Daughter not happy with LC results - anyone else?

Tbh, that's going to be an ongoing issue.

How can next year's results be adjusted to align with this year's curve without further disadvantaging candidates from pre-2020 who apply to college next year?

And if aligned with more normal years, this year's cohort (or the bulk of them anyway) will pretty much be permanently advantaged in terms of college applications.

I really can't see a way how you can completely level the playing field, there's going to be an ongoing blip of some sort.

randylonghorn wrote:

I really can't see a way how you can completely level the playing field, there's going to be an ongoing blip of some sort.

Our educational system has never been level anyway, so hopefully this is the beginning of a leveling phase, hopefully we re brave enough to persist with it

Millionaire only not wrote: »

In the last few days there absolute no talk about leaving cert - twitter , and here everyone is gone quiet bar the few court cases pending!
It must be a sign people in general were happy !

could be interpreted a million ways, maybe people are just getting on with it, whos knows

IgoPAP wrote: »

Probably because most people have more serious concerns to contend with in the midst of the pandemic than some private school students throwing a hissy fit because for the first time in their lives they didn't get what they wanted.

ah to be fair, id say theres plenty of students in both public and private that are disappointed

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Our educational system has never been level anyway, so hopefully this is the beginning of a leveling phase, hopefully we re brave enough to persist with it

How do you mean?

Millionaire only not wrote: »

In the last few days there absolute no talk about leaving cert - twitter , and here everyone is gone quiet bar the few court cases pending!
It must be a sign people in general were happy !

Most students take one of their offers every year, some go working, some take a year out, some repeat. Despite the omnishambles this year, the exact same will happen.

Orientation started in NUIG this week, so students didn't get much time to accept and start. There was only 7-8 days between last day of acceptance and first orientation day. Decisions had to be made fast.

joeguevara wrote: »

Was chatting to a guy in work today about the leaving and current situation. He said that he would let everyone have their first choice. No worries about space as it will probably be zoom lecture for the year. Then filter it out based on first year results. Made a lot of sense.

Not sure how it would work for lecturers and tutors. Big difference in monitering progress and correcting work for 25 students a term vs 150 or whatever number would now get the place.college isnt just lectures.

TheBlackPill wrote: »

Then it is on the student and their parents to supply the reality check. There are huge dropout rates in STEM, particular in the IT because a lot of eejits think a C or D or whatever the modern equivalent is a sufficient standard. Before the points system circa 700 1st year medics would be whittled down to 100 by 2nd year. Unfortunately 3rd level doesnt fail people anymore so may not be able to use the 1st year exams as a surrogate for the the Leaving cert points.

maybe we should begin to change our system in its entirety, so that it is much more fairer and provides people with their actual needs

TheBlackPill wrote: »

No we should note change the system. The system provides educations and is very fair at the moment. at the moment to the universities you are an exam number with a points tally, gained from an anonymously marked system, where corruption is next to impossible

our system is far from fair, it only truly promotes a typical type of brain, and punishes those that do not have this type of mind, it has become one big joint competition, that ultimately fails everyone

TheBlackPill wrote: »

There are loads of options for the non academic minded. there is LCVP, LCAP, feeding into trades and vocational training. university course and ITs are intellectual courses and the Leaving cert points system with it absolutely transparent, performance based measure(points) is very fair. Incidentally there is a high correlation with dropout rates in STEM courses and lower maths attainment in LC. You are absolutely going to struggle with engineering/science if you have less than a B grade LEaving cert honours maths and no amount of wailing about different abilities, and learning styles and brain types is going to change this

as you can see, from even your own post above, our educational system largely fails these different types of minds, and methods of thinking, particularly at the earlier stages, our educational system is academically biased, from primary level onwards. if your mind is not academically wired, you may forget about it! you ll probably spend your time chasing your tail within the system, eventually getting fired out, thinking, you re simply too stupid, this is wrong! society needs all sorts of differently wired minds, from academically, to trades, to creative, to this, to that, but our system doesnt facilitate these alternatives very well, if at all. dramatic change is urgently needed, but are we now willing to step into that world!

TheBlackPill wrote: »

I just the listed the multiple alternative to the academic track in my last post, referencing the trades. If one is pursuing an academic course , not having the mind/basic skills to do the course, and struggling, it is not the system's fault as there are plenty of alernative, ie trades, LCVP LCAPs, post leaving cert courses, social care courses, beautician/hair dressing training, on the job training. The fault lies with the student and the parents

strongly disagree, again, our system prioritises academia from day one of a person entering the system, until they can no longer maintain their existence in it, regularly until secondary level, sometimes third level, this is a serious system design fault. the alternatives you mentioned, are poorly facilitated, and sometimes not included at all, particularly at the earlier stages of our system, primarily primary and secondary levels.

TheBlackPill wrote: »

I disagree too. The supports in the system now are huge. There is a huge cultural cachet with academics and strong parental pushes in that direction, the system cannot be held responsible on this. Personally i would prefer my child to pursue a skilled trade rather than a "university " course they are not suited too

again, i largely disagree, talk to parents who have kids currently in the system, who may have complex disorders such as learning disabilities, developmental disorders, etc etc and you ll see something disturbing occurring. yes, we are becoming more knowledgeable in such issues, but we re ham fisting this knowledge into our ancient system, which is leading to serious problems after the fact, and is in fact exasperating many peoples actual needs. design a system with such serious flaws, and it will create flawed thinking and behavior from within and externally, parents behavior's etc. i would encourage a person to pursue a career that actually suits their personality and abilities, whether thats academically or otherwise, but the trades are not truly represented in our system, and its a critical societal need, this is currently very evident, as we re experiencing a major shortage in many trades

TheBlackPill wrote: »

I agree there are big issues with learning supports for the cases you list above. But for 95% of the population the system provides the goods fairly. one cannot condemn the whole system because of poorer service for the outliers.

