Delight and relief for Leaving Cert class of 2020

Schools across Meath have been delighted with this year's Leaving Certificate results, with students achieving high grades across most subjects.

Following the cancellation of the state exams this year, the Leaving Certificate results are based on a national standardisation applied to results estimated by teachers.

Deirdre Maye principal of St Peter’s College, Dunboyne was delighted with the results.

“The entire class of 2020 demonstrated their tenacity, determination and resilience under the most difficult of circumstances and St Peter’s College as a school community could not be prouder,” she said.

She congratulated Mikey Whelan who achieved 8 A1s and Kate Reynolds who achieved 7 A1s.

“Mikey is hoping to follow a course in Physics and Kate is looking forward to a course in Global Business.”

Ms Maye was joined by deputy principals Leonora Acton, Brian McNamara and Gretta Judge at the school on Monday to congratulate students from the class of 2020 on their fantastic results.

“They are all eagerly awaiting the next step with the CAO offers on Friday,” she said.

It was a very special day for Colaiste de Lacy in Ashbourne where the school's first ever Leaving Certificate class got their results.

“We are really, really pleased. Over 40 per cent of the students achieved 400 points or more and 10 per cent had over 500 points” said the delighted principal, Janice Uí Bheoláin.

“We are very proud of them. They are all lovely young people, which matters as much as the results. Their parents will be very proud of them too,” she said.

Brigid Bennett principal of Dunshaughlin Community College was “over the moon” with the results.

“We are delighted. We have three students with over 600 points, two of whom got the maximum of 625 and we had 25 students achieve over 500 points.

“It has been great to see all of the class of 2020 achieve their potential.

“It shows the strength and resilience of these young men and women.”

Paddy Carr, principal of Colaiste na Mi in Navan had great praise for all the young people who had gone through so much over the last few months.

“It is a great relief for the Leaving Certificate students.

“This particular group had to deal with so much because of Covid-19.

“They had to deal with so much uncertainty. The school had to close its doors with an hours’ notice back in March, but because of the level of technology we have , we were able to get on with classes.

“Then they were wondering if they would be back at school after Easter, would there be a Leaving Cert, when would it be, then they were told it would be predicted grades and there was so much media attention.”

Mr Carr said the students had done brilliantly despite all the uncertainty.

“We are very happy overall at the high performance of the students. They did very well and now they know where they stand.

“The relief and excitement of now being able to face the next stage of their journey is wonderful,” he said.

There was relief and delight too at Eureka, Kells, where principal, Caroline O'Reilly said they were very happy with the results.

“They have been great. We have a lot of H1s and H2s and a lot of students scored very high points.” She said the standardised results were very much in line with the teachers calculated grades.

“It is looking very good. There is relief all around and we are hoping they get the courses they want.”

Sean Kelly, Principal of Loreto, Navan was ecstatic at the results.

“They are really good. Couldn't have been happier. The results were very much in line with the teachers calculations.”

Mr Kelly said that they have a direct line to guidance counsellors, but this probably will get busier on Friday when the CAO offers are made.

Colm O'Rourke principal of St Patrick's Classical School in Navan, said he was really happy with the results which included six student receiving over 600 points.

"We were concerned about it how it work out, but we are really happy, we had excellent results and the students did very well.

"The results were broadly in line with previous years, so we didn’t benefit from grade inflation. The teachers took the process very seriously and the grades they put in were pretty much what the student got.

"We were happy with the process," he said.