Transition Year is a one year programme between Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate which helps students experience a smooth transition to Leaving Certificate and beyond.
Transition Year was introduced to schools in Ireland in 1973. Good Counsel College introduced Transition Year for the first time in 1994 and 54 students took it up. Since then Transition Year has taken on the following pattern :
The Department of Education defines the mission statement of Transition Year in the following way : to promote the personal, social, educational and vocational development of pupils and to prepare them for their role as autonomous, participative and responsible members of society.
In Good Counsel College, we agree with the Department of Education’s ideals but prefer to put it another way. Our TY will attempt to prepare your sons for TRANSITION :
Many parents are concerned that their sons will lose touch with Leaving Certificate material in Transition Year. In fact, TY gives the boys a chance to do the following:
The Department of Education used to put a limit on the amount of Leaving Certificate material which could be studied during Transition Year. This limit is no longer in place, although TY should NOT be regarded as Year 1 of a 3 year Leaving Certificate cycle.
The emphasis here is again on the “hands on” approach. The passive student is encouraged to become actively involved in class and outside the classroom. In this way, we aim to cultivate many of the life skills which have already been mentioned.
Activities outside the classroom are necessary for achieving the objectives of Good Counsel College’s Transition Year. Each year, we try to offer new activities and we listen carefully to the boys’ evaluations so that mistakes are not repeated. The boys are invited to suggest activities, projects and modules for the benefit of the class. Throughout these activities, the students are encouraged to mix with new people, make new friends and find new interests.
The essential element of a successful Transition Year is the inbuilt flexibility of the programme. The students should quickly become used to the increased freedom they will have throughout the year. They will learn how to handle this freedom, so that it does not become an excuse for opting out of activities.
However, students still need guidelines. Each student is assessed at regular intervals during Transition Year and must also learn how to evaluate and be responsible for his own performance. As parents of a Transition Year student, you will need to be kept informed of his progress.
TY is not a "doss" year. Simply put, it is different from other years in school. There is an emphasis on the development of skills which will enable the student to create goals and challenges, to discipline himself and to study effectively. The timetable will address topics on the Leaving Certificate syllabus and students are expected to perform well in these areas. The students are subject to a system of evaluation outside the state examination system. By the end of the year, the student will have a portfolio of achievements of which he can be proud and which will look well on his C.V. It is envisaged that the skills learned in TY will facilitate an easy transition into Fifth Year and the state examinations.
Each student will be interviewed to assess his suitability for the programme by a committee of staff. A certain commitment from each student is required. What has your son got to offer ? Absenteeism will be monitored and frequent absences will require explanation. Your son's teachers will be able to advise you as to his needs in school. You, yourselves, will know if he would benefit from an injection of personal skills. Many parents use TY to give their sons an extra year of "growing up" before taking on the Leaving Certificate syllabus. However, age should not be your only consideration. A student is never too old or too young to learn new skills.
Possibly! But, he may also find it difficult to settle back after Third Year. In Good Counsel College, we have generally found that students who go into Fifth Year after TY show a degree of maturity which may be lacking in other students. They appear more ready to work and more aware of the seriousness of the Leaving Certificate courses. They bring the skills which they have learned in Transition Year into Fifth Year. In most cases, the TY graduate is seen as a very positive influence on a Fifth Year classroom.
This is a very personal decision. If your primary concern lies with CAO points, preliminary results from a study conducted by the National Counsel for Curriculum and Assessment for the Department of Education and Science are interesting. This study tracked the progress of students from Junior to Leaving Certificate. It found that:
In making this decision, it may also be worth considering that a repeat year makes no attempt to attain any of the objectives of Transition Year.
N.B.
Transition Year doesn’t suit every student.
Students must be willing to put the work in.
They get out of Transition Year what they put in.
Good Counsel College is very grateful to the large number of businesses which take our students on work placement during TY. If you are in a position to help us place a student, please complete the following form.
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