The transition year led Paul Mescal and Cillian Murphy to become actors – and has had similarly seismic affects on thousands of secondary school students. Should other countries follow suit?
‘If you know your Flann O’Brien, you’ll know that bike maintenance and philosophy go arse-on-saddle in this country,” Niall Hare, the 63-year-old headteacher at Kishoge community college in Dublin, told me. He was running through what his students do on their “transition year”, which is the missing fourth year (a UK year 11) of the Irish education system. Even the way it’s named has a magical, secret-compartment quality, like Platform 9 3/4 in Harry Potter, or the 7 1/2th floor in Being John Malkovich.
In Ireland, secondary school starts with the three-year junior cycle, beginning at age 12 or 13, and concluding with a Junior Certificate (roughly equivalent to a UK GCSE). Then you can either go straight into the two-year senior cycle to start preparing for the Leaving Certificate (roughly equivalent to A-levels or the International Baccalaureate), or you can have a transition year (TY) first – so you could think of it as a kind of gap year, halfway through secondary school.
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Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/oct/16/ireland-school-secret-transition-year-off-curriculum
Author : Zoe Williams
Publish date : 2024-10-16 09:55:00
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