Transition year or fifth year?

aoif.something

Is TY worth the extra year, or should I move into fifth year straight ahead?

spurious

Depends on you really.

In some schools, the TYs are encouraged to suggest things themselves and get involved in the running of it and in those cases, it's a great experience all round. The places where the TY students wait (or are made wait) for things to happen, tend to have less successful courses.

In every TY class you will have the 'that was a waste of time' groups and the 'wow, I wish we could do it again' group. They both had the same year, but their perceptions are different, because people are different.

If you were young starting school, it's a good way to mature, or if you're not sure what you want to do, it's a way of trying out different subjects and experiences.

Studies have shown that in general students who have done TY do better in later exams. Of course this doesn't mean everyone does and it may just be as a result of being older and having more cop-on, but it may also be a factor to consider.

Talk to people who did TY in your school and see what they say. Didn't your school have some sort of a presentation for your class on your options?

QuinDixie

The advice I gave my niece was to skip TY as she may decide to repeat her leaving cert.

Mr Rhode Island Red

I wrote a post a while back on what I saw as the Pro's and Con's of TY. I did TY myself, and I loved it, but that's because our school runs a pure daycent TY programme, and more or less everybody in the year was sound and got involved.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057382473

But as you've probably heard and as you probably will hear, it's different in every school. Depending on the TY programme YOUR school runs, try to make a decision. Ask several people who have done it in your school in the past about what they thought of it.

If it's anyways decent, go for it. But if it isn't very well ran and is getting bad reviews from people who have done it, either steer clear of it or move to a school that runs a decent programme if you really want to do TY.

It's a tricky decision to make, I know. It drove me to the edge this time last year. But take your time, evaluate your options, gather opinions and then do what YOU want to do.

S_Hick12

I actually really enjoyed TY, it was a nice break after 3rd year. In my school, it was pretty relaxed, but there was plenty to keep us busy, in a good way though. Lots of new experiences and lots of the stuff I did was pretty useful to me for lc and the future. I absolutely loved it, and I'm feeling good about going into 5th year, actually looking forward to it (even though I know I'll be moaning within a week ) Personally, TY was a must for me, I think I would of struggled going straight into 5th year. I will miss it, but near the end, I started feeling like I was ready to move on. That's just my opinion (its a bit long), but obviously it depends on your school, if you think you'll enjoy and benefit from it, go for it.

hman231

I would personally strongly recommend skipping ty. It is a waste of a year no matter what school you are in you will spend half the year sitting in a computer room playing games, and trust me sounds good but after a week of it gets very very boring. You will learn nothing and possibly it will make you very lazy for the Leaving Cert, I personally found the year a waste of time and regret doing it. i have a brother in 2nd year going 3rd now and I am telling him the same as I am telling you. If you ever need to repeat the leaving cert just as a example this extra year will give you sufficient time to do so. And the age old argument that you will be too young starting college you will be a year younger than everyone else, it isn't a big deal trust me. This is just my advice but I recommend you skip the year and now after the JC you are in a good head state to go onto further study enjoy the summer and go into 5th year. Good luck

smiles_1998

TY can be a great year...or it can be a nightmare of a year.

I started the year certain that I was going to hate TY- I didn't find the workload of Junior Cert too strenuous and I had the feeling that I was going to be bored out of my tree during TY as a result of the no-exams feature of the year. I would have moved up to fifth year except I didn't want to leave my friends behind.

However, TY turned out to be (for the most part) an amazing, worthwhile experience. I tried so many new things, made new friends and decided on my LC subjects and future career.

However, without a doubt, my TY experience would have been nowhere near as positive if my school hadn't already had such a good TY programme in place. Sure, some of the stuff I did in TY I did outside of school but it doesn't matter how much stuff you have organised outside school, you're still in school from 9-4 five days a week and if you're stuck in class all day every day and not doing very much, it won't be long before you crack up from boredom.

Basically, your TY really depends on how well-organised your school's TY programme is. If the TY programme is in any way decent, I would recommend doing TY- but make sure you set some goals for yourself to complete during the year such as learning a new skill or trying some new activity. There will always be slow days in TY, but the aim is that most of the year should make up for the occasional slow week.

Best of luck whatever you do

SMJSF

I went into TY, and then done the 2 years LCA.
I got great grades in the JC, but TY didn't suit me. I think it was the activities they had planned for us. I got through TY with an overall result of "pass", since my participation in the outdoor things was 0!
Plus it was mostly "group activities" which I was not into.
I went into LCA, and was delighted to have some proper structure again.
But what I found mixing people who done the TY and who didn't, the people who didn't, were quite immature, and the two didn't mix very well.
The people who did do TY were more serious in the overall grades at the end of 6th year and were concentrated on what course to do after, and the others were only thinking of what shoes would go with their dress for the weekend!

LittleBittaLav

I would recommend skipping Ty, for the same reasons as other users