Irish exempt - no alternate offered in lieu

In the wind

Hi Folks,

One of my children is exempt from Irish because of time spent overseas. He is currently in Junior cycle & is free during the Irish lessons that his class mates take. We have spoken briefly with the school to understand what other subjects he could take during those free periods but it seems the way the timetable is constructed there are no other free subjects that he is not already taking that routinely coincide with his free periods. I hope that makes sense?

We are not so concerned about this right now however this is a different story in the senior cycle.

If this situation persists into senior cycle it means he can only study 6 subjects during the normal school week putting him at a disadvantage of one full subjects vs. his peers who will study 7 & be tested on 7.

We have not tabled this concern with the school yet as we want to have a think about options & not just approach them with blank stares.

If anyone on here has had a similar situation & developed good solutions or alternate perspectives or approaches I'd love to hear them all.

Thanks all in advance for your thoughts & suggestions.

ITW.

It’s a core subject this will most likely be the case until Leaving Certificate. He/she will have to be supervised by a teacher so unless there is a school librarian and a library where he/she can study in peace he/she will be expected to get on with his/her work during the irish class and not disturb the others learning. If he had a learning difficulty he/she would be given hours for extra help.

Schools get teacher allocations from the department and have a certain number of teachers to cover classes dependent of the number of students that they have. They get extra hours for students with a diagnoised learning difficulty (as diagnosed by an educational psychologist) or if they are in a socially disadvantaged area. Often optional subkects at Leaving Certificate with small numbers have to double up. As in 5th and 6th year chemistry will be in the same class if the school is tight on student allocation.

Taking an extra subject might be an option but it woud be outside school hours and the parent would be the teacher or pay a teacher. This is an option ofter taken by students who speak another language fluently.

Your best option is to encourage him/her to take Irish at ordinary level or just accept that he/she has extra time to get homework done during the school week.

Have a meeting with the principal. Everything depends on teacher allocation.

Atlantic Dawn

I doubt the school will be able to facilitate seperate subjects that will accommodate those not doing Irish. A subject like Computer Science might be an easy option to do on a solo approach.

If there are large numbers of students in the school who came to Ireland after the age of 12 and are exempt with no learning difficulty the school might run another class if they’re teaching allocation allows it depending on the needs of those students i.e. extra English

Peregrinus

This is almost inevitable. Nothing gets scheduled against core or mandatory subjects, for obvious reasons, and the school is not going to be able to provide a teacher and schedule a one-person class in a subject the student happens to want to study.

To make use of this time to study another subject you'll have to be a bit flexible. For example, the student could use the free period to do homework or study that would otherwise be done in the evening, and use the available time in the evening to attend an evening class or a private grind in the subject of his choice. But, honestly, the student would have to be very highly motivated, and pretty able; studying a subject to leaving cert level without the structure and support of participating with others in a scheduled class is extremely challenging.

In the wind

Thanks everyone for making the time to reply. Your comments are helpful and unfortunately correct.

We will take a look at the list of L available subject and consider doing one solo and independently.

We didn't consider this situation when we play the overseas card in the first place. The assumption was that he could do an extra subject with a teacher.

dory

In my school people in this situation do Agricultural Science after school one day a week. I'd highly recommend finding a class somewhere he can join, rather than a one on one situation. Some grind schools do things like Politics and Society if you're near a city. This is going to happen more often with more students being given exemptions. But until someone kicks up a fuss, allocations won't be given to teach those students something else.

In the wind

Thanks Dory, I will look into options.

I somewhat regret the decision now even though I am philosophically against mandatory Irish in state exams.

Treppen

If they're applying to trinity college there's a sneaky geography exam they could do for extra points.

In the wind

Thanks for the tip but I don't think that'll be an issue. 🙂😏🤔

jrosen

So glad to have found this post. In the same situ ourselves, he is TY at the moment. The school has said that if all the students who are in this class opt to take the same subject then the school could put on a class during those periods but otherwise its a non runner.

Treppen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118500042#Comment_118500042

I'd take that 'school could put on a class' with a very large pinch of salt.

In the wind

We have had a development in our situation, our son is not getting extra classes in two other subjects during his Irish class so that's a win. I hope this situation persists.

Don't plenty of students take up an extra subject themselves for leaving cert? I know even back in my day, long time ago, kids did this. Can't he do an extra subject and use the free time at school for studying?

Off topic but for anyone else reading, if they are thinking about this issue, I was exempt from irish, only started school here in 6th class, but I did it anyway, and honours for the leaving. It wasn't so difficult.

In the wind

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118531288#Comment_118531288

Unfortunately not an option due to his capacity.

joe40

Only 6 subjects are counted in LC points, so why not just use the extra time to work on the 6 subjects he will be doing anyway. I don't really think an extra subject would be an advantage.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118531307#Comment_118531307

Oh it definitely wouldn't suit all students and would depend on when they start too, secondary school would probably be a bit too late for anyone.

iffandonlyif

Unless he has a particular aptitude for languages, two-paper Irish would likely be one of his lowest-scoring subjects anyway. His only disadvantage would be not having an insurance subject, but I think the need for one is overstated. Take advantage of the extra study time, I would say.

dory

I would agree, use the extra study time to improve the 6 subjects. If one really wanted to be awkward, I believe there's a legal amount of hours of education each student is meant to get each week...

With more and more people getting exemptions, schools will really have to start looking at alternatives for people who only do 6 subjects. I know from a timetable and hours allocated to schools perspective it's very hard. But I wouldn't like my own kid to be sitting there for 5-6 periods a week doing nothing (and I say that as a teacher of Irish).

crinkley

A long long time ago, did my leaving in 2005. I and a few others were Irish exempt, we picked a subject each, I did business as it was simply learning the book off and used my time during my free period s to go through it and do test papers, the school did allow me to sit my mocks but I had to fight for it and then they had me in isolation in the IT room whilst everyone else doing business sat theirs. I did better than the rest of the class they put my mock papers in with, did not go down well with the teacher at the time, she was quick to point out that a few did better in section B than I did, so I focused on that until the actual leaving,

In the end got an A2 in honours, but I was disciplined, a few of the others received mocks for their subjects. My sister didn't pick up another subject and just focused on her 6 but I knew I'd have to make up for my poor German result and I did well in Business in JC and was easy to pick a subject that you just regurgitate for the exam