English and Home Ec pose no great difficulties

The months of planning — and hopefully the nerves — came to an end as almost 117,000 students took English papers for Junior and Leaving Certificate yesterday morning.

For the first Leaving Cert English papers, Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) subject spokesman Alan Thompson felt the higher-level exam should have made for a good start for most candidates. He felt the conventional format and the use of three good examples of personal writing, a speech, and travel writing in the comprehension texts were welcome. Just one element of the related questions asked for a proposal to a council or national body, which he said was likely to have been a little unfamiliar.

Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland spokesman Michael Doherty had the same view but thought the reflective nature of the passages on memories might have caused students to spend more time than planned on reading them.