From Leaving Certificate to Leaving School: A Longitudinal Study of Sixth Year Students

Abstract

Current debates about senior cycle education in Ireland have raised a number of crucial questions: What effect does the Leaving Certificate exam have on young people?s learning experiences? What helps students to do well in the Leaving Certificate exam? How do young people make decisions about their future life after school? What kinds of skills and competencies do young people develop in the course of their second-level education? This book provides an important evidence base for answering these and other questions by examining the experiences of young people in sixth year as they prepare for the Leaving Certificate exam and life after school. It is the latest book in a series of publications stemming from the Post-Primary Longitudinal Study, which has fol- lowed a cohort of over 900 students in twelve case-study schools, selected to capture key dimensions of school policy and practice. This is the first such longitudinal study in the Irish context and it yields rich in- sights into the factors shaping young people?s experiences as they move through second-level education, thus providing important evidence for future policy development. This particular book focuses on providing an overview of the experiences of sixth year students and is published with a companion volume (Smyth and Calvert, 2011) which looks at the tran- sition from junior cycle (lower secondary) to senior cycle (upper secon- dary) education. This executive summary outlines the main findings re- garding sixth year students and the implications for policy development.