Mr. Ryan Sharpe:

The following has been my experience of the leaving certificate senior cycle so far. The education system has been by far the most stressful thing in my life. Getting an education was not something I looked forward to doing. Instead, it felt like a challenge. Not a challenge that makes one work harder, but an unachievable goal that I was working myself to the bone for. Even when I started in mainstream secondary school I was hoping for change. I constantly talked about changing the system that decided our futures. Although my mam did not care for it much, she saw it as me moaning. She would say: "We all went through it". I hate when people say that. Going through something is not good. Why is it that just because you went through it, so do we. Imagine if you tried to change something inherently bad and you were told that you cannot change it although it was bad for other people too. Instead of telling us to get over it, why not make a change and reform the leaving certificate. Set us up with the skills to face the world not break us down to the point that we get used to it. I know the world is hard, and it can be challenging, but instead of beating us down, five days a week, why not help us to learn to help ourselves, and give us what we need without making our lives hell.