Teachers will be required to provide a “fair, reasonable and carefully considered” judgement of the likely percentage mark each student would have achieved if they had sat their exams and completed coursework under normal conditions.
These grades will then be sent to the Department of Education where a unit will compare information on how students in the school have fared in particular subjects in the Leaving Cert over the past three years compared to the national standard. Unions have also been pushing for a protocol to be included in the guidance which states that any inappropriate contact with teachers or schools will be formally recorded and forwarded to the department.
“Such contact would be regarded as totally inappropriate and a serious attempt to interfere with the fairness and objectivity required of teachers and schools in the assigning of estimated marks and ranking for the individual student concerned and for the students in the school as a whole,” according to new department guidance.