State examinations to begin this week

Some 56,595 students are sitting their first Leaving Certificate paper today, while 60,652 students are sitting the Junior Certificate.

It was mostly smiles in the sunshine after the first day of Leaving Cert exams today, beginning with English Paper I.

Nationally there are 120,000 students sitting their state exams this year.

Wishing all candidates the very best in the coming weeks, Chairman of the State Examinations Commission (SEC), said, “The State Examinations reperesent the culmination of much hard work by students, their families and schools…”

While most of us are getting ready to go back to the grind tomorrow, thousands of students around the country are preparing to face into something even less pleasant.

“While recognising that these exams are important, I hope that students remember that there are many opportunities open to them following on from the Leaving Certificate”, Mr Bruton said. 81 students undertook the Leaving Cert Applied programme in Clare, there is a greater amount of young men on this programme in contrast to young women with forty six males and thirty five females.

“Try to get a good night’s sleep during your exams and make sure you know your timetable and plan to get to each exam a little bit early”. It is our objective to enable each candidate to display his or her achievements during what can be a stressful time.

Initial feedback indicates that students are generally happy with English Paper One, although there were some surprises on the Leaving Cert paper.

Thursday, June 23rd, will then see the Leaving Certificate exams come to a finish with the Junior Certificate exams finishing on Friday, June 24th.

The last of the Junior Cert exams will take place on Thursday, 23 June.