Leaving Cert students to be marked out of 1,000

TEACHERS may be asked to mark Leaving Cert pupils out of 1,000 in each subject.

The plan is to allow scope to differentiate between students of similar standard, under the calculated grades system being introduced to replace the Leaving Cert this year.

Intensive discussions continued yesterday on detailed guidelines for teachers.

They must approach the task of estimating what their pupils would be expected to achieve had the State exams gone ahead in June.

The first step requires subject teachers to award an estimated percentage mark to each pupil and also to rank them against the rest of their class.

This would be done by drawing on a variety of information, such as performance in house exams, as well using their own professional judgment.

All subject teachers in a school will then collaborate to review the estimated marks and rankings and agree a final position, which will be appraised by the principal before submitting to the Department of Education for national standardisation.

The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) said it understands that in seeking to arrive at a percentage mark, each student may be marked out of 1,000.

“This might be useful in a situation where it would be very challenging to rank a group of students whose attainment is very similar.

For example, it could be where a number of candidates would be expected to achieve the same percentage mark.

“In this case, the approach could be for the teacher to mark the students out of 1,000 and convert the marks to percentages,” it has advised its members.

It says that the class ranking for each student in each subject would be generated from the attribution of the marks under this system and, where two or more candidates were attributed identical marks, the teacher would be asked to look again to see what might separate them.

A Department of Education spokesperson said the “guidance is still under discussion”.

Meanwhile, Inclusion Ireland is “gravely concerned” about the education of children with intellectual disabilities and autism during the Covid-19 crisis.

It has raised its concerns following a survey of parents of children with disabilities who are trying to home educate. It was conducted last week and attracted 733 responses.

Inclusion Ireland CEO Enda Egan said it was seeking an urgent meeting with Education Minister Joe McHugh to discuss what he described as “the emerging crisis in special education”.

The survey found that children with intellectual disabilities and autism were missing school a lot.

For children with complex behaviour and medical needs home education was very difficult or non-existent, despite the best efforts of parents and teachers.

The experience of parents varies widely, with some children having daily class via Zoom and access to educational materials and smart applications from their teacher, but some others were having no contact or education provision.

Parents reported struggling to provide any form of education to disabled children while also trying to work from home, work on the frontline and isolate at home, or minding other children or elderly adults.

Mr Egan said some parents stated that their child presented with behaviours that could be a challenge or had poor attention skills that required the support of a skilled teacher.

Slightly more than 10pc have no access to any technology at all for school work and 45pc have no access to high-speed broadband.

‘It would be very challenging to rank a group of students whose attainment is very similar’