Leaving Certificate students, including those studying agricultural science, have until this Thursday 28 May at 10pm to register online for predicted grades.

The Calculated Grades Student Portal opened Tuesday.

To register, students will need their examination number, PPS number, email address and mobile phone number.

Once the Department of Education has received all the data, students will be asked to confirm the level they intended to take subjects at or they can opt for a lower level.

Student reaction

Ruth Evans is a Leaving Cert student at East Glendalough School, Co Wicklow.

She is hoping to study ag science at University College Dublin (UCD) next year. She would prefer to have sat the Leaving Cert and had been preparing a lot for it.

“I feel like I would have done better if I had been able to do the Leaving Cert, than with predicted grades. I don’t know how they are going to mark them and it is a bit scary,” she said.

The student was disappointed to hear about the predicted grading, but had been expecting it to happen.

“They (the predicted grades) do worry me a bit, but there’s nothing I can do now. There is no point in crying over it.

“It is tough, but it could be worse. There are people dying out there. I am really not too badly off - people are graduating college and they might not be able to get jobs.”

Teacher reaction

Johnny Gleeson, PRO of the Irish Agricultural Science Teachers Association (IASTA), said they welcomed the clarity on the issue and that teachers are best placed at the moment to judge students’ work.

He added that particularly with ag science and the current course - a new curriculum has been introduced for next year’s Leaving Cert - it could be difficult to know how much students would improve from their mocks.

“There are the lads and girls that could have jumped from a lower grade to a H1, because of the nature of the old course, you can get a Revise Wise book and cover it in three weeks.

“Some could have been lambing and been calving before the mocks. They didn’t put their whole heart into the mocks. After calving and lambing finishes, they would study for their Leaving Cert,” he said.

Fifth years

Gleeson said ag science teachers are more worried than most other teachers, because they are transitioning between courses.

“Before the lockdown happened, a lot of us were worried about the new course and the new project they have to do,” he said.

Teachers are concerned about fifth year students, due to the fact they are the first to cover the new curriculum, he added.

Training on the project for the new course, which is worth 25%, was delivered to teachers just prior to schools closing in March.

Teachers have not had time to start the project – formally known as the Individual Investigative Study (IIS) - with students.

“This new project has to be done in fifth and sixth year. Our fifth years have missed a third of fifth year and all the summer when they could have been doing their project,” he said.