State Examinations Commission (SEC) Accredited Grades
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Teachers and students have adapted to alternative approaches to teaching and learning, through emergency remote teaching and learning. However, despite additional resourcing to schools, disparities remain in accessing technology, connectivity and digital skills, which may have impacted on learning. Therefore, all Leaving Certificate 2021 school students will be able to opt in to receive a set of SEC Accredited Grades. The grades will be arrived at through a process by which the teacher will use a range of available evidence to support her/his judgement-making in estimating the percentage marks to award to students, following which these estimated marks will be subjected to an in-school alignment process and later a national standardisation process.
SEC Accredited Grades will be provided:
Students will be required to register on the SEC’s Candidate Portal; confirm their subject and level entry details; opt for the examinations and/or to receive SEC Accredited Grades. The SEC’s Candidate Portal is expected to open in the week of 8 March 2021 to allow students to make their choices. Students will have approximately one week in which to do this. Details of the students’ choices will be provided to each school.
The portal will re-open in late April/early May to enable candidates to review their choices. The final confirmed candidate details will be provided to schools in advance of the in-school process.
An SEC Accredited Grade is a grade that can be provided to a student in respect of a subject following the combination by the SEC of a school estimated percentage mark for a student’s expected performance in an examination and national data available in relation to the performance of students in examinations over a period of time. Accredited Grades therefore take cognisance of performance in all aspects of an examination including, where relevant, oral, practical and coursework components and tasks.
An SEC Accredited Grade results from combining data as follows:
The combination of these data sets through a process of national standardisation will determine the grade to be awarded to each student in each subject, thereby resulting in an SEC Accredited Grade being awarded.
The Minister is committed to bringing forward legislative amendments (to the Education Act, 1998) that will allow the SEC to administer the Accredited Grades Scheme for Leaving Certificate 2021. However, until those legislative amendments are in place the planning for and early stages of implementation of the system of Accredited Grades will be managed by the Minister’s Department.
The system of SEC Accredited Grades that is being offered is based on the following key principles:
In recognising the need for all current Leaving Certificate students to progress to further or higher education, apprenticeship or the world of work, students will be provided with Accredited Grades where it is possible to do so. The SEC Accredited Grades will be generated using the estimated percentage marks provided by schools (following provisional estimation by subject teacher(s) that will be subject to a process of in-school alignment and oversight by the principal) and national standardisation.
The key features of the system of SEC Accredited Grades include:
*Additional guidance is provided in Detailed Guidance
Read the complete text version of A Guide to State Examinations and Accredited Grades for Leaving Certificate 2021 or download a pdf copy below: