Q&A: What can you expect in this year's State exams?

The changes to this year’s Leaving Cert papers are pretty similar to the changes made last year.. File photo: RollingNews.ie

The State exams kick off tomorrow, and for the first time since 2019, they most closely resemble a ‘traditional’ exam season following two years of disruption due to the pandemic. 

What can students, their parents, and their teachers, expect? And can we expect a return of the traditional exam mini-heatwave?

What do this year’s State exams look like?

A: For the first time since 2019, the Leaving Cert returns to the same usual in-person exam format we have had every year before Covid arrived. In 2020, students received ‘calculated grades’ in lieu of final exams, while in 2021 we saw the hybrid, or ‘two-track’ Leaving Cert, where students could opt for an ‘accredited grade’, to sit an exam or both. 

When students opted for both, they received the better of the two marks as their final grade. But two years of chopping and changing the Leaving Cert exams had an impact on grade inflation, which then impacted college entry. In both 2020 and 2021, the cut-off CAO points required for entry to many popular college courses surged to record heights.

Norma Foley, Minister for Education, has promised students that they will not be penalized and their results will  not go down compared to last year. Photo: Moya Nolan

While the schools largely remained open for in-person learning for this year’s Leaving Cert students, many would have seen their learning disrupted due to outbreaks of Covid amongst their classmates, or their teachers being out sick themselves or who were forced to isolate because they had a family member with Covid symptoms at home. 

In February, Norma Foley, the Minister for Education, ruled out another year of a hybrid Leaving Cert but she did promise students that they would not be penalized and their results would not go down compared to last year. Adjustments have been made to the exam papers, and a second set of deferred Leaving Cert exams will also run for students who suffer a bereavement or serious medical illness or injury, or who are forced to isolate due to Covid-19.

This week also marks the first running of the Junior Cert since 2019, as the exams were cancelled outright in 2020 and 2021. There have been no changes to the Junior Cert exam paper format.

What happens if a student has symptoms of Covid-19 or who tests positive?

A: Leaving Cert students who develop Covid, as well as those who develop symptoms, are required by the State Examinations Commission (SEC) to miss eight days in total, from the first day their symptoms occur and for the following seven days. 

This means that students will be unable to sit any exam papers they were due to take on the day the symptoms occur and any they were due to take in the following seven days. Students will be allowed to access any exams they miss because of Covid in the deferred sitting, which begins on Thursday, June, 30.

Which students can access the deferred sitting of the Leaving Cert exams?

A: Separately from Covid, students who are bereaved or affected by a serious accident, injury, or illness can also access the deferred sitting of the exams. In the case of bereavements, students may, if they wish, defer exams for up to three days following the loss of a close relative. 

“Subject to medical evidence”, students may be allowed to defer some or all of their exams if suffering from illness or injury. To approve this, the SEC needs a cert from a medical consultant or a hospital “of the nature of the accident, injury or illness and the extent to which it impacts on the candidate’s ability to attend their examinations.” 

All applications to sit deferred exams are school-based, so students or their parents should contact their school in the first instance. There are no further contingencies for the deferred exams, so the next sitting will be June 2023.

What changes have been made to this year’s papers?

A: The changes to this year’s Leaving Cert papers are pretty similar to the changes made last year. In almost all cases, while the length of time for exams has stayed the same, students tend to have been given more choices and fewer questions to answer.

When will students get their results, and when will the first round of college place offers go out?

A: We still don’t know. The SEC hasn’t yet released a date for when the exam results will be issued to students, and when the first round of CAO college place offers are issued is contingent on this. The SEC's reasons for a lack of certainty over a result day are two-fold; It does not know yet how many students will need to sit the deferred exams, as it will only get an idea of the numbers once the exams get underway this week. 

Separately, additional work by the SEC will be required on the results once marking has been completed, given the assurance to students that their final results will be no lower than the class of 2021.

Last week, Simon Harris, the Minister for Further and Higher Education, said he would like to see the SEC set a date for results in August, as in previous years. He said he felt that last year’s date, September 7, was too late. 

Meanwhile, colleges have warned that they are growing increasingly concerned at the lack of certainty” around the Leaving Cert and CAO processes this year, warning that delayed results could impact the next academic year. Hopefully, there will be an announcement shortly.

Can we expect to see any ‘Leaving Cert weather' over the coming days?

A: Unfortunately not, it looks like a rather ‘mixed bag’ over the next couple of days, breezy with scattered showers, and none of the mini-heatwaves that students have had to endure in the past.