Students, teachers, and parents to be interviewed on new Leaving Cert grade system

Teachers, students, and parents are to interviewed to see if changes to Leaving Certificate grades and college entry point scales are affecting what happens in classrooms.

The Leaving Certificate is no longer marked using 14 different grades, with most grades separated by just 5%, like it was from the early 1990s.

The results issued last month to more than 57,000 school leavers were the first in which a new set of eight grades was awarded, with 10% between all but one of each of the new grades and those above or below them. They run from a top mark of H1 or O1 for 90% to 100% at higher or ordinary level, down to H8 and O8 for 30% or less.