouting for this, disingenous trump politics.
@The Risen: if you bothered to read the document you would see if you are a high performing student in a disadvantaged school you will be ranked. So if you are a h1 student in a disadvantaged school you will still get your h1. School profiling is to prevent the results becoming totally inflated.
@The Risen: if they went ahead you would still argue that it wasn’t fair on the disadvantaged child as they have no access to online education etc.
@The Risen: Normally don’t agree with you but your not wrong. It’s a cop out by the government and word is that it was FF put the pressure on to cancel them. I now believe we should have had a unity government with an election after one year because I really worry about how they go about opening up the country and how unprepared we will be if this virus hangs around for months or years ahead.
@Bleurgh: wants it both ways, just like his party.
@The Risen: €90million of taxpayer money going to subsidise private schools says you could be right.
@The Risen: “Using the Junior Cert figures also tries to account for sixth-year students that may outperform the school’s average Leaving Cert performance, as that higher-than-average grade should be evident at Junior Cert level” Actually reading the article is helpful.
@Rachel Delaney: unfortunately people just make their judgements and have to complain.
Is there any other field of work where people feel as entitled/qualified to give their two cents than education? Presumably because they spent time in a school growing up.
I’ve had a few surgeries, I’m not going to go tell the nurse that I think I know a better way to take my blood. I brush my teeth twice a day, I don’t tell the dentist that he doesn’t know my teeth as well as I do. I digress.
There was no good solution to this leaving cert, only what seemed to be the least bad solution. A bit like lockdown, there’s no such thing as a good lockdown but necessary steps have to be taken, often for reasons that I haven’t thought through, or have the slightest knowledge in. As a teacher, I’m nervous about having to reduce my students to a number, that’s my reality.
Just on the outcry that cramming is such an awful thing and the Leaving Cert needs reform. University isn’t that different and cramming is a skill, certainly for my law degree. For all the faults of the leaving cert, cramming is part and parcel with many exams later on, people lead busy lives cramming is essential to get work done fast.
I can heartily saying coming from a Boys School where many were messers, myself definitely included, predictive grades would not have got me my degree and many more would have been the same.
There will be a judicial review case hopefully that might bring clarity as I can’t see the proposed system being fair or not having some disasters.
I’m very sorry for all these students, regardless it’s a worrying time for them but I wish them luck for their future.
Principals pushed for this. Parents pushed for this. Students pushed for this. Medical experts pushed for this. Opposition parties pushed for this. But for some teachers are the issue, the cause and the ones profiting from it. I’m surprised someone hasn’t blamed the teachers for the bloody virus. It was a bloody teacher eating a bat on bloody holidays. That’s what it was!
@TheHeathen: yes, absolutly correct. It’s like blaming soldiers for not having a war. Same old shite from people who think teachers are day care and not educators
@TheHeathen: give it rest! This about who caused the pandemic, it’s about treating students fairly.
@TheHeathen: you are hardly a teacher yourself!.
Although not a perfect solution after reading the document I am remarkably impressed with how much has gone into and how well it has been thought out in such a short period of time.
I’ve family in Belgium who tell me anyone can do any college course they like after school with a few exceptions for medicine etc which have an entrance exam. I find this hard to comprehend myself but it works there apparently. Why could it not work here? If it’s a supply / demand issue then could we not have more places for the courses with higher demand rather than forcing people to study what they are not interested in. Or is it a case that we would just not have enough college places overall if everyone decided to go to college, which is another issue I guess.
@Gran T: We have loads of places. E.g., If you want to do Mechanical Engineering, you can do it in almost any IT or University in the country. The points are not excessive in most cases. The problem is everyone wants to do them in one or two colleges. I’d be interested in the failure or drop out rates in 1st year in Belgium. If you can do any course you think you are interested in, is there a risk you’ll pick something on a whim?
@Conall: yes but I think there’s value in the first year of college for students finding themselves and picking the right course by changing tack should t be a bad thing.
@Chewey Bacca: finding themselves… Aw cute!
@ThatLJD: Yeah, but how do you find out if you’re going to be good at medicine while studying French and History and Geography?
