#leavingcertificate — Public Fediverse posts

Reflections on the 2026 Leaving Certificate Results

Yesterday I attended my last two Examination Boards for the year at Maynooth University. one for graduating MSc students and another for undergraduate repeat students in Engineering (which I attend because I’m teaching a mathematics course they do). That, more or less, is the end of the business (for me) for the 2025/6 academic year. No sooner is that done, however, than preparations for the start of the 2026/7 teaching session begins, as we wait to find out how many new students we will be admitting to our courses in September.

Today’s the day that over 70,000 school students across Ireland received their Leaving Certificate Results. As always there will be joy for some, and disappointment for others. The headline news relating to these results is that the proportion of students receiving the top grades in higher level examinations (i.e. H1) is down significantly from 11.7% last year to 10.1% this year. This fall is because various adjustments that were made during the Covid-19 pandemic are gradually being wound down. After next year they will disappear altogether.

I thought I would have a quick look at the results for subjects relevant to Physics:

(A is higher level and G is ordinary level). Please note that this year’s numbers are provisional and may change as a result of appeals, etc. The full details can be found here.

You can see that the number of students taking these subjects has increased since last year, but in all cases the percentage getting top grades has fallen. Note the very low numbers in the last row, meaning that most students who take Applied Mathematics do the Higher level version. The numbers mean that exactly 2 people got the top grade in 2026 and 2025!

Comparison with earlier years is interesting. Here are the H1 percentages for Mathematics, Physics and Applied Mathematics since 2019:

You can see that although these percentages have declined from their respective peaks they remain well above 2019 pre-pandemic levels.

It is also worth noting that the number of students taking Physics (A) nationally seems to be recovering from a sharp drop in 2022-4, the numbers being: 6583(2019); 7037(2020); 7210(2021); 6487(2022); 6143(2023); 6009 (2024); 6592 (2025); and 6855 (2026).

Anyway, now that the results are out there will be a busy time until next Wednesday (26th August) when the CAO first round offers go out. That is when those students wanting to go to university find out if they made the grades and university departments find out how many new students (if any) they will have to teach in September. Incidentally, colleagues in the UK might be interested to know that, here in Maynooth, departments have no say in admissions decisions: these are all made centrally.

P.S. When I was a little kid we used to call a “Certificate” a “Stiff Ticket”. I just thought you would like to know that.

The 2026 Leaving Certificate Mathematics Papers

As I mentioned a few days ago, examinations for the 2026 school Leaving Certificate are under way. One of the interesting things about the Irish system is that the examination papers are put up online immediately after the examinations. Students took their first paper in Mathematics (either Ordinary or Higher level) on Friday and the second was this morning. There has been some reaction in the news here and here.

Anyway, I thought I’d share the Mathematics papers here so you can see what you think of them.

Here are the two Higher Mathematics papers:

The Ordinary Level papers are here:

They look reasonable to me. The thing that strikes me about them is that they are much more structured than the A-level mathematics examinations I took way back in 1981.

Comments are welcome through the box below.

The Week Ahead

Another weekend is almost over so, after spending most of this afternoon in the garden, I’ve retreated indoors to look at my calendar for the forthcoming week. I find a plethora of Examination Board meetings, one (tomorrow) for our Masters students who did their presentations on Friday and two for undergraduates who took repeat examinations in August (one for Mathematical Physics and one for Engineering, as I happen to have been teaching Engineering Mathematics this year). The two undergraduate boards are both on Thursday. All three of these should be relatively brief, but you never know…

There is another meeting tomorrow, Monday, about organizing our computational physics teaching for the new academic year. The merger of theoretical and experimental physics has given us the chance to coordinate the different computational modules offered by the two previous departments, but we need to make sure the teaching rooms are big enough and the computers have the correct software, etc. Fortunately I’m not actually teaching Computational Physics again until Semester 2 but we have to get it sorted in time for other modules happening in Semester 1.

In between Monday and Thursday I have two whole days with no meetings and no grading to do. I might be able to get on with some research, or at least with writing up some research I’ve already done.

Friday is a big day for the Irish higher education system, in that it’s the day students get their Leaving Certificate results. This year the grade inflation introduced during the pandemic is supposed to begin to unwind, but none of us outside the examination system knows how this will be achieved or what the results will be. If I had to bet I’d say that the CAO points needed for most courses at Maynooth will go down substantially, partly because of the deflation mentioned previously but also because The Management has decided that the University has to recruit more and more students and will drop entry standards as low as it needs to in order to meet its targets.