... but the question is, is it truly working for all? again, drop out rates are relatively high, across many sectors of our system, including ones you outlined? many leave our system, even after third level, very poorly prepared for adulthood and the workforce. who exactly is our system truly working for?

Treppen wrote: »

The leaving cert - 3rd level progression is only one option.
I sincerely doubt everyone coming out of 3rd level has the same typical type of brain!
Believe it or not some people don't fail coming out of 3rd level, they actually get a career and do quite well!

It's the media that hype it up every year and wind up the parents.
Plus the fact that other alternative programs are grossly underfunded.

No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

whos throwing the baby out, as you can see, we re nowhere near accepting, our system is effectively a train wreck, ive actually had indebt conversations with many mental health professionals over this, all largely agreeing

c_f_p99 wrote: »

To be honest, the biggest problem with the system is that there aren't enough advanced options for LC students. LC subjects are incredibly outdated and are incredibly far removed from how the subjects are taught in 3rd level. I'm just going into 1st year college Engineering and already I can see just how poorly the LC prepares students for the practical aspects of science such as labs and how low the standard of Maths is here. In the US, they have a nice system where their advanced courses (AP) are kept in line with what's taught at college over there, meaning that they can effectively skip over some introductory classes due to high AP grades. There is no reason why we can't implement a system like that for LC HL subjects; it's far more efficient than forcing everyone into the same courses. I also think it's necessary to introduce a "Further Maths" LC subject as we greatly lack advanced Maths in secondary school compared to the UK (they have Further Maths which makes LC look like a pisstake), France (the Science stream has a lot of advanced Maths) and even the US (a lot of high schools offer Linear Algebra over there!). We have a good base level of Maths (Ordinary Level isn't that easy and of a higher standard compared to the base level of those countries) but HL is barely harder.

My proposal is to greatly increase the difficulty of all HL subjects or introduce Advanced HL subjects (or whatever). The latest PISA report even indicated that there are far less "gifted" people in Ireland than in other European and American countries so it's clearly something that needs to be done.

Maths used to be more difficult for LC. Particularly calculus. When Project Maths was brought in, a heap of statistics was put into the course at the expense of calculus and I would also say geometry.

Maths in college, particularly engineering maths has suffered because students are no longer prepared for those courses. I remember a long experienced maths teacher in my school (since retired) telling me that there were quite a few people on the steering committee for Project Maths whose background was statistics and they were essentially furthering their own interests, because students don't take stats in college unless it's a compulsory module.

Under the term of special needs, gifted students would be classed in this area, it's not just students with learning difficulties. And while students with learning difficulties quite rightly get the extra help through resource classes, those on the upper end who are more advanced don't get anything extra to push or challenge them. DES probably work off the basis that they will sort themselves out and their parents will pay for extra tuition or courses etc.

It would make an interesting test case.

I would say personally that the maths course was dumbed down to an extent with project maths, and to offer a further maths course that the standard of higher maths would have to be ramped up again. But I would also say that this has to start at grass roots level, i.e. primary school. There is far too much reliance on calculators which means students no longer do calculations in their head automatically, and I'd be a big believer in knowing the basics (even if that means a certain amount of rote learning) like times tables, so students are freed up to think about more complex problems. I have to wait more and more for students in class to do the basic arithmetic before we can actually tackle the bones of the problem.

Career prospects are also an issue. Look at any thread recently on the Teaching forum. Before long there is an influx of non-teachers posting attacking teachers. It's popular to attack teachers for their 'cushy jobs', when the reality is that it can be hard to secure hours of their own, let alone full time hours. If you want good maths teachers in schools (as well as other subjects) then you have to provide proper career prospects, not some bitty part time contract where they are expected to be grateful for getting anything at all, the best will head to the private sector where they will do well with a maths degree.


On the matter of further maths in the UK, given that many take between 2-4 A Levels, their courses are going to be more advanced as they are not as thinly spread as a student doing 7 subjects, plus all sorts of random stuff like religion.

rainbowtrout wrote: »

In the last few years I've encountered students who couldn't put a duvet cover on a duvet, didn't know how to light a fire, don't know how to light a match (surprisingly common), wash dishes, cook very basic meals.... the list goes on and on.

I'm not going to be getting hot and bothered about teaching whatever you think are critical life skills to students, if their parents can't be bothered to teach them extremely basic life skills.

I trained to be a science teacher, not a substitute parent.

And no matter how busy you think parents are 'running around pulling their hair out trying to make sure the mortgage gets paid at the end of the month', their kids don't have these skills because the parents are doing absolutely everything for them. So clearly they do have the time.

whos asking you to do it, you re clearly not the person to teach them this, you re clearly the person to teach science, and science related subject matters!

again, mammy and daddy are probably pulling their hair out, trying to make sure the mortgage/rent is covered for the month!

wow, and this is all coming from a teacher!

TheBlackPill wrote: »

Student resiliance and competance at 3rd level has fallen through the floor over the last decade,strangely mirroring the attitude the school should teach it not the parent.

once again, what are the external factors most likely causing this, and please dont default to' 'personal responsibility'?