Coláiste Bhríde Summer Newsletter 2025 - Flipbook - Page 37
YSI - Young Social Innovators
During the Easter holidays, Minister for Education Helen McEntee announced changes to the Junior
Cycle (JC) bands and credited our YSI class ‘Take a Stand, Change the Band’ for this change.
It is an unbelievable achievement to think that this class
of 31 students has changed the JC grading system for
73,000 students this year and many, many more to come.
Young people are amazing and can achieve anything if they fight hard enough and our project is
evidence of this. It has not been a simple journey though and the class has had to fight every step of
the way. Our journey started the day that our class received their JC results and we noted the mixed
reaction among our class. Students found the merit bracket especially frustrating due to how wide it
was (55%-74%) leaving students unsure as to how they actually performed in the exam. This started a
class conversation which lead to the birth of our project.
Seven months later we succeeded in putting enough pressure on the minister to have the grade
brackets changed. The top four grades are now equally separated by 15%. In essence, the changes
were relatively small and the brackets remain much broader than at Leaving Certificate level which are
separated by 10%. Students still do not have access to the percentages attained in each subject or
have easy access to their corrected scripts. So, our fight continues.
The YSI must be applauded for their dedication and hard work. They have been in numerous paper
articles, have been on Southeast Radio three times and lead a much publicised protest at Leinster
House.
The group would like to say a massive thank you to our entire school community for their support and
good wishes over the course of our project. Eoin Mac Raghnaill reporter for the Wicklow People,
Jessica Casey Irish Examiner reporter and Lucinda and Alan in South East radio have helped us so
much.
The next stop is hopefully the Dáil Education Committee. We have a submission ready to go.
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