Getting the impression from this that people on this site just want students to suffer like they did when they did the LC years ago. When in fact the students this year have gone through ten fold of what other years have gone through. The LC is hard enough any year but this year it’s different and had to be adapted. I don’t care what anyone says after the postponement of the exams not being possible PGs were the only fair alternative. Students, teachers and parents wanted it the three major stakeholders involved. Anyone’s health and well-being is paramount over these exams and people who are hell bent on having bring it up with the dept if it affects you so much.
@Johnny O’Hooligan: ten fold of what others have gone through? Off from school since March and postponement of exams until the end of July. Students this year had the best platform to do extremely well. I dont want to hear this bs about the virus from students. 99 percent couldn’t give 2 $hit$
@#JUSTICE4NOEL: I have 2 LC students at home. I have seen them engage with their studies online and do the best they possibly can given the circumstances. They have been completely stressed out some days, worrying about how they will be able to sit exams on the 29th July having not been in school since mid March. They are lucky, they have laptops, access to broadband, both parents still employed for now and no one sick, albeit my son has a compromised immune system following serious illness. What about those students who aren’t as lucky. Many students, contrary to your rhetoric do give a sh&t. In fact they want a decent future and they know they will have to work harder now to get it. Especially as they will be up against what some people on here describe as almost the stigma of LC 2020!
@#JUSTICE4NOEL: but it’s fine to leave a young teenager studying in a room for next 3 months on there own . Straight into college from the leaving cert for what ?
There’s 3 months now to get them sorted for college and get 5th years started ASAP .
Cop on why would u do it , there’s enough pressure on our society at the moment and the government have a fine job done with a bad situation. Few mistakes but no one is perfect.
Well surely the schools have no chance of opening when a leaving cert exam is cancelled with every classroom in the school available to them
If so called “Republicans” were threatening 2 journalists I’d imagine the comments section would be open.
@Fr. Fintan Stack: I could name them uncensored
Court cases galore
@Lets be real: with an appeals process and a global pandemic going on what will stand up in court? Plus the people who will probably be filing court cases will be benefitting from this.
Suppose the aul teachers union will be next up looking for a pay rise and a bonus..
@John O Brien: ah, here we go. Teachers this month. Next month you’ll be wanting to throw the Gardaí under the bus and the month after you’ll be expecting nurses to work for free and if they don’t then they’re scroungers.
@John O Brien: The union isn’t stupid. Firstly, they’re hardly going to try and squeeze money out of the state during a global emergency. Secondly, we all know that if there was no spare money 6 months ago, there certainly isn’t now.
Opening up a big can of worms here
No student should be assessed by their teachers
I would deem these so called exams personality assessments where the little smiling goody goody no problem student will get top marks or maybe a student has an uncle in the Gardai or the famous old brown envelope system comes into play. Its not what you know, who you know is far more beneficial
@Criostoir Mac Ranghaill:
Basing PGs on classwork over past two years makes it an objective enough system, meaning there’s written corroborative evidence in teacher records in arriving at grades for students. So your outrageous theories just don’t hold any water!
Are the belt and braces of final independent three-step authentication of any comfort in your rumination on the matter?
@Criostoir Mac Ranghaill: Read the guidelines. There have been strategies put in place to avoid what you refer to. Give our teachers, principals and the department some credit. There is no way the LC could have gone ahead in its current form.. Not if we are to protect the physical and mental well being of the students, their families, the teachers and examiners.
Sure there were gangs out partying and celebrating last night! The irony that they can’t be near each other in a controlled environment led to the exams being cancelled and that in turn gave them an excuse to gather and drink!
@Louise S: I wondered if there might be a night “out” last night due to the cancellation of Leaving Cert. While I think the pressure around Leaving Cert is really tough, I almost think this sudden cancellation will have its own side effects. Not to mention a really long summer….
Damed if they do damed if they don’t. Accept the situation and if you are no happy with your grade appeal and take the alternative measures they are putting in place . So many experts on here is so annoying.
If its unsafe to hold the exams on July 29th, surely that would mean it will be unsafe to start the new school year in August/September. I like someone elses idea. You can implement social distancing easily using all the school buildings sitting empty around the country.
