Students could earn CAO points for wider skills under new reforms

CAO points could be awarded for a wider variety of skills under new Leaving Cert reforms, Minister for Education Norma Foley has said.

School leaders want to see greater recognition under a revamped senior cycle for team work, communication skills and work experience.

Ms Foley confirmed on Thursday that policy-makers are looking at ensuring a “wider variety of skillsets are measured in a variety of different ways” through project work, practicals and other components of assessment.

She said these changes will ultimately feed into students’ final grades and CAO points, where relevant.

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She said that Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris "is very intent on ensuring there will be a match between the CAO and what we achieve here at senior cycle. A body of work will be done there.

“But to get to that point, we have to look after our responsibility; that is, to ensure we successfully reimagine the delivery of the senior cycle, what it means for our students and how they can best showcase their various talents and skillsets.”

Ms Foley was speaking during the annual conference of the Joint Managerial Body (JMB), which represents voluntary secondary schools, in Killarney on Thursday.

Senior cycle

Under reforms announced recently, students entering senior cycle in September 2023 will sit paper one in English and Irish at the end of fifth year.

In the longer term, 60 per cent of marks for all Leaving Cert subjects will be based on written exams and 40 per cent on additional assessment components such as project work, orals or practicals.

JMB president Deirdre Matthews said there was a danger that if the CAO system did not recognise wider skillsets or experience during transition year and beyond, they will be diminished in sixth year.

“We need to recognise student’s interpersonal and communication skills; their ability to research projects from initiation to completion. In my own school, we have a transition year musical which is student-led. Students shine in that and develop skills, but there’s no way at present of recognising that.”

Ms Foley said that a planned reforms approach will ease student stress by ensuring there is less focus on the final exams in June.

She acknowledged that there is opposition among many teachers to the idea of assessing their own students for the Leaving Cert, but asked educators to “come with me on the journey” of reform.

Calculated grades

Unlike the calculated grades process used during the pandemic, she said just 40 per cent will be awarded based on teacher assessment in a system moderated by the State Examinations Commission.

In addition, Ms Foley said, schools and teachers will be provided with extensive ongoing training.

While school leaders have broadly welcomed the reforms, Ms Matthews of the JMB said policy-makers need to ensure that the parental choice in education is respected and that all school types are supported.

This included the fee-charging sector, she said, which receives a lower level of funding than other schools.

“Fee-charging school are not for-profit schools. They are charities . . . It would be a sad day if we end up with a declining fee-charging sector and a stronger for-profit sector.”

Ms Matthews also paid tribute to Ms Foley and former Department of Education general secretary Seán Ó Foglú for their support of the education sector during the Covid-19 pandemic.