Ms Andrea Feeney:

I will hand over to my colleague in a moment but what we currently have in the system should be borne in mind, in that there are subjects with additional components of assessment. There is no doubt but that students going into those final exams in those subjects will say that they have banked some marks, so it takes some of the pressure off. What we need to be careful about, if introducing components of assessments in all subjects, is how we time and schedule them so there is not a constant feeling of stress on students throughout the senior cycle programme.

I ask my colleague Ms Sheridan to elaborate.