School awarded up to three times as many H1s as its pupils get in a typical Leaving Cert

A FEE-PAYING school, which is at the centre of a High Court case over last year’s Leaving Cert calculated grades, awarded up to three times as many H1s as its pupils usually achieve in the exam.

Mr Justice Charles Meenan said estimated marks provided to students at Belvedere College, Dublin were “well ahead” of what was achieved in the previous three years.

Overestimation by teachers in schools was anticipated “but probably not on this scale”, he said.

Documentation provided to the court gave a number of examples from Belvedere, including Latin, where it awarded 38pc of students a H1, compared with an average 11pc who achieved that between 2017 and ’19. In maths, it awarded 19pc of students a H1 (7pc, 2017-’19) and in Irish, 21pc (9pc, 2017-’19)

Mr Justice Meenan dismissed a case taken by former Belvedere pupil Freddie Sherry, some of whose teachers’ estimated marks were reduced in the calculated grades process.

The judge said it was “not at all surprising” Mr Sherry’s marks were downgraded from the “significantly inflated” estimated marks.

Inflated school estimates were common amongst other schools, particularly at the higher levels, he added.

Mr Justice Meenan said he was not being critical of teachers or the school as awarding estimated marks placed teachers in a “difficult” position.

The 2020 June exams were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Calculated grades were based on estimated marks awarded by teachers, which went through a national standardisation process leading to the final grades.

The core issue in the case was whether the Education Minister’s August 2020 direction to remove school historical data (SHD) – based on the school’s Leaving Cert performance across three prior years – from the standardisation process was unlawful.

Mr Justice Meenan ruled the Minister and State (the respondents) were fully entitled to make changes to the standardisation model they considered to be in public interest.

The decision not to apply SHD, and not to apply a “mapping tool” to national historical data (NHD), was not arbitrary, unfair, unreasonable, irrational or unlawful and did not breach Mr Sherry’s legitimate expectation, he ruled.

The decision was an exercise of executive power under Article 42 of the Constitution concerning an area of policy which the court had neither the competence, nor jurisdiction, to review, he said.

The court did not have the competence to make a finding as to which was the appropriate course for the respondents to take when faced, in August 2020, with public controversy over use of SHD, he held.

Mr Sherry had not shown he, or Belvedere, were subject of an unfairness arising from the final model adopted and had “certainly not” established an unfairness that would lead the court to conclude the system was unlawful.

Mr Sherry, of Newtown, Celbridge, Co Kildare, claimed the removal of SHD resulted in him being unfairly downgraded by 55 points. His teachers’ estimated CAO points total of 542 for him was reduced to 487.

The judge said the task facing the Minister in 2020, in devising a system to get a student a grade they would have obtained had the exam been sat in the normal way, “cannot be underestimated”.

The rejection of the case has implications for more than 60 other challenges to the calculated grades process.

Liability for the substantial costs of the five-week case will be decided later.