- Up today: Leaving Cert: English paper one (9.30am-12.20pm) and home economics (2-4.30pm); Junior Cycle: English (9.30-11.30am) and religious education (1.30pm-3.30pm)
- Leaving Cert parent Damian Cullen: “Is there any chance we can have the kitchen table back?”
- Exam advice for students (and parents): “Allow them time and space to tell their story and move on to the next challenge”
- Classroom to College newsletter: Sign up to our essential guide on navigating the exams for parents, guardians and students
‘It’s honestly just stressful ... Going into that exam I was like ‘Oh my God, I’m going to die’
My colleague Ella Sloane visited Belmayne Educate Together Secondary School in north Dublin, where the school’s first-ever cohort of sixth year students began their Leaving Certificate exams with English paper one.
You can read her piece here.
Emotions were running high. Zuzanna Zoltowska (18) said the run-up to the exams has been nerve-racking.
“It’s honestly just a stressful experience ... Going into that exam I was like ‘Oh my God, I’m going to die.’
Hopefully, everyone is feeling a little bit calmer now that day one is done.
That’s it for us today on the live story -- thank you for joining us.
Best of luck to all students tomorrow.
And if you’re looking for exam tips, advice and reaction, be sure to sign up to our Classroom to College newsletter
Meet our Leaving Cert diarist
Students from Athlone Community College will be chronicling their exam highs and lows over the next week or so.
Today’s diarist, Shreyash Shukla, like many students, was relieved with English paper one’s wide array of questions.
He opted to write a short story and had just minutes to come up with a story line. We must admit, it sounds fascinating:
“I responded to the prompt about an ambitious but reckless character that causes a disaster, writing a story set in interwar Italy when communists and fascists battled it out,” he says.
We expect to see this turned into a Netflix drama any day now ... good luck Shreyash !
Leaving Cert home economics: ‘Practical, topical, no curveballs’
The Leaving Cert higher level home economics paper received a thumbs-up from teachers who say students will be relieved with an exam which featured plenty of “nice” questions.
Megan Friel, Home Economics teacher at Mercy College, Sligo and Studyclix subject expert, said the paper was “very practical, topical, student-friendly and contained no curve balls”.
Alice Quinn, home economics teacher at The Institute of Education, also said that clear nature of the questions allowed students with a solid grasp of material to get straight to the point.
“The appearance of predicted materials will help offset some of the more niche questions,” she said.
We have a more detailed reaction piece here.
And we’ve gathered together the exam papers below.
Leaving Cert home economics (higher level) section A
Leaving Cert home economics (higher level) sections B and C:
‘I couldn’t have made a better paper for myself’
If the reaction from Leaving Cert students online is anything to go by, English paper one has gone down very well.
Tiernan Grimes wasn’t able to sleep last night but felt on a high this afternoon.
“That went really well,” he says. “I hope I didn’t use up all my luck on that.”
Others were just delighted that the option to write up a pre-match talk for a team of underdogs gave them a chance to write about their real passion ... even if that was Man Utd
... while others drew inspiration from this now legendary motivational speech from the multi-lingual Ronan O’Gara for the team-talk question:
Junior Cycle English: ‘Curveball’ short story question
The first of this year’s Junior Cycle exams, English, was a balanced and fair paper, but there were some surprises, according to teachers.
My colleague Peter McGuire has a more detailed reaction piece here.
Aoife O’Driscoll, junior cycle English teacher at the TheTuitionCentre.ie, said that the paper focused on the theme of perception.
“Overall, it struck a good balance between familiarity and challenge,” she said.
“The poetry question asked students to reflect on how two poems gave them a broader understanding of the world. This is a task that many will have practiced, though it’s worth noting that the expectation to discuss more than one poem is becoming more common.”
Kate Barry, a teacher at Loreto Secondary School in Cork and ASTI subject representative for English, said that students and teachers alike were happy with the paper.
However, she said that a question on the moral or lesson an audience may draw from a Shakespearian play may have been tricky for some candidates.
Junior Cycle English, higher level paper:
“I would have preferred a more thematic approach, perhaps asking how the playwright ties it all up at the end, as people and life are complicated, and it isn’t always easy to draw simple moral lessons from Shakespeare,” Ms Barry said.
Studyclix subject expert Sue O’Sullivan Casey from Pobalscoil Inbhear Scèine, Kenmare, Co. Kerry, agreed that this may have been tricky for some candidates.
“They may have had some difficulty with this terminology,” she said.
“Another curveball was the question asking candidates to write about a short story in class. This is a new style of question for JC English and candidates may not have prepared for this going into the exam.”
