Leaving Certs still have time on their hands

A downside of the late Easter is that when the sixth years return to school next week, there really is very little time left before the Leaving Cert begins. Yes, the Leaving Cert. Summer is indeed coming.

For all the criticism, the Leaving Certificate has been and remains the most effective rocket to launch young West of Ireland people into the world. As a region, we have been rather successful at this exam over the decades, perhaps because we appreciate the good it can do. The statistics confirm that but you don’t need them to know it. Walk onto any campus in Ireland over the past forty years – save perhaps University College Cork – and you will have found an abundance of us, there because of our good Leaving Certs.

It can sometimes take a while for the young person to realise just how many people from their own neck of the woods are on their college campuses. Other times the realisation can be more dramatic. A nephew of mine started in Dublin City University a few weeks before an All-Ireland Final and as soon as he walked onto the campus, in a scene worthy of Wordsworth and his daffodils, everywhere he looked there were hosts of Mayo jerseys. Our crowd, you might say.

But for this year’s crop, the sharp edge of this year’s late Easter brings a particular challenge. There is very little teaching time left. It won’t be long before the summer term ends. Now of course there was a longer spring term, but there is something about Easter that focuses the mind ahead of June exams.

In a year when Easter is in March, sixth years return to school with still well over two months to prepare. In such years, they come back after Easter full of resolve, and with good time to deliver on that resolve. This year – by the time they return – it is a little over one month before exam time. That’s a big difference. If someone doesn’t have the curriculum covered – or well understood – by now, their personal alp is just that much steeper. The time for the patient explanation in class is running out. Wednesday, June 4th, is coming quickly: the exams are around the corner now.

Now for some of course that will be good news. They will want to get on with it. They have worked hard and are ready to get through the scripts. They can’t wait to start piling up their notes in the corner of the room after each exam – each day their ‘out’ tray will get higher.

For many others, the feelings won’t be so straightforward. They will worry they have a lot still to do and maybe feeling anxious about it all. What advice can anyone give to a young person, whichever category they are in?

Advice is cheap because, at the end of the day, the person doing the exam has to do it and do it their own way. But there are some sensible things that can be said and can be taken or left depending on how useful they are.

So, with that caveat, here we go. Whether you put in a great fifth year and have worked hard all through this year, or you are one of those with a lot still to do, you first have to figure the best use of your remaining time.

The first thing is to understand that challenge properly. Any Leaving Cert student still has quite a lot of time, but everyone needs to be smart about how they use it. The Leaving Cert process, even when May is on the horizon, remains a marathon, not a sprint. If you try to do 12-hour days every day between now and the exams, whether you’re catching up or keeping the momentum going, you will in all likelihood run out of steam.

The tactical thing to do is to plot out a strategy first. What do I need to get done? How much time – that is reasonable – do I have? How can I save time? What are the key questions I can ask and support I can get from my teachers and others over the next few weeks? Preparing for exams is a matter of strategy as well as study – use the remaining time with your teachers above all to get to know the paper. Where are the key marks, how do they mark an exam paper, where does a candidate get the marks? What material have I not yet fully understood, and how can I master it as quickly as possible? And once all those questions are answered, then how much time am I going to allocate to what?

Once you have a clear sense of all that, make every day you study between now and the exams a good one. For those who say there are only so many hours in the day, run this little exercise. Track the amount of hours you spent on your phone last week, and halve that next week. You will find a load of time is suddenly available. Take the odd Sunday off for sure, but this exam is important, so you want to give it your best shot. Exercise and getting decent sleep are part of – not a diversion from – your study routine. If you are feeling fit and feeling good, you will absorb the material faster and better.

There are safety nets, of course. There are loads of options out there for any young person regardless of how they do – or do not do – in the Leaving Cert. The media will be full of stories from seemingly successful people who will have their tale of how they didn’t need the Leaving Cert to do great. Yeah. Ok. Fine. But safety nets are for when things go wrong, and for most people, a good Leaving remains damn important and is the right thing to aim for. So, work hard, and try and get your best one. If ultimately you don’t get the course you want, you’ll do something else brilliant, but don’t leave stuff out on the pitch.

Parents and other members of your support cast – anxious to know how they can help – will provide nutritious food, comfortable and clean clothes, lifts to wherever you need to go to and the wise ones will stay out of your ear. Back of the scrum everyone and push.

And finally, in the midst of all the work and the effort, try and remember what it is all for. It is all part of trying to address a great question that really matters: what I am going to do with my one precious life? So keep thinking about what you want to do, remind yourself that the Leaving is a means to that end and good luck with the study.

And lastly, the Leaving, like all things, will end. The golden summer before you fly the nest then opens up in front of you. Before then, remember that everyone is proud of you and has your back. Now, stop wasting time reading advice articles. Go and do your best and then get ready to really start that one precious life of yours.