The way forward for LC2021

Hi all, has anyone heard anything about marking the orals? I’ve applied but heard nothing yet. Thanks!

Mmmml80 wrote: »

Hi all, has anyone heard anything about marking the orals? I’ve applied but heard nothing yet. Thanks!

Same. I don’t expect to hear until the date for sitting them has passed. They have no idea how many they have until they are all done.

Same for summer marking, they don’t really know how many they will have until the final date for change of mind passes.

km79 wrote: »

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2021/0401/1207337-disconnect-work/

Department of Education please take note

I wonder will that have any effect on the Friday evening info drop?

I know my principal is often caught between wanting to inform us and not wanting to encroach on our personal time.

Random sample wrote: »

I wonder will that have any effect on the Friday evening info drop?

I know my principal is often caught between wanting to inform us and not wanting to encroach on our personal time.

It’s one thing a principal sending out emails after hours if they don’t expect a response to them until the following day/ Monday. It’s another if they are sending out emails and expecting a response.

Just chatting with friends from work on WhatsApp and one of them mentioned doing some particular inservice in May. Seemingly an email was sent out by principal in the last few days asking if people wanted to do it and clearly there are way too many staff in my school logging in to check their email and responding. He uses that to his advantage.

And then they wonder why we have poor working conditions. I’m on holidays. I’m not checking my emails.

Bobtheman wrote: »

Not looking forward to last term.
I have some records on my 6th years. But I don't think I'm fit to judge them overall. NO mock.
Then into the mix comes the fact that our grades last year were marked down even though they were well within the past performance of our school.
Thus do I simply inflate my grades which I'm not entirely sure of-given I have never corrected for the SEC? Then take a swig of whiskey and hope for the best?
The department guidelines are useless as you'd expect. The whole thing is farcical.

Have a look at your schools past performance, the performance of your students at junior cycle and the national average for your subject. All of the teachers in your department should be sitting down and working out grades within what is normal for those.

Bobtheman wrote: »

I don't think you read my post fully. We kept within past performances. Perhaps we didn't look at the JC result but I'm not sure that had to be done last year?
Boys in particular don't take the JC that seriously.
Plus is it fair to not assume kids can improve after 2 years??
No rhyme or reason to their system

I read your post. Junior cert results for each cohort were used last year. Might not be fair for students who didn’t know it would go towards their leaving cert, but same can be said for 5th year Christmas exams, which are the last exams I have that i fully trust as a marker of ability and possible outcomes for leaving cert. past performance and national average together is what i suggested, not just looking at one over another.

Again, if you have other teachers in your department, your method is going to affect their students too, unless the department agrees to use the method as a whole and let the algorithm do the work.

Nothing about any of this is fair.

I wouldn’t be worrying too much about it this year as long as the exams go ahead. Students can do the exam if they want. If they don’t then that’s their own choice and they have to take what they get.

If they do the exam then they get the best of the predicted grade or exam anyway. So the way I see it, this year a student can have no complaints really whatever happens.

rainbowtrout wrote: »

When did you get the letter? My subject has a new course and we all got an email telling us that we would have to reapply to mark this year (i.e. no automatic appointments from last year).

End of February or very early March. Big subject, it'll be in the top 3/4 subjects being taken if not the most popular I'd say. Normal paperwork, just confirm you will

Only one student in my class of 24 is not sitting the written LC exam. When they saw how much choice they were getting on this year’s paper, they all felt fairly well vindicated in their decision too!

am_zarathustra wrote: »

It's dependent on subjects entirely. Huge numbers for biology, maths, geog, etc but very low in languages!

I don't think students are being informed about the nature of the bell curve. There is a belief that everyone can get "better" grades now the exams are "easier".

Mardy Bum wrote: »

I don't think students are being informed about the nature of the bell curve. There is a belief that everyone can get "better" grades now the exams are "easier".

I think that the way my students are seeing it is that they can now get “the same grade” for much less work.

So if they would have gotten a H3 in the traditional leaving cert, they believe that it’s worth lashing in a bit of work to get that grade this year as an insurance policy against the accredited grade.

Definitely, ours told the same. The irish etc is down to students not seeing much margin for improvement and the oral being quite soon after!

I can't see that IT article behind the paywall, but I read earlier that some very small % had opted for exam only?
https://www.thejournal.ie/leaving-cert-2021-accredited-grades-choice-irish-5407270-Apr2021/
Eg in Irish: "946 students, or 2%, will take the Irish exam and have turned down the option of an accredited grade."
How will that work? I had understood that we would be working out accredited grades for every student.