{"id":603432,"date":"2026-08-24T20:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/603432\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T20:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:08:13","slug":"leaving-cert-all-thoughts-now-move-to-cao-round-one-offers-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/603432\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaving Cert: All thoughts now move to CAO round one offers \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"> Last week was a big one for our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/leaving-certificate\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/leaving-certificate\/\">Leaving Certificate<\/a> students, with more than 70,000 pupils receiving their results  on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Grade inflation came down by 1.8 percentage points compared to last year, with the post-marking adjustment (PMA) applied to this year\u2019s result left at 4 per cent, down from 5.8 per cent last year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">This meant students received, on average, one fewer grade increase than last year\u2019s class.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Despite this, we heard some wonderful stories of people excelling, against the odds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Kayleigh Quinn, who left school in second year having struggled with her mental health, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/education\/2026\/08\/21\/student-who-left-school-in-second-year-gets-625-points\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">achieved her goal<\/a> of 625 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cao\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cao\/\">CAO<\/a> points. \u201cI put in the work and I suppose it paid off in the end,\u201d she told Jen Hogan on Friday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">All thoughts now move to the CAO round one offers, which are out on Wednesday at 2pm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">We will be keeping a keen eye on what points will be set for individual college courses around the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">There will be a live news story starting on Wednesday morning on The Irish Times, and our guidance counsellors Deirdre Garrett and Brian Howard will be back on the CAO Help Desk from 2pm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">They can give quick and clear feedback as you navigate college offers and choices, and decide your next steps over the coming days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Good luck on Wednesday, and please do get in touch if you have any questions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">And remember, CAO points are not the be-all and end-all. Tomorrow, The Irish Times will publish a special 16-page supplement, Smart Choices, which will be full of information for those who may be considering an alternative career path \u2013 utilising further education and training options.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">We explore apprenticeships, PLC courses and tertiary degrees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">And we try to answer the question: Which courses provide the real routes to opportunity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week was a big one for our Leaving Certificate students, with more than 70,000 pupils receiving their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43491,17163,61,60,3184,43,255801,28205,2055,17159],"class_list":["post-603432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cao","tag-classroom-to-college","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-leaving-certificate","tag-news","tag-plc","tag-second-level","tag-students","tag-third-level"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603432","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=603432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}