Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

SCHOOL EXPERIENCES AND LEARNING PROCESSES AMONG LCA PARTICIPANTS 67Deirdre, for example, became frustrated with the LCA curriculum,believing some of the subjects were too easy. She reporting having no ideathat LCA would differ from the established Leaving Certificate sosignificantly:I loved English. … I was raging with LCA … I didn’t understand that whenyou went into LCA stuff was going to be completely different … It was too easy,I just had no interest in the lot of it. ... Done it already like, but it’s commonknowledge, you know, there’s a lot of things in LCA that are very … stupidlike, I actually think oh my god, I’m after been put into a special class, that’s nota challenge, it’s not anything like. … I went into Maths, the first time we weremeant to do Maths, she said to us, it was something so dumb, the teacher, I can’tremember … It was so stupid, I don’t know, not one plus one, but along themlines, that you’d know, and I remember thinking, oh my God. ... I’m just ragingI didn’t go on and do the Leaving Cert. (Deirdre, 22, completed LCA,unemployed)Not reaching her academic potential, she became disengaged and missedlong periods of school in her final year:Last year, I’m ashamed to even say it now, but I didn’t go in a lot, the last year,that was my Leaving Cert year like. … I got a merit like, and I done really welland all but I’m like I’m not going in to listen to that, that’s what I felt andthey’d be sitting in there and they’d be talking just about, going on. (Deirdre,22, completed LCA, unemployed)Having entered LCA, Jackie realised that the Maths curriculum withinthe established Leaving Certificate was more suited to her abilities:They were like third year subjects, they really were. Like they were easy, youknow what I mean, it was like third year things. … The straight Leaving …,like I felt they were doing subjects to my standard, that I'd be fit to do, but withApplied Leaving it was like god we learnt this in third year, the Mathsespecially. … It was like ah my god like are we the slow class. That’s how I felt,felt like I was in the stupid class, sort of. (Jackie, 22, completed LCA, homeduties)Similarly, having studied and liked German during junior cycle, she feltthat LCA French classes were insufficiently challenging:We had to do French. And like I learnt nothing, honestly nothing, the teacherspractically gave us the answers at the end of sixth year for it, you know for theoral. And I was like oh my god I really didn’t learn anything. … Like reallyyou know what I mean … the subjects were the same as third year … It just feltlike it was back in third year. (Jackie, 22, completed LCA, home duties)Even among students who enjoyed LCA overall, many felt that theMaths curriculum in particular was too easy. Mary and other respondentswere surprised at the pace of instruction within LCA and thought thecurriculum should have been more challenging. She had struggled withMaths at junior cycle but felt that the level was too easy in LCA: