Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

52 ENGAGING YOUNG PEOPLE?because of advice from their school or teachers. The qualitative interviewsshowed the involvement of individual teachers, guidance counsellors,deputy principals and principals in student decision making. Although theselection process varied according to individual schools, students of lowerability, those placed in lower streamed classes and students withbehavioural problems appeared to be approached by teachers and schools.There is also evidence that some students were discouraged from taking theprogramme by their teachers who felt they were capable of completing theLCE.Some respondents recalled how they had been approached individuallyby the principal, teachers or guidance counsellors who encouraged them totake LCA. Sandra, Anne and Derek believed the school targeted certainpupils who they felt were suitable for the programme:My tutor came up and he just said to me…that there’s certain people that wantedto do the LCA group like, and she said, you’re one of them that we’d like to dothe LCA. (Sandra, 23, completed LCA, home duties)So, she told me straight, if you want to do it, you do it, because it will be good foryou she said, it’s your type of thing. Better than studying books like, it’s allprojects, you know, tasks, it’s all written projects, researching and stuff like thatyou see. (Anne, 21, completed LCA, employed)We were the second year to do it in the school and I remember the principal cameinto the class and asked us what we’d prefer to do and she said to me and a fewothers, she knew like what we were like and she said it would suit us more thanthe normal Leaving CertWhen you say she knew what you were like, what do you mean?We were, were great in our practical classes but any other classes we weren’tgreat…to spread out the Leaving Cert over two years would be better. (Derek,21, completed LCA, employed)Some schools recognised that the LCA could prevent certain studentsfrom dropping out of school after junior cycle. Graham’s guidancecounsellor gave him the information about LCA and encouraged him tostay on in school despite him wanting to leave:It was the guidance counsellor who told me, and he brought me in and said whatare your options and all, what I planned on doing, I just said I wanted to leave,he just said would I try it for a year and I just said I might as well like youknow.What information did he give you about it?I didn’t know much about it but then when he talked to me it grew on me a smallbit you know, all the subjects and the, it wasn’t about the, how would you say, theeducation if you know what I mean, it wasn’t about the points, there was nopressure of exams like, it was just learning a few more bits, it was more practical.(Graham, 22, completed LCA, apprentice)Donal was in a lower streamed class in junior cycle. He believed that hisgroup of friends were directly approached to do the LCA as they were‘troublemakers’ in the school and it would be a good way to ‘get them out