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

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From Leaving Certificate to Leaving School
an hour and a half and she’s a Spanish lady, ok so she speaks her
own language. At least my Irish teacher only charges €30, had to go
to college and earn that. She’s Spanish, obviously she had to learn
English but, you know, that is so much money so my dad is going
like what €80 a week for my grinds. (Harris Street, girls’ school,
middle-class intake)
I do grinds in [Grinds School] and they’re terrible, there’s 90 people.
Yeah it is, even though the [Grinds School] is a brilliant school …
they’re just giving you notes, it’s like these stupid revision courses,
it’s like maybe go to refresh your memory but they’re just giving you
notes so you could just be home studying. (Harris Street, girls’
school, middle-class intake)
Ah no, it’s a waste of money.
… If you need grinds, it means you’re not paying attention in school.
(Park Street, boys’ school, mixed intake)
2.4.5 Teaching and Learning in a High Stakes Environment
High stakes testing can directly and powerfully influence how teachers
teach and how students learn (Madaus, 1988). When asked about their
views on the teaching methods used in sixth year, the students interviewed
had very clear ideas about the most helpful styles of teaching and
the ways in which they learned most effectively. As at junior cycle,
many spoke about active teaching methods and wished for greater discussion
and interaction in class (for similar student accounts internationally,
see EPPI, 2005; Gorard and See, 2010; Osler, 2010; Lumby, 2011).
Students were positive about teachers who made subjects more ‘relevant’,
in ways that they could ‘relate to’:
Some subjects like Business, if you relate it to like what’s happening
at the time … then it’s more interesting because it’s more relevant.
And then in kind of science subjects, in Chemistry or that, when you
do the experiments kind of, they’re more, better because you understand
them more, it’s a little bit different than just sitting learning it.
(Dawson Street, coed school, mixed intake)