Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

SCHOOL EXPERIENCES AND LEARNING PROCESSES AMONG LCA PARTICIPANTS 79I’ve ever missed a day like working, unless I’m really sick where before in schoolI’d take off a day you know, I’d try and get a day off, I’ve a pain in my head, butsince then, no, I don’t think there’s any point in it, that I suppose is good, youknow. (Sarah, 21, completed LCA, employed)In a number of cases, however, LCA graduates reported a lack ofdiscipline within class, with a disruption to learning time. Sandra felt theteachers in her school were not able to control the ‘messing’ in her LCAclass:There was a lot in it that wanted to get work done but you couldn’t get it done.Say like I was saying before like you want to get it done but you can’t get it donebecause people kept messing and things like that and you’d be getting, say you’dbe falling out with them over it because like you’re losing out because of themmessing like. And when you say it to someone, like say if you say it to the teacher,you tell them to stop like, they say ah will you just be quiet and do your work …Some teachers were really quiet, they just say now, Shh, Shh, but like, no one’sgoing to listen to someone at the top of the class saying shush, shush. … There’dbe times you’d feel like oh I’m going to scream like, you know the way you don’twant to go ahead with it but you just do because you know some of them aren’tgoing to listen to you. (Sandra, 23, completed LCA, home duties)Linda felt that much of the teachers’ time was spent disciplining andremoving people from her LCA class:For the teacher it would have been more hard because they’d have to deal with alot of people getting kicked out in one day, you know, for to get other people tolearn like. It was kind of that hardness for the teacher, like the teachers I have tosay, some of them were really good and really, really tried. … Yeah, no one elsecould learn like, so what could you do? (Linda, 21, completed LCA,student)The following section develops on this issue of interaction withclassmates within the LCA class.5.7SocialRelationswith PeersSmaller class sizes and the emphasis on working as a group within classwere seen as enhancing social relations among students:You kind of got closer to more people, because you didn’t have to sit in the classand actually just listen to somebody talking all day, you know. You got tointegrate with people and you kind of made more friends through that. (Ronan,25, completed LCA, apprentice)There was such a small class that everyone got on. (Mary, 22, completedLCA, home duties)Reported levels of bullying are similar for LCA and other LC students inboth fifth and sixth year.Some respondents reported social mixing between the LCA and otherLC class groups. Andrew felt that his LCA class was treated the same as the