@mutabi: I’d say it’s the right decision. Imagine saying the leaving cert would go ahead in late July only for a second wave to occur or the relaxing of restrictions not to go according to plan and the leaving having to be cancelled again. Would be very unfair on students and put immense pressure on college applications process at that stage. At least with this PG , things can be on a definitive timescale without the stress of will it/won’t it. Not fair on students to sit an exam after missing 3 final months of in house education either.
@mutabi: That would require a lot of invigilators. To recruit and train these new required invigilators is a task on its own. Teachers we have been grading our kids all the time and our work involves comparing predictive grades and continuous assessment grades. You know those days called teacher training day when the schools are closed to our kids… ye the teachers would be examining forensic data and explanations would be required if the predicted grade is far from the attained grade. And this data is always very close to final grades. QA measure of teacher performance. No teacher wants any of their students to fail so wouldn’t want kids sit exams now due to lost time. A lot of effort is put to condition and prepare these kids for their final exam. Expect very high pass rates not lower.
I think it should be quite obvious why. The problem is they took their time in saying it. This country from what I can see is only lockdown by name only. It’s scary to go shopping, six of my close working colleagues have and had this and they are only in their twenties . I don’t know how many times I have had to walk into the road, to avoid people coming two and three abreast. It’s to risky at the moment. It’s still treble figures.
Would it not be time to look at overhauling the entire structure of the LC Now? Been here since 1925 and probably still in the original format.
….No I’m not a secondary school teacher. Our son goes to the local public secondary school. After 2 months of homeschooling our primary school children I think teachers do a super job. To all the leaving certs: All will be well, good on you for doing the hardest leaving ever
This should have been a no brainer weeks ago and would have saved the majority of students stress. It suits the majority to do this way and students can challenge if they want.
There was no silver bullet here in this problem. This is probably the best that could be done in a crisis situation. I do believe this will be a huge factor in the flattening of a second curve if/when one occurs and so an unknown number of lives will be saved. Our leaving son hasnt found it easy and truth be known struggled to be motivated the longer speculation went on. That’s taking one for us all as a nation. Yes there will be anxiety around grades and points. There will be appeals, teachers arent perfect but schools will do their absolute best. The last thing they will want is an appeal process. This could be triggered by underscoring or overscoring (how did johnny outscore Mary in the same class etc?) a student. Personality will be kept out of it…
What about students with additional needs or chronic medical conditions who have been registered with school but receiving Home Tuition from Deptof Ed. These students work from home with an assigned Dept of Ed Teacher. They would complete work and then sit their LC in the school they are registered at. Due to long term illness they may not have been in school, but were working towards the LC exam.
How are these already disadvantaged students going to get a grade?
@Joan O’Boyle Mitchell: To give a predicted grade would take into consideration time lost due to extenuating circumstances like bereavement and illness. No child should be left behind. If the exams would go ahead now, there would be a lot of extenuating circumstances that would clog the system. Which leaves only this best of the worst case scenarios available to DoE.
I bet there will be a few brown envelopes going to teachers
The mummies and daddies of the privileged bullies scream “that’s not fair!”
What is fair about the inequality in the education system? Which maintains class division and perpetuates exploitation and oppression of the great mass of society.
The privileged and wealthy are hysterical about rights only when it impinges on them.
Their outrage is selective.
I think the majority accept that predictive grading is a ‘safer’ method of doing things. However, I have a problem with the system. In the article above, the Minister/department says that a student can choose to sit the exam, then choose the best or what appears to be the average between the two. I would have reservations about the whole system but was borderline in agreement with the cancellation. However, this tips the balance massively against the system. I believe that a student should choose 1. I will accept grades or 2. I will sit the certain subject. I think getting a H2, or H3 in predictive/average grade in history going in deciding you don’t like the paper and then having the opportunity to accept the higher grade makes a mockery of the entire thing.
This is a terrible decision that basically shafts any students that actually wanted to sit their exams. There are going to be serious issues with legal challenges too. Any plan where you have to say “this is vulnerable to legal challenges” is a bad plan.
@Adam Conroy: alternative?
Hi
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