Ms Barry said that the ordinary level paper was “really lovely, and it gave good opportunities to write.”
There was a lot of content that students would have felt comfortable with, said Ms O’Driscoll, including an unseen piece based on Kensuke’s Kingdom, a novel by the author Michael Morpurgo, whose books would be familiar to many students.
Junior Cycle English, ordinary level paper:
Teachers’ verdict on Leaving Cert paper one: challenging but plenty of choice
My colleague Peter McGuire has filed a more detailed reaction piece gathering the views of several English teachers.
The overall sentiment is that the paper gave students plenty of scope to express themselves and put their full range of abilities on display.
‘Challenging elements but enough choice’: Reaction to Leaving Cert English paper one
Teachers and students are reacting to Leaving Cert English paper one.
Gillian Chute, head of English at The Tuition Centre, says paper one contained some “challenging elements but provided enough choice for students to engage with it meaningfully”.
Liam Dingle, English teacher at The Institute of Education, said most students will have left the exam hall with “a sense of satisfaction”.
“There were no artificial barriers or curveballs to startle students facing the rest of their exams. The paper advocated for optimism and the fight of the underdog; hopefully they will have taken that message to heart.”
Comprehensions
An extract from 2024 Booker Prize winner Orbital appeared on the paper. Students, she says, would have welcomed the accessibility of the text.
Margaret Atwood’s speech to students at the One Young World Congress also appeared as a comprehension.
An approachable article on “the underdog effect” rounded up this year’s comprehension choice.
Comprehension questions
Chute says well-prepared students will have “loved”the predictable content and style questions from all three texts.
Some students, however, may have struggled to connect with the personal response questions (Q (ii)) in Texts 2 & 3.
Liam Dingle agrees that the questions follow the structure of previous exams: insights, opinions, styles.
“Students who have perused past papers will start the exam with a sense of stability. The array texts reflected the students’ interests and experiences. In particular, text two from Margaret Atwood was extraordinarily topical in advocating for the power of hope – a potent message in today’s shifting sands," he says.
Question B
The only consistent feature of Question B is its inherent unpredictability, says Chute.
“This seemed to be the case for one of the options this year where students were asked to assume the persona of a hotel manager and write an online response on the hotel website ‘in response to a disgruntled guest’s highly critical review.’”
The other two familiar options - to write the text of a talk to be delivered to school’s sport team and to write a reflection for a podcast - would be “welcomed by the well-equipped student”, Chute says,
Essay
The genres were predictable - one discursive essay, one speech, one article, two personal essays and two short stories, according to Chute
The most notable surprise for many may have been one of the personal essay titles: ‘Write a personal essay in which you reflect on some of the factors that would influence your voting intentions in future elections."
Previously, says Chute, such essay titles were commonly framed as speech tasks.
The other personal essay option in which students had to reflect on disappointments and their impacts was “straightforward” and “reassuring” for those who may have found the alternative option unexpectedly challenging, Chute says.
The speech title - “Truth has become a valueless currency in today’s world” would have provided students with ample material to explore such as AI, social media, fake news, etc, she said.
Liam Dingle agrees that the there “is something here that will allow every student to select a style that allows them to put their abilities on full display”.
For the topically or politically minded students, prompts like Q2’s speech for or against “truth has become a valueless currency in today’s world” or Q6’s personal essay on values that influence voting preferences will be welcome, he says.
“With students on the cusp of being launched into the world which they will go on to shape, these issues will be at the fore of many young writers’ minds,” he says.
For those looking to flex their narrative skill the short story prompts were “wonderfully open”, Dingle says, “lacking the peculiar restrictions sometimes found in tasks. These prompts offered scope to express each writer’s own personal flare”.
How not to give Leaving Cert advice
Thousands of Leaving Cert students are streaming out of exam halls after completing English paper one. We’ll have reaction shortly.
If as a parent you’re wondering how to sympathise / encourage / congratulate your child, here’s an example of what, er, not to do ...
Mind-boggling logistics
It’s only natural to empathise with students on the first day of the State exams – but spare a thought for those involved in the mammoth logistics of the Junior Cycle and Leaving Cert this year.
A record number of students – more than 140,000 – started the Junior Cycle and Leaving Cert exams on Wednesday.
It involves the secure distribution of about four million exam papers to thousands of exam halls and other settings across the State.
In total, there are some 5,900 exam halls and a further 9,500 “special examination centres”, typically smaller classrooms.
Meanwhile, about 10,000 teachers will work as examiners, over the coming weeks, marking millions of pages of exams.
