Local Leaving Cert student speaks out against idea of predicted grades

A local Leaving Cert student has spoken out against the idea of ‘predicted grades’ as the idea is discussed by education representatives today.

The State exams are due to begin on July 29th with some students calling for their existing performance in each subject to be graded instead.

Department of Education officials are meeting with various stakeholders today to discuss the issue further.

Tipp student Orla Cornally believes that predicted grading would create a lot of unexplained questions:

“Well, we’ve never done predicted grades for Leaving Cert so we would have to overhaul an entire system that’s already there. We as students, don’t know what would be counted for this predicted grade – we don’t know if our mocks are going to go in, we don’t if summer reports and Christmas reports are going to go in, so we don’t know what counts and what doesn’t.”

Orla also says she believes it’s unfair to now put added significance on testing which has already taken place over the last two years.

She says, “over the past two years, we’ve done so many tests but you’re in different moods at different times. So, around the mocks, our class tests wouldn’t have been great because everyone is focusing on their mocks.

“To use those tests wouldn’t be a fair representation of what we’re normally like.”