Students taking Junior Cert art are the really lucky ones - their exams are finished. Their projects were completed on May 11th and they sat their drawing exam the following day. However, there are only a handful of subjects at Junior Cert which include a practical exam - home economics, metalwork and music.
By now, Junior Cert music students have already gained up to a quarter of their total marks thanks to their practicals. Higher-level metalwork students have completed both practical and project work and could now have three-quarters of their total marks in the bag.
In home economics, practicals and projects together can bring in half the marks on the higher paper and 60 per cent of the total at ordinary level.
A number of Junior Cert subjects have no practical exams but do include projects. Here projects can account for well over half the total marks. In both levels of materials technology your project can bring in two-thirds of your total marks. In technology, the project is worth half the marks at higher and 60 per cent at ordinary level. In science with local studies you can gain up 20 per cent of the marks from your project at higher level and up to 40 per cent of marks at ordinary level. The environmental and social studies project could bring you up to 40 per cent of your total marks. Among the many benefits of projects and practicals is the welcome fact that many students can go into the written exams in June feeling fairly confident that they have a fair number of marks already accounted for.
We're hearing a lot these days about the pressures of the Junior and Leaving Certs and the iniquity of examining students on two years' work in less than three hours. For many students, however, the pressure is less than you might expect. They are the ones who already have quite a lot of marks under their belts well before the written exams. Nowadays, orals, practicals and projects - all completed well before June - feature in many subjects. In some cases, projects and practical exams account for at least half the total marks. Take Leaving Cert music: by the time the written exam comes around, music students may already have gained half their marks, since aurals and practicals account for 230 out of 400 marks. This year's crop of Leaving Cert art students will go into the June exams with the potential of having achieved almost 38 per cent of their total marks (150 out of a total of 400). Earlier this month, the Leaving Cert life-drawing exam took place on the same day as the design/craft exam. This, says Maureen Roche, who teaches art at Ballyhale Vocational School, Co Kilkenny, is the first time this has happened. Last year, students took three exams on one day in June - life drawing, imaginative composition/still life and history and appreciation of art. "That made it a very long day," she observes. "It can take up to half-an-hour to set up a group for life drawing, with the result that the students had very little time for lunch. I'm hoping that with only two papers in June, students will be more relaxed." Engineering is among the subjects which offer students the opportunity to gain high marks well in advance of the written exam. At higher level, students can gain up to half the total mark in practical and project work. At ordinary level, practical and project work account for 60 per cent of the total. "In recent years the projects have been more `do-able' by both sexes than they have been in the past," comments Patrick Keays, who teaches at Crescent College Comprehensive, Limerick.
Practical subjects are enormously beneficial to students, he says. "You're in a workshop situation where you have one-to-one contact with your students. People don't feel intimidated, they gain in self-esteem and self-confidence and they learn social skills." Nonetheless, practical exams do have a downside: mistakes can be harder to rectify than in written exams. Students' nervousness can still cause them to underperform.
However, project work does often give them a chance to shine. Because it is carried out over a period of time - usually about three months - students are given the opportunity to display initiative and creativity, teachers say. Keays notes: "They have a head start in engineering at college." Students sitting Leaving Cert agricultural-science papers may have already gained one quarter of their total marks - thanks to their project work. In construction studies, half the marks for higher-level students are on offer through practical and project work; for ordinary-level students it's 60 per cent.
"Students are half-way there," comments Noel O'Neill, who teaches construction studies at Presentation College, Carlow, "and they should have a general sense of how they are doing." However, he warns, students' perceptions about what makes an exercise successful in his subject can vary from those of the examiner. "If they don't get their practical work completely assembled in time, they think they will suffer. But that may not be the case. The examiner will be looking to see how all the components have been constructed. If they have done good work but simply lacked a few minutes to put it all together, they can still do well."
The fact that projects and practicals count so much towards the final mark means that "all your eggs are not in one basket", he notes. "It gives students a chance to display different abilities."
There's good news too in languages: anyone sitting Leaving Certificate German, French, Spanish, Italian or Irish has already taken the oral part of the exam. This test accounts for one quarter of the total marks on higher, ordinary and foundation-level Irish and on the higher French, German, Spanish and Italian papers. Students taking these subjects at ordinary level could in theory collect 20 per cent of their total marks in orals.
The Leaving Certificate Applied (LCA) and Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme (LCVP) extend further this idea of practical rather than exam-based assessment. The LCA is a programme designed to prepare students for adult and working life. It consists of four six-month sessions, with achievements credited in each of these sessions. Certificates are awarded at three levels: pass (6069 credits), merit (70-84 credits) and distinction (85-100 credits). Students can gain up to 100 credits over two years. Forty credits are allotted to satisfactory completion of modules, 27 credits to performance of student tasks and 33 credits to the terminal exams.
The LCVP includes regular Leaving Cert subjects and a number of link modules. The written examinations for these modules account for 40 per cent of marks, while the portfolio of course-work can bring in up to 60 per cent of marks.
