Ursulines are delighted

THERE was a queue out the door of the Ursuline at 9 o’clock last Wednesday morning.

Principal Sr Mairead had gone down to the An Post centre at Finisklin at 6.40am to collect the school’s Leaving Cert results for 2017.

With an unseasonally windy wet morning, students were quick to grab their brown envelopes and race to open them either at home or in their parents’ cars.

Caoimhe Sweeney, Lea McCarthy and Emer were happy enough to huddle outside however: “We’re really happy,” they told this newspaper.

They felt the new grading system was easier to understand. “There are less brackets, so if you get 69% it’s the same as someone who gets 61%,” said Caoimhe.

“I want to do European Studies in Trinity,” she said.

Lea plans to study Creative Writing in Galway, while Emer would like to study Business and French in Trinity.

Sr Mairead said that when staff did the comparisons between this year’s results and last year’s, it was as they expected.

“Evidently the new system is there to take the randomness out of things. We’re absolutely delighted with the results as we see them at the moment but the students do need to go and look at them just that bit more carefully this year,” she said.

“After this year, the hope is that it’s embedded a bit. We have a couple of them there and they got excellent results but I’m always very careful to try and acknowledge the effort of all students.

“There are students who achieve absolutely at the highest levels academically and there are students who coped with illness and family tragedy.

“We had a student whose Mum had died just as the Leaving Cert was starting and she did very well considering that,” she said.

“I just acknowledge the hard work and the resilience of students at all levels. I say to them to go gently and carefully with whatever results they have and to know that we’re here to support them. It’s one step in a long series of steps as they move through life. We’re here if they need us.”