Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

PATHWAYS INTO LCA 494.4.1 WANTED TO TAKE MORE PRACTICAL SUBJECTSNearly 40 per cent of students are attracted to LCA because of the practicalsubjects offered. It is likely that this group struggled with academic subjectsduring junior cycle (see Section 4.3.1) and felt the practical nature of LCA,with its emphasis on preparing students for the world of work, would bemore suited to their abilities. Many young people referred not only to thepractical curriculum but also to the LCA’s structure of assessment andteaching methods. Many of this group had recognised in junior cycle thatthey favoured practical over academic subjects:I preferred more hands on stuff than actually written stuff and I was like anxiouscoming up to the Junior Cert, I was very upset. (Siobhan, 25, completedLCA, employed)I didn’t really like studying because it, I found it hard to, you know, to beattentive, I like to be doing something, you know, I like to work, to be moving allthe time and actually doing something instead of sitting down for hours every nightand trying to study…Just reading and hoping this is staying in my head, youknow, I’d prefer to actually do something like….I find it much easier to learn byactually doing it, instead of reading it. (Ronan, 25, completed LCA,apprentice)Despite his brothers going to a different school, Derek’s parents chosethe local technical college for his second-level education as it offered agreater choice of practical subjects. He saw the LCA as a way of gettinginto an apprenticeship:I went to the tech there and they had a lot of practical subjects, that’s the reason Iwent to it and I wouldn’t say I was a great student now but.So even in primary school you knew that you wanted to domore practical subjects?Oh yeah, definitely all practical because, I was never planning on college oranything so I said I’d go to the tech because it was more practical to get a trade.(Derek, 21, completed LCA, employed)Sarah was interested in the practical nature of LCA, in particular theHair and Beauty course. She had noticed the facilities for hairdressingtraining in the LCA classroom:I’d seen, we have the classroom and all the hairdressing stuff and everything insidein it you know, we’ve got the sinks and they were always doing kind of practicalwork and you could see they were always doing projects and stuff and I was moreinterested in doing that, you know, going out finding out stuff rather than sittingthere learning off a book that I’d never again want to even know about sort ofthing. (Sarah, 21, completed LCA, employed)In addition to the practical curriculum, respondents were attracted tothe LCA’s modular credit accumulation. Many mentioned the stress of endof-yearexams during junior cycle and liked the option of building upcredits over time: