‘It’s going extremely smoothly’: School principals on Leaving Cert grading

Within hours of the announcement, the phone calls and emails began to arrive.

“One parent said his child joined the school recently and was concerned that teachers didn’t know her well enough,” says the principal of a fee-paying school.

“Another got on to say their child did very badly in the mocks; another said there had been an illness in the family during the year and this should be taken into account.”

While there was no agitating for specific grades, the principal says the aim was clear: parents were desperate to ensure their children would not lose out under the new calculated-grades system for Leaving Cert students.

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We expected parents to arrive with magnums of Champagne. In the end, any inquiries were mostly tentative

Another private school principal jokes about the possibility of joining a witness protection programme for school leaders; another admits to doing the weekly shop away from the school catchment area.

"This is Ireland – it's a parish, after all," one principal says. "We expected parents to arrive with magnums of Champagne. In the end, any inquiries were mostly tentative. We were being reminded of challenging circumstances facing students, rather than 'Granny is in a nursing home and praying for a H1'."

In one south Dublin school, the principal says that although it has a “demanding clientele”, most have respected its firm rules about not contacting the school over the grading process.

“We made it clear early on to parents and students that we were keeping the altar rails well and truly locked. That was respected, by and large.”

The move towards schools issuing grades for their Leaving Cert pupils has been a leap in the dark for an education system where, critics say, change comes dropping slow.

One of the biggest obstacles to introducing such a system in the past has been the fear of teachers and principals facing pressure over the grades they award to students.

Yet, out of a dozen or so principals contacted by The Irish Times, the majority said that although there was some contact from parents in the days following the cancellation of the exams, the process had gone much more smoothly than expected.

Trusting teachers

The fact that official guidance, issued a few days after the exams were cancelled, prohibited any contact over grades or class rankings helped, they say. But mostly, they say, parents and students seem to have trusted their schools in awarding fair and accurate grades.

“It’s going extremely smoothly,” says one principal. “Once teachers got over the fact that it is was happening, they rallied quickly. They know their students well and have no problem coming up with an accurate grade.”

Another adds: “Teachers have had to sit down, put in a huge amount of time and use their professional judgment ... but, listen, if you can’t mark your own kids, you should just pack up and leave your job.”

Some principals say they have had to adjust inflated grades in some subjects to bring them into line with school records over recent years.

If we we don't pull the grades in, the computer will do it, so it's in our interests to get it right first time around

“In a case where the H1s are off the charts, you’ve got to say: ‘Get real, lads.’ But mostly grades are coming back in the bounds of what the school has got over a three- to five-year period. Classes, by and large, don’t change much from year to year.”

Another principal adds, “If we we don’t pull the grades in, the computer will do it, so it’s in our interests to get it right first time around”, referring to the Department of Education standardisation process, where grades may be adjusted up or down to match a “bell curve” or expected national distribution of grades.

Where there are problems, principals say, it is getting estimated grades from tutors for students taking subjects outside the school.

Grind schools

Some grumble that grind-school teachers, in particular, are giving too many high grades to students, which may have implications for the school’s grade profile.

Others say they are agonising over whether they can stand over giving a grade to a student, for example, fluent in Russian who is taking the subject outside the school without a tutor.

Some principals complain about the uncertainty leading up to the cancellation of the exams, delays in receiving guidance and difficulties getting answers to key questions.

“It’s been managed appallingly badly,” says one principal. “The quality of the guidance and training is poor.”

There's a lot to be said for it. It's prudent to expect a system like this will still be in place next year

But overall most feel the process will inform future exams and build momentum for Leaving Cert reform.

“We’ll have to move to a continual-assessment model,” says one. Another says that, on balance, a version of the calculated grades system would be an improvement on the Leaving Cert.

“This is easier to handle, and where attendance is an issue, it could improve it. There’s a lot to be said for it. It’s prudent to expect a system like this will still be in place next year.”