Is it time English was just renamed “Seamus Heaney Studies”? Candidates emerging from this year’s exams certainly got their fill of Famous Seamus, and you’d be forgiven for thinking Ireland hasn’t had another poet of note in the past half-century.
Having cropped up in essay form in higher level Paper 1, Heaney provided the unseen poem on Paper 2, while also filling the prescribed poetry slot on the ordinary level paper.
“SEC keeping everyone on their toes - sending out a strong signal students should not bank on one poet,” tweeted teacher Patrick Hickey. Among candidates there was general happiness, boosted by the appearance of crowd-pleasers Dickinson and Yeats in the prescribed section, Irish_Hunter_ tweeted: “#heaney strikes again. Who knows where he will come up again? Maths P1 anybody.”
For Jim Lusby, however, English teacher at the Institute of Education, the “annual circus” around what poets will turn up is no laughing matter. “There’s a severe problem. It’s turning into a horse race, which is seriously devaluing the study of poetry”. While he says it’s the SEC’s remit to deal with this, he’d favour a situation where students could draw upon poets of their own choice to answer more general, or thematic, questions.
----
“Ah yes there’s your Leaving Cert weather!” Retiring rugby ace Brian O’Driscoll shows his sadistic side on Twitter
-----
No pressure but a junior minister is urging anyone thinking of dropping down from higher level maths to ordinary level today to “stay the course”. Your country needs you, suggests Minister of State for Research and Innovation Seán Sherlock.
“Maths and the other STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects are essential building blocks for further study or careers in so many growing sectors such as engineering, ICT, tech and the sciences.” While traditionally about 2,000 students who register for higher level opt on the day to take ordinary, “I would urge students who have put in the time and hard work into studying higher maths to stay the course today and sit the paper.”
With all this concentration on maths, though, are other subjects being neglected? The syllabus for engineering hasn’t been changed since 1985. That’s 10 years before the formation of Google, and 20 years before the invention of the iPhone.
An illustrated question about the DeLorean sports car gave this year’s paper a retro feel. Students were also asked how best to design a weather vane. When was the last time you consulted a weather vane?
-----
Back in the real world, a group of secondary students from Crescent College Comprehensive Limerick yesterday won third prize at an engineering contest in Andøya, Norway.
While their Leaving Cert peers were knuckling down to the engineering paper, the fifth year students were wowing judges at the 2014 European CanSat Competition, a competition which involves blasting a specially-equipped soft drinks can one kilometre off the ground and then having it parachute to earth collecting meteorological data en route.
Take that weather vane!
----
Today’s Leaving Cert exams:
Geography (morning)
Some 25,620 students due to sit exam: 22,144 at higher level and 3,476 at ordinary level.
75% ABC rate at higher level and 74% at ordinary level.
Maths Paper 1 (afternoon)
Some 53,395 students due to sit exam: 17,065 registered at higher level, 34,034 at ordinary level and 2,296 at foundation level.
73% ABC rate at higher level, 64% at ordinary level and 74% at foundation level.
Teacher tips for Monday:
Maths paper 2:
“Check your calculator. Make sure you clear the memory before you start and make sure it is in degree mode. Know how to find standard deviation, correlation coefficient, slope and intercept of line of best fit. Know your definitions in statistics and geometry.
"In probability, know the and or rules, conditional probability P(A/B), mutually exclusive and independent events, Bernouilli trials, and be able to use the standard normal distribution. For line and circle practice past papers." - John Brennan of the Ballinteer Institute and projectmaths.com
Irish paper 1:
"The night before paper one revisit the text and audio of one or two aural tests or exercises that you've already done. On the day of the exam is to make sure you have the audio from a past Leaving Cert aural exam on your phone. If you can pop in your earphones for 10 minutes or so just before the exam this should help to clear out the English and tune your ears into teanga álainn na Gaeilge!" - Oisín Mac Eoin, head of Irish in St Benildus College
