Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

In Ireland -- with one kid in Junior Cert and one who did Junior Cert, then had an external Transition Year, then self studied for A levels, and one who's done home school/self study through GCSE and now doing A levels.

It's an optional, definitely not universal thing. Not all schools offer it, and even then I get the impression that it's well less than half the students take the opportunity. The implementation is also highly school dependent, which is either totally expected or a complete surprise, given that the rest of the curriculum and tests are all national level standards.

This article paints a far rosier picture than I've really seen from the local experiences, but that's probably as much the lack of drive at the school than anything else.

My eldest's TY experience with us was great -- we took the opportunity to AirB&B around Europe, at least till Covid hit. But we were totally comfortable with dealing with the home schooling part of that for the three of them.

What are A levels, by the way? I hear this a lot on British television but have no context.

The highest qualification you'll get from a school in the UK. Typically studied for between ages 16-18. They are the most common qualification used for university entry by students who go through the UK school system.

Unlike some other systems where students stud a broad spectrum of subjects (with core subjects like maths, english and science being compulsory), students typically only study 3 (or maybe 4) subjects a A level (with subjects being things like "maths", "geography", "chemistry", etc), with no compulsory subjects.

Britain used to have "Ordinary level" (O levels) at age ~16 and "Advanced level" exams (A levels) at ~18. Students usually studied 5-8 O levels and then either left school to pursue a career or went on to study (usually) 3 A levels and go to university.

O levels got replaced back in the 80's. A levels never got renamed.

Kind of like APs, except that you typically study only 3, sometimes 4 subjects for the final two years of high school and then take final exams.

So for my final two years of high school, I only studies math, physics and bio.

In the same way that an AP can sometimes give you a semester's credit at a university, an A-Level can sometimes give you a full year's credit. (Only in US universities, though. In the UK you're expected to have done them, so you don't get extra credit. Though, for the same reason, a bachelors degree in the UK is typically only three years, not four.)

This was certainly the case in most of Britain. Scotland has a separate education system from England and has today and historically offered different high school level qualifications ("Highers" etc).

Sorry, yes, my bad. Thank your for the correction

All private and boarder schools have it as mandatory for at least 20 years at this point. The public schools that don't tend to either be in extremely rural areas with low university accession to begin with (and a different focus on things like the Leaving Cert Applied and/or facilitating the Sileage/Farming season).

The school I’m talking about is a public school in one of the bigger towns in Ireland. It’s not predominantly rural, but it’s also not one of the ”good” schools, which here are Catholic.