‘It will be weird being in different colleges’ – twins delighted with their results
IT was a double act in the Pepper household as twins Aidan and Kate collected their Leaving Cert results.
Aidan notched up an impressive 602 points which included five H1s at Pobalscoil Neasáin, Baldoyle, Dublin.
He is hoping to go on to study medicine, while his twin sister is hoping to go on to social work in Blanchardstown IT.
“I’m hoping Monday will go my way, I already have my HPAT results from earlier in the year,” said Aidan.
Meanwhile, Kate scored more than she needed for her course. “It was expected that Aidan would do better than me, because he was aiming higher.
“I’m very confident I’ll get my place in Blanchardstown, so it’s just a wait till Monday now.
“We weren’t that competitive,” continued Kate.
“We are both so different in how we study and in what we want to do.”
The pair were head boy and head girl at the school, and Kate thought it would be strange going their separate ways for third-level.
“It will be a bit weird not being in the same college – but you can’t do anything else.”
While university was on the mind of many, Principal Patrick McKenna said that the paths the students at the school would take would be varied.
Some 120 pupils picked up the allimportant envelopes at the school yesterday morning.
“Many students are going back in the direction of apprenticeships, while others are going straight to work,” he said.
One student who decided to go down a slightly different route was Emma Keogh, from Kilbarrack. “Because social care is so wide, I’m not sure what I want to do in it yet so I decided I’d do a PLC (Post Leaving Cert) before going into a degree that I mightn’t even enjoy or like.” Meanwhile, 625 points waited for another student of the school, David McSharry.
He was quite laid-back about the whole affair, as he turned up a little later than the rest of his classmates.
The talented student represented Ireland at the International Chemistry Olympiad earlier this summer in Prague.
“I wasn’t expecting this at all, it’s amazing,” he said.
“I got six H1s overall. I did applied maths outside of school, in which I got one of my H1s.”
He is now looking forward to starting in Trinity in September
to study theoretical physics. Meanwhile, at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, in Marino, Dublin students started to arrive from 9am to open their brown envelopes. Lochlann Hackett (18), from Drumcondra, had a smile on his face and breathed a sigh of relief. “I want to do engineering in Trinity and I was worried about my maths results but in the end I did better than I expected,” he told the Irish Independent. School principal Liam Wegimont was on hand to congratulate those who were happy with their results, but believes there is room for improvement in the format of the Leaving Cert.
“It puts assessment ahead of learning. It assesses a narrow range of skills and knowledge. Recent research from DCU and Trinity has shown it generally prioritises lower-order skills over higher-order thinking,” he said. “While it has its strong points, it is neither fair nor equitable.”