Junior Cycle Results :A Reaction .

2011abc

What a mess !Where do you even start ?Grade descriptors (deliberately ?) designed to be confusing to all bar a tiny minority of interested staff and students ?'Partially Achieved'? 'Everybody gets a cookie ' with only the tiniest minority failing . Students with outrageous behaviour/attendance and /or application breezing through it with flying colours in some cases .Surely a 'Covid mark up' of at least 20-30% ?God help us when they do this to the Leaving Cert !Glad I'll be gone by then .My wife was complaining that some of her twenty something colleagues (in a professional setting) can hardly compose an email without textspeak .I shudder to think what will be out in the workplace in the 2030s .Colleges next to 'dumb down' (doesnt another post suggest the PME 'Masters' dissertations are 'not great shakes'...?)?

History Queen

Very disillusioned staff and students in our school. And it is here to stay it seems.

maude6868

I'm glad I will be retiring before the Leaving Cert is dumbed down even further to rectify the mess caused by the Junior Cycle. Very sad to see the disservice being done to our students for three years of Junior Cycle when they should be building up a solid foundation of learning.

gaiscioch

I got the email with the results, and I had to think did I even have a JC exam class last year. It's such an irrelevancy. Its importance is up there with the Group Cert back in the mid-1980s.

Meanwhile, when the kids come into your subject in 5th year they are overwhelmed by the enormity of the difference between the "reformed" JC and the "unreformed" LC. The biggest academic growth I see in students is in the first 3-4 months of fifth year. If we're going to have a one-size-fits-all assessment (and we obviously shouldn't given society needs a variety of skills), at least make it something which challenges kids to learn.

Comer1

Seems to me that it's very difficult to do really badly, or really well. In our place, the number of distinctions is well down on the number of As we would have achieved in the old JC.

maynooth_rules

So many trying to be maintained in the merit/higher merit category. The kids that were crushed in our school were those that worked their arses off and fell just short of the almost impossible to get distinction. The delighted kids were the ones that did nothing but managed to get a merit because more than half the exam paper (history), is basic comprehension questions that doesn't test their historical knowledge

drserious4

This is true. If you had literally never studied history in your life but had good English and comprehension skills, you would have done quite well in the exam.

Treppen

I'll play devil's advocate for a second.

1. The inter/junior cert/cycle was never meant to be a dry run for the Leaving Cert.

2. Stress over comparing each others percentages has gone out the window.

3. Only results that people care about now are passing and distinction..

4. Takes the stress off the teachers a bit as results don't matter.

5. No-one going to bother appealing JC results.

6. Students only doing ten subjects.

Icsics

The old JC gave an excellent reflection of a students ability. Good students could do well & their hard work paid off. Now it’s a case of everyone doing ok, v few getting distinctions. But the real problem is in 5th yr, trying to pick subjects & levels when they don’t have a proper grade from JC which would reflect their true ability. The new JC grading bands & common levels are a real disservice to the students.

rainbowtrout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121259919#Comment_121259919

Unfortunately the same is true of a lot of JC subjects.

Peter Flynt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121260342#Comment_121260342

Then why bother have the examinations in the first place?

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058318756/junior-cycle-results-a-reaction

Imho...colleges already dumbed down long ago...

It's all about the numbers now and the fees etc etc

The accountants have long taken over...

maude6868

Good article in the Irish Times about the reality of the mess that has been created.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023/10/22/breda-obrien-what-is-going-on-with-bizarre-grade-deflation-in-the-junior-cert/

2011abc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121270813#Comment_121270813

Thats a stat nerds paradise !

History Queen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121270813#Comment_121270813

I'm just after reading this and literally came to this thread to post it. Very interesting read I thought.

Treppen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121267087#Comment_121267087

Exactly. Make it a low stakes exam.

It's about the journey and not the destination.

Students are learning about their learning, not really learning about a subject.

noplacehere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121272603#Comment_121272603

The issue is the current junior cycle is actually NOT reflecting their journey or learning about their learning. The students who genuinely have learnt almost nothing are being rewarded with passing grades. All they have learnt is that they don't actually need to work. The students who absolutely killed themselves doing their absolute best and really developed in their learning and key skills, both in the CBA's (so not just rote work) and in the exams are being disillusioned by massive decreases in the quantity of top grades being handed out and by the poor choice of banding for the 55-75 band too. If they were going to change the bands then the H1 system from LC would at least have been fairer than having someone who got almost half the exam wrong on the same mark as someone who got 3/4s of the work correct!

I am honestly most annoyed for the sloggers who would have gotten their Cs, B's and the odd A which would boost their confidence. Those are the ones most impacted, now getting a slew of merits and higher merits along with all in line with expectations or one or two above expectations in their CBAs. At 14/15 thats disheartening and completely confusing with two different language descriptors? Like why......

Treppen

Only 2 results really

Distinction

Or

Meh

Comer1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121275864#Comment_121275864

From what I can see, it's almost all "meh"

EAD

Got my nephew to do the JC geog paper over the summer. He would have gotten a Merit. He's now in 6th class and hadn't/hasn't studied a day of JC geography. Once he studies it for three years he'll probably get a Higher Merit...kinda insane.

Treppen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121276464#Comment_121276464

After him doing that he'll never study again 😂

rainbowtrout

And the students view 'Partially Achieved' as a pass. And the management in my school were doing the same. A comment from the DP was 'results were good, only one NG across the board'. Partially Achieved is not a pass. It's a fail.

joebloggs32

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121276464#Comment_121276464

I did a similar exercise with my daughter last year when she was in 6th class for history. For any of the questions that required no.ptior learning she flew it. I know they are putting these in for the weaker kids but its seriously wating time for the stronger ones who need the challenge of a higher level paper.

TheValeyard

Whole thing was a joke

Kids who try and study hard are getting penalised.

Kids to took the piss and messed are getting same as their classmates.

This will have a knock on for the LC subject choices.