{"id":482612,"date":"2026-06-04T11:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T11:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/482612\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T11:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T11:34:08","slug":"paula-meehan-number-one-students-pin-hopes-on-accessible-poet-appearing-in-english-paper-two-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/482612\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Paula Meehan number one\u2019: Students pin hopes on \u2018accessible\u2019 poet appearing in English paper two \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of students began their Leaving and Junior Certificate<\/a> exams yesterday. Teachers praised Leaving Cert<\/a> English paper one as a \u201clovely\u201d exam<\/a>, while there were no surprises within the ordinary level paper. <\/p>\n

Home economics candidates were presented with a \u201cchallenging but fair\u201d paper at higher level and a \u201cstudent-friendly\u201d offering at ordinary level, teachers said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The second day of exams kicks off with engineering at 9.30am and English paper two follows at 2pm. <\/p>\n

Key reads<\/p>\n

Niamh Towey – 31 minutes ago<\/p>\n

The Leaving Certificate exam papers for engineering have now been published on the State Examinations Commission website.<\/p>\n

You can access the higher level paper here<\/a> and the ordinary level paper here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What do we hope comes up on English paper two? \u2018Paula Meehan number one\u2019<\/p>\n

English paper two is up this afternoon and after a well-received paper one yesterday, teacher Sarah Doyle from Holy Family Community School in Rathcoole, Co Dublin, knows what she\u2019s hoping for. \u201cSimplicity, clarity, directness, accessibility. A chance to do well,\u201d she told Jen Hogan this morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaula Meehan would be number one\u201d when it comes to the poet students hope will appear on both the ordinary and higher-level papers, Doyle says. \u201cJust because they love the poetry. It\u2019s so accessible. It\u2019s story-telling and she\u2019s just so easy to identify with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some students really enjoy WB Yeats and will be hoping he\u2019s on the paper, she says. \u201cSome of them would be history buffs. So there\u2019s a huge historical context there.<\/p>\n

\u201cMacbeth is the single text for a huge amount of the higher-level students. You\u2019re just looking for something with clarity. A question that\u2019s easy to understand. A question that doesn\u2019t have a really difficult word in it that\u2019s going to throw them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually you\u2019ll get a character question and a theme question. So you\u2019re just looking for a simple version of one of them. Because sometimes the concepts are actually not so difficult but the way it\u2019s dressed up with words can be difficult for a lot of kids,\u201d Doyle says.<\/p>\n

She says the decrease in reading among young people means \u201cthey don\u2019t have the same vocabulary skills\u201d. This is something the English paper doesn\u2019t always seem to reflect or take account of, she says. \u201cThe paper hasn\u2019t moved in the direction that the students have moved in. It\u2019s almost like it\u2019s trying to catch them out the last few years. Any English teacher will tell you literacy levels have plummeted, and the paper hasn\u2019t adapted in any shape or form to move with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comparative is sometimes considered the worst question, she says. The question itself is very long and can be very challenging for students with literacy difficulties or dyslexia.<\/p>\n

Paper two is three hours and 20 minutes long, but this is no bad thing, Doyle says, as it gives students \u201croom to think\u201d and consider.<\/p>\n

\u201cStay until the end,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Leaving Cert advice from a guidance counsellor\"NiamhNiamh Dwyer. <\/p>\n

Niamh Dwyer is a career guidance counsellor and a parent of three, with her youngest child currently sitting the Leaving Certificate exams.<\/p>\n

As an expert professionally, and in the veteran Leaving Cert parent sense, she knows what awaits.<\/p>\n

For the students, she says, \u201cit\u2019s about striking balance. A balance between what I\u2019d call routine and rest.\u201d <\/p>\n

Students should really focus \u201con what they know\u201d rather than what they feel they don\u2019t, she told Jen Hogan today.<\/p>\n

You can read the full article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Niamh Towey – 2 hours ago<\/p>\n

Engineering has started, with the ordinary level paper finishing at 12pm and higher level at 12.30pm.<\/p>\n

We will share the papers here when we have them and my colleague Jack Brady will have reaction from teachers when it finishes. <\/p>\n

Niamh Towey – 3 hours ago<\/p>\n

As for the A-levels? They don\u2019t compare, according to Finn McRedmond.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remain full of praise for the Leaving Cert system \u2013 believing it to be of considerably greater value than its UK counterpart, the A-levels,\u201d McRedmond writes<\/a> in her column today.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut my greatest criticism of the Leaving Cert? Perhaps it is not robust, rigorous or difficult enough,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Phew, that\u2019s grand when you\u2019re not the one sitting it.<\/p>\n

What do you think about that? <\/p>\n

Niamh Towey – 3 hours ago<\/p>\n

You think the Leaving Cert is hard? Try the gaokao<\/p>\n

Almost 13 million students in China will start the gaokao on Sunday.<\/p>\n

It is the world\u2019s biggest exam and by some measures the most psychologically challenging, according to our China Correspondent Denis Staunton, who wrote this fascinating piece<\/a> about the exam.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very tiring. The competition is intense. Every day feels exhausting. The feeling is that it\u2019s tiring and difficult,\u201d one of the students said.<\/p>\n

Students discuss the gaokao, China’s university exam <\/p>\n

Niamh Towey – 4 hours ago<\/p>\n

This is the first year that students who qualify for the Reasonable Accommodations at Certificate Exams scheme get an extra 10 minutes to complete their papers. <\/p>\n

The scheme is designed to help students with special educational needs who have difficulty in communicating what they know to an examiner because of a physical, visual, hearing and\/or learning difficulty.<\/p>\n

Some of these accommodations can include reading assistance, scribes, voice-activated computers and being able to take the exam in a hospital.<\/p>\n

Were you one of those students who got 10 extra minutes yesterday? Did you think it was enough?<\/p>\n

Let me know by email niamh.towey@irishtimes.com or through our call-out here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Niamh Towey – 4 hours ago<\/p>\n

Day two of the Leaving Certificate kicks off with engineering at 9.30am this morning.<\/p>\n

English paper two is in the afternoon, starting at 2pm.<\/p>\n

Yesterday appears to have started off as smoothly as we could have hoped, with general reaction to English paper one being positive.<\/p>\n

Home economics in the afternoon seems to have caused a little bit more of a stir, with some teachers calling it unpredictable. <\/p>\n

You can read our full paper reviews for English here <\/a>and home economics here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

We will be bringing you live reaction to today\u2019s papers here, along with advice for parents and pupils.<\/p>\n

I would love to hear from you as the exams go on – you can get me on niamh.towey@irishtimes.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of students began their Leaving and Junior Certificate exams yesterday. Teachers praised Leaving Cert English paper one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43491,61,60,45841,3184,43],"class_list":["post-482612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cao","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-junior-cert","tag-leaving-certificate","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}