Emer Smyth

28 results

Teachers’ unions have a written guarantee from the Department of Education that teachers are providing predicted grades on a one-off basis only because of the current pandemic.
Where next for the Leaving Cert?

“Teachers will predict the grades of their own students and there will be no Leaving Cert exam” – if you’d suggested this at the start of 2020, teache(...)

“Parents and schools pay a lot of attention to feeder school lists, and therefore they are massively important.” Photograph: iStock
Feeder Schools: the arguments around publishing progression data

“Misleading” and “unidimensional” or “hugely popular with parents” and “radical and left wing”? As ever, the publication of today’s feeder school lis(...)

Participants in a new study felt senior cycle should embed ‘life skills’ in the curriculum to better prepare young people for further or higher education, employment and adult life
Students giving up sports and social activities due to Leaving Cert pressure

Students are giving up sports and social activities due to the stress and pressure of the Leaving Cert, according to new research on pupils’ experienc(...)

A gender gap in educational attainment means boys get lower exam results than girls, are more likely to drop out, and are less likely to go to university than their female counterparts.
Boys don’t try? Why so many male students are falling behind at school

The language is alarming for parents and teachers of boys. We hear of “a crisis in masculinity” in schools and about how “failing boys” are not reachi(...)

Students at St Joseph’s Secondary School, Rush, Co Dublin, are taking part in a review of the senior cycle, including Kadem Price, Rachel Dillon and Senan Monks. Photograph: Alan Betson
Students speak up: How pupils’ voices are finally being listened to

Nobody ever expected Liane McCarthy to drop out of school. She was always academic, and she loved learning. But when she was 15, she hit a rough pat(...)

Narrowing the education gap: pupils at Francis Street CBS primary school, in Dublin, in a yoga class
‘To survive the Irish school system, you have to become middle class’

At Francis Street CBS primary school, in south inner-city Dublin, the work of narrowing the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their better-off peer(...)

The Growing Up in Ireland study is the biggest and most complex social science project ever to be undertaken in this country and provides thousands of insights into the lives of children. Photograph: iStock
Growing Up in Ireland: what we've learned from a decade of research

A quarter of our three-year-olds are overweight or obese; 50 per cent of Irish-born mothers don’t even start to breastfeed their babies; 16 per cent o(...)

Valerie Gaynor with some of the pre-school children at Creative Kids & Co in Walkinstown, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
Helping your child get ready for ‘big school’

Regina Bushell still remembers having to be brought in “kicking and screaming” on her first day at primary school, just a few weeks after her fourth b(...)

Children from middle-class families are more likely to outperform those from less well-off homes from three years of age, according to a new study. Photo: iStock
Middle-class children outperform others before starting school

Children from middle-class families are more likely to outperform those from less well-off homes from before they even begin primary school, according(...)

On average, and all things being equal, girls generally outperform boys in Leaving Cert subjects, whether or not they have boys sitting beside them in the classroom.
Majority of schools in top flight are single-sex

Boys and girls About a third of Ireland’s post-primary school are single-sex. By international standards, this is unusual. Today’s feeder school lis(...)

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