Tullow principal says Leaving Cert reforms could lead to extra stress on some students

The proposals for reforming the Leaving Cert could lead to students being even more stressed.

The Education Minister Norma Foley has announced that 40% of exam marks in all subjects will be by continuous assessment with written exams deciding the rest starting in 2024.

Students will also sit Paper One of the English and Irish exams at the end of 5th year in another change.

The intention is to spread the work over the two years and reduce the pressure on students during the exams.

But Tullow Community School Principal Paul Thornton has told KCLR says while many will welcome the change – they found during the pandemic hybrid system that some were finding the continuous assessment worse: ”We found that some of the students got really stressed but now there were getting stressed a number of times.

”Whereas in the previous scenario, and the one we’ll have in June, they were getting stressed but at least it was only once,” he said.