From Leaving CertiFiCate to Leaving SChooL a Longitudinal Study ...

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From Leaving Certificate to Leaving School
They also felt that their teachers should give them more encouragement
instead of putting more pressure on them and reminding them of the
work they had yet to do:
[Teachers] just tell us how bad we are getting on instead of how
good we are getting on, you know what I mean. That’s all they do.
We are not doing enough and all like.
That’s what they always say.
It wrecks your head. (Barrack Street, girls’ school, working-class intake)
This stress projected by their teachers appeared to impact on students’
own stress levels:
It’s a lot more stressful I think this year, just all talking about time
and how close we are to the exams, and just all work and pressure I
think.
Yeah, there’s a lot of pressure on us this year. (Dawson Street, coed
school, mixed intake)
Students were particularly frustrated at the assumption by teachers that
they would work every evening and weekend with little time for leisure
activities:
They don’t realise that we have so many subjects they just think of
their subject and you have to do all the work or you end up with no
life to go out to.
It seems like that you have to spend hours just on their homework so
they are piling on the homework and then we go home and we have
like.
No time to yourself.
Even the weekends, they’re telling you that you have to study the
whole weekend as well. (Barrack Street, girls’ school, working-class
intake)