Ms Andrea Feeney:

The Cathaoirleach has raised a very big issue in highlighting that. Again, the nature of the reform at junior cycle was that it aimed to take the focus off the certified final examination and bring opportunities for assessment into the classroom with the school teacher. During the Covid pandemic, we saw the role teachers had in providing information that ultimately led to the grade awarded to their students. That led to a conversation in the context of senior cycle reform suggesting that this was something that needed to be explored in greater detail. It is already there at junior cycle, however. The JCPA is the parchment students get at the end of their junior cycle experience. No one element of assessment or examination should be any more or any less important than another. Perhaps something is needed in the messaging and information that is out there to, as the Cathaoirleach says, bring all of that together because too great a focus on the final written examinations is not within the spirit of junior cycle reform. In most subjects, although not all, there are two classroom-based assessments that students are doing along with their written examination. Art is assessed in and of itself and there is no written examination at all. In the case of Irish, there are two classroom-based assessments, one of which is a communicative task, which can be an oral examination undertaken with the teachers. Students' performance in that is recorded, remitted centrally and generated on their junior cycle profiles of achievement. Any decisions taken that this is not important because it is not part of the final exam and the SEC does not certify it are not within the spirit of the reform process, under which we should value all elements of the assessment and not just the final written examination.

In relation to the standard-setting process, I am not sure if members wanted some further information on that and on how we set the standards and mark examinations. The Cathaoirleach mentioned his family experience of marking. I ask Ms Sheridan to speak to that briefly.