I don’t know how many students we will end up with for Academic Year 2025/6 but I do know that I will have retired before most of them complete their course. I used to find it a bit scary thinking about retirement, but not any more.

#ComputationalPhyscs #LeavingCertificate #MaynoothUniversity #Physics #postgraduate #undergraduate

The main issue I have with the Irish School #LeavingCertificate is that it doesn't have as much potential for smutty innuendo as the British #ALevel (or the old #OLevel)

The 2025 Leaving Certificate Mathematics Papers

As I mentioned a few days ago, examinations for the 2025 school Leaving Certificate are under way. One of the interesting things about the Irish system is that the examination papers are put up online immediately after the examinations. Students took their first paper in Mathematics (either Ordinary or Higher level) on Friday (yesterday), and there has been some reaction.

Anyway, I thought I’d share the papers here so you can see what you think. Paper 2 is on Monday 9th June, so I’ll add those papers then.

They look reasonable to me. The thing that strikes me about them is that they are much more structured than the A-level mathematics examinations I took way back in 1981.

Comments are welcome through the box below.

#HigherMathematics #LeavingCertificate #mathematics

As over 60,000 students across Ireland sit down for their #LeavingCertificate exams, one question should be on all our minds, not just theirs:

If you had to take a climate exam today, would you pass?

https://globalactionplan.ie/blogs/as-students-sit-the-leaving-cert-gap-ireland-asks/

The Leaving

Today is not only a significant date for me (in more ways than one), but it’s important for many young people in Ireland because the Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate examinations both start today, so the first thing I need to do is wish everyone starting their examinations the very best of luck!

Among other things, the results of the leaving certificate examinations are important for September’s university admissions. This year the grade inflation that occurred during the pandemic years will be reduced, though it is not yet clear how. Whatever happens is likely to have a big impact on student recruitment to third-level institutions.

In the system operating in England and Wales the standard qualification for entry is the GCE A-level. Most students take A-levels in three subjects, which gives them a relatively narrow focus although the range of subjects to choose from is rather large. In Ireland the standard qualification is the Leaving Certificate, which comprises a minimum of six subjects, with many students taking more than this. This gives students a broader range of knowledge at the sacrifice (perhaps) of a certain amount of depth; it has been decreed for entry into this system that an Irish Leaving Certificate subject counts as about 2/3 of an A-level subject for admissions purposes, so Irish students do the equivalent of at least four A-levels, and many do more than this. It’s also worth noting that all students have to take Mathematics at Leaving Certificate level.

One can choose to do Leaving Certificate subjects at Ordinary or Higher level and there’s quite a big difference between the two, especially in Mathematics (of which more below).

Overall I prefer the Leaving Certificate over the UK system of A-levels, as the former gives the students a broader range of subjects than the latter (as does the International Baccalaureate). I would have liked to have been allowed to take at least one arts subject past O-level, for example.

For University admissions points are awarded for each paper according to the marks obtained and then aggregated into a total CAO points, CAO being the Central Applications Office, the equivalent of the UK’s UCAS. This means, for example, that our main Science pathway at Maynooth allows students to study Physics without having done it at Leaving Certificate level. This obviously means that the first year has to be taught at a fairly elementary level, but it has the enormous benefit of allowing us to recruit students whose schools do not offer Physics.

There is however a big problem with Mathematics. It was decided some years ago that students would get 25 extra CAO points if they got a mark of at least 40% in Higher Mathematics. This has led to more students taking the subject, which is good, but there are signs that this may have led to a decline in standards. Our Theoretical Physics & Mathematics course requires a good result in Higher Mathematics for entry. Will changes to the marking of Higher Mathematics this year make it harder for students to make the grade? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Moreover, since the pandemic struck, students have been able to choose to answer questions from a limited range of sections on the mathematics examination papers. That means that students can get very high grades despite knowing nothing about a big chunk of the syllabus. That matters most for subjects that require students to have certain skills and knowledge for entry into University, such as Physics. I taught part of our first year Mathematical Physics course in Maynooth for about 5 years. It was noticeable how the fraction that were comfortable with basic differentiation and integration was falling. Will this trend accelerate? Again, we’ll just have to wait and see…

#Examinations #LeavingCertificate #LeavingCertificate2025 #mathematics #MaynoothUniversity #Physics

Best wishes to everyone starting their #LeavingCertificate exams tomorrow! #LeavingCert2025

Best wishes to everyone starting their #LeavingCertificate exams tomorrow!

#LeavingCert2025

I feel that #Election2024 is much more difficult than the #LeavingCertificate Geography & Maths Paper 1.

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