Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

40 ENGAGING YOUNG PEOPLE?had dropped out of LCA had poor attendance in junior cycle. Donal’sabsenteeism eventually led to him dropping out of LCA at the end of fifthyear. During his third year of junior cycle, he was missing weeks fromschool at a time and attending the local gym on his own instead:In third year now it was very bad, I missed about, about two months of schoolaltogether, two maybe three months, I can’t remember exactly. (Donal, 23,dropped out of LCA, apprentice)Friends were a major part of this process of absenteeism and Zoerecalled how she would meet up with friends on the way to school. Thissituation worsened and by third year she had missed almost half the schoolyear:You’d be walking down to the school, I’m not going in today, neither am I,there’d be people sitting on the wall like, they’d be all having their smoke and alland you’d be like are you going in today and then they’re like no, I’ve French firstclass, I’m not going in. (Zoe, 22, dropped out of LCA, unemployed)Roy, who dropped out of LCA in fifth year, also missed long periods ofschool during his junior cycle:I missed most school because I used to mitch it the whole time…I never went toschool like, used to always just walk around town…or I’d go into the principal’soffice and say, ring them up and say, ring my mother and say Mam I’ve a cold,come up for me. (Roy, 22, dropped out of LCA, unemployed)On reflection many respondents played down the extent of theirmisbehaviour believing it to have consisted of small ‘clashes’ with teacherswhich resulted in detention. Andrew described how he got into trouble for‘the usual’ types of misbehaviour:It was just normal school stuff, you know, missing, going on the bunk, or else justbeing late and the usual, detention and not doing homework maybe, you know,wouldn’t say I was the perfect student. (Andrew, 21, completed LCA,apprentice)Sandra believed that much of the disciplinary problems she experiencedwere due to a strict principal in the school who she believed punishedstudents for “silly things” such as incorrect clothes and jewellery:Like everyone would [get into trouble] like, you know, for silly things, like youcouldn’t do anything, say in the school that I was in, say there’d be things youcouldn’t, like you couldn’t wear your hair down, they wanted to have your hairtied up or you couldn’t wear rings, you had to have your rings off, like there wassilly things like , but it was like more, the principal like, he wanted to stand outas if he was strict like. (Sandra, 23, completed LCA, home duties)Students who began to struggle with schoolwork at the end of first year(see Section 4.3.1) described how it coincided with the beginning of theirbehavioural problems in school. Rebecca was not sure why this happened: