If your child started fifth year in September 2025, they are in the first group to sit the redeveloped Leaving Certificate in June 2027, and a large part of their result will be decided before the written exams begin. I run Study Skills Ireland, I am in schools across the country every week, and this is the change that parents ask me about most and understand least.
What is actually changing in the Leaving Certificate?
The Leaving Certificate is being redeveloped subject by subject, and the biggest practical change is that every redeveloped subject now carries an Additional Assessment Component worth at least 40% of the marks. That work is completed during the year rather than in June, and it is assessed externally by the State Examinations Commission.
So the shape of the year changes. For decades the Irish Leaving Cert was a single sprint towards a fortnight in June, and everything a family did was organised around that. For a student in a redeveloped subject, a substantial share of the result is already banked before they walk into the exam hall.
That is not a small adjustment to a timetable. It changes what good preparation looks like, it changes when the pressure lands, and it changes the sort of help a parent can usefully give. Most of the families I meet at Study Skills Ireland seminars are still planning the old year.
Which subjects are affected, and when?
The changes arrive in tranches. The first group of revised subjects has been taught since September 2025 and will be examined for the first time in June 2027. A second group began being taught in September 2026 and will be examined in 2028. Everything else continues under the existing arrangements until its own turn comes.
The first tranche covers revised Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Business, along with revised Arabic, Ancient Greek and Latin, and two entirely new subjects, Drama, Film and Theatre Studies, and Climate Action and Sustainable Development. The second tranche brings in revised Accounting, Construction Studies, Engineering, English, Geography, Physical Education and the Link Modules.
The practical consequence is that a single student can be sitting a mix. A sixth year in 2027 might have Biology and Chemistry under the new arrangements while English, Geography and everything else still runs the older way. Two different sets of rules, in one schoolbag, in one year.
The Department of Education publishes the current position at gov.ie, and I would encourage every parent to look at the subject list themselves rather than rely on what was true last year.
What is an Additional Assessment Component?
An Additional Assessment Component is a piece of assessed work that is not a traditional written paper. Depending on the subject it can be a research project, a practical investigation, a portfolio or an oral assessment. It is completed during the school year, it is marked by the State Examinations Commission rather than by the school, and it is worth at least 40% of the subject.
The phrase that matters there is externally assessed. This is not the same as the classroom based assessments families will remember from the Junior Cycle, which are marked in the school. This work goes away to be marked like any other State exam paper, and it counts for as much as a very large chunk of the June result.
Sample materials were published in 2025 so that teachers and students could see what was expected. If your child has not shown you what theirs looks like, asking to see it is a reasonable and useful conversation to have this term.
Why does forty per cent before June change how a family plans the year?
Because the old advice quietly stops working. Telling a student to get their head down after Christmas assumes the marks are all still ahead of them. Under the new arrangements a student who drifts through first term can lose marks in October that no amount of May revision will recover.
The other half of it is that project work rewards a completely different set of habits than exam revision does. Revision rewards repetition and recall. A research project rewards starting early, keeping notes, meeting an internal deadline and doing a second draft. Those are planning habits, and they are the thing most Irish secondary students have never been taught.
This is the part I spend most time on in schools now. A student who can plan a fortnight, break a task into parts and protect a working hour will do better under the new Leaving Cert than a student who can cram brilliantly. That is a genuine change, and it favours the organised rather than the naturally quick.
What does this mean for a fifth year or sixth year student right now?
For a sixth year in a redeveloped subject, the project work is live this term and the deadlines are real. For a fifth year, this is the year to build the planning habits before the assessed work arrives. In both cases the useful question at home is not how much are you studying, it is what is due, and when.
I would be asking three things over the next few weeks. What assessment components does each subject have. When is each one due. And has your child written those dates down anywhere other than their own head. In most houses I visit, the answer to the third one is no.
A single sheet on the kitchen wall with every deadline on it does more for a family than an extra grind. It takes twenty minutes and it removes the argument, because the conversation stops being about effort and starts being about a date that is coming whether anybody feels ready or not.
Does the new Leaving Certificate make things easier or harder?
It makes things different rather than easier. Spreading the assessment reduces the weight resting on one fortnight in June, which is genuinely good for anxious students. It also removes the escape route for students who rely on a late surge, and it asks for consistency across a whole year, which many teenagers find harder than a short intense sprint.
There is a fairness argument running in both directions and I would not pretend it is settled. Continuous assessment tends to suit students with structure and support at home, which is not evenly distributed. Equally, a single terminal exam has never been kind to a student who gets sick in June or freezes on the day.
What I would say to parents is this. Whatever you think of the reform, it is happening, and the students who do well under it will be the ones who learned to work steadily rather than the ones who learned to panic efficiently.
What should parents actually do this term?
Find out which of your child’s subjects are affected, get every assessment deadline written down in one visible place, and shift the conversation at home from hours studied to work completed. Those three things take an evening and they will do more than anything else you can buy.
After that, the useful help is unglamorous. Protect a regular working time rather than policing it. Ask what the next step on the project is rather than whether it is finished. And resist the urge to take it over, because a parent who rewrites the project has taught their child nothing except that somebody else will eventually do it.
If your child genuinely does not know how to plan a piece of work across weeks, that is a skill gap rather than an attitude problem, and it can be taught. It is most of what we do at Study Skills Ireland seminars, and it is the single thing I would fix first this year.
Where can I check what applies to my own child?
Go to gov.ie for the Department of Education material on senior cycle redevelopment, and to examinations.ie for anything issued by the State Examinations Commission. Then ask your child’s year head or guidance counsellor which specific subjects in your school are affected, because that is the only answer that is certain for your own family.
I would check rather than assume. This is moving year by year, and advice that was accurate for a sibling two years ago may be wrong for the child sitting at your kitchen table now.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the first Leaving Certificate exam under the new arrangements?
June 2027 is the first Leaving Certificate to examine the first tranche of redeveloped subjects. Students who began fifth year in September 2025 are that first group.
How much are Additional Assessment Components worth?
At least 40% of the marks in each redeveloped subject. They are completed during the school year and assessed externally by the State Examinations Commission rather than marked in the school.
Which subjects changed first?
Revised Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Business, revised Arabic, Ancient Greek and Latin, and two new subjects, Drama, Film and Theatre Studies, and Climate Action and Sustainable Development.
Will my child have a mix of old and new subjects?
Very likely. Because the changes arrive in tranches, a student can sit redeveloped subjects alongside subjects still following the previous arrangements in the same year.
What is the single most useful thing a parent can do?
Get every assessment deadline for every subject written down in one visible place at home, then talk about work completed rather than hours studied. Study Skills Ireland teaches students the planning method behind that in school seminars across Ireland.
Bringing this into your school
Study Skills Ireland runs study skills seminars for secondary school students and talks for parents across Ireland, and the planning skills the new Leaving Certificate rewards are exactly what those sessions teach. If you are a parent, ask your school about a seminar. If you are a teacher, principal or parents association member, get in touch and we will talk through what would suit your year groups.
You can see what the student study skills seminar covers, read about the parents seminar, or get in touch with Enda O’Doherty directly.
