# Transition year - advice welcome



## Lingua (6 Mar 2007)

Hi, I would love some honest opinions from those in the know, about the pros and maybe the cons of transition year.  We have returned here recently after many years of absense and the concept of transition year is a totally new one.  Personally I feel it is something of a waste of time and I would prefer to see my kid take a gap year after the leaving cert.  For a child who is easily distracted, it cant be easy to get back into study mode after a year of doing no study.
Any ideas will be appreciated.


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## Elphaba (6 Mar 2007)

Every child is different. My Son did it and he enjoyed and benefited from work experience with guards and as a sound engineer. My daughter skipped it and doesn't regret her decision for a moment. It is hard to get back into study mode after a year of no study.You know whats best for your child.
They usually do get to travel though (spanish exchange etc) in transition yearand this can broaden their horizons greatly. There are a lot of pros and cons on both sides


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## Oilean Beag (7 Mar 2007)

Transition year was not compulsory in my school but both my sister & I did it. We both thoroughly enjoyed it ,gained many new experiences academic & non academic. 

We learned life skills such as self defence & first aid, we raised money for charity through numerous fundraising events, ran our own mini company. learned an extra lanaguage, did subjects we hadn't done for the JC such as Art, Music, Home Ec, got involved in musicals, went on outdoor pursuits & other trips & really got involved in school life in general.  The work experience aspect was also very good. Every Thursday for the whole school year I worked in an Auctioneers and then a primary school.

After TY we both continued our involvement in school activities, having lost alot of that 'fear of peers' through the TY programme. I think we both matured & learned alot. I can definitely say that my Leaving Certificate results would NOT have been as good if I did not do TY. I was far more mature & had a much better atttitude towards teachers based on the relationships we had built up in the extra year. 

That is my own experience, and each person is different. I would find out as much as you can about the TY programme offered. If it has the elements I describe above , it could be a good & productive year. 

As an aside, both my sister & I have now completed degree courses & have been 100% happy with choices we made. My brother, who did not do TY, could not decide what he wanted, and dropped out of college. That may or may not have happened if he had done TY.


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## ixus (7 Mar 2007)

My experience was almost the exact opposite of SNB's though all the same facilities were available. It depends on the student, their age and what the school/teachers put into the programme.

I wasn't interested in the school play. This left me and 2/3 other kids with "free classes" for a 2/3 month period while the play was on. I primarily did TY to give me another year of football. 
I lost the study habit in fifth year. 

Another factor is the age of the student when entering 6th year. I was 18 so I could go to the pub at weekends which was a major atraction you can imagine! Also, it was very hard to be spoken down to by teachers (not all) and feel you had to answer to them, especially after 5 years of it already. 

I think it would be better to skip TY and use the extra year to repeat the LC (didn't have to do that myself) if the student didn't achieve their desired results. Also, leaves them younger finishing college and to go travelling and come back and get a job and get the 40 year mortgage!

As a result of my experience, none of my family did it and they all thank me for it.


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## Lingua (7 Mar 2007)

It looks like it depends very much on where you live and the school program.  SNB's posting alone would almost persuade me in that direction. We live in a small rural town and although the school is good, Im not sure the program would stretch that far.
Probably the best thing is to find out about the program first. ( I didnt realise they varied from school to school) My son is just 15 and has no clue about what he wants to do later.  If he could get some work experience during the year (guards etc) then maybe its right for him.
Thanks to all.


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## Spondulicks (7 Mar 2007)

It might help the children pick their subjects for the Leaving Cert.
Getting them into the workplace can teach them some social skills.


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## ontour (7 Mar 2007)

best thing to do is to ask the school for details of what the ty year programme entails.  It is not always the case that transition year is a break from study, it can often be an opportunity to mature and prepare for the leaving certificate cycle.  Unfortunately there are vast differences in the programmes offered by different schools based on the resources available to them.

One other option is to spend part of the year in a foreign school improving language skills etc.  Some of these can be done on an exchange basis.


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## Thirsty (7 Mar 2007)

Well worth doing I think....extra year of maturity makes a huge difference when sitting LC/making subject choices etc., would think it's esp. important where your child has moved into Irish system from abroad, gives him a good breathing space/opportunities to make friends etc.,

Both my children will in fact be 19 sitting LC as a result of starting primary at 5+ and doing transition year.  I think they are far better able to cope.


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## Satanta (7 Mar 2007)

Personally, I did TY so tough to give a fully neutral view. I could possibly be very positive against TY if I hadn't done it. I can only provide the details on what I felt I gained from the year as I don't believe I would have had any positives from not doing it, more down to personal circumstances than any real belief in the TY system though.

The "facilities", or options, were similiar to those experienced by SNB and ixus. How much a student may gain from them, I'd say is more down to the individual student than the school.

I did TY for one main reason, age. I had just turned 18 in the Summer following my Leaving Certificate. Without TY I would have sat my Leaving at 16 and started college having just turned 17, so TY was certianly an advantage from that POV.

What I gained from TY was far more than that...

It gave an opportunity to experience things which otherwise I never would have had an opportunity to try. 
Off the top of my head the most memorable would be the first aid courses, social work (voluntary work at a local special needs school and nursary home), TY mini business (each class sets up a business and run in competition against each other - really just a bit of fun but with all profits going to charity), work experience (two school organised placements [two weeks each] and I took two other placements with the school happy to allow the time off to try them out [again, two weeks each] (one of the placements encouraged me to follow my current career and helped in choosing the course I went on to study in college - I requested the additional placements as I couldn't get a placement I desired in the time periods on offer during the set placements), part time work as a sports journalist for a local paper (the break from "study" doesn't have to mean students do nothing, it's just down to them how to spend the time for best results), Art projects (as I was a keen artist it gave the opportunity for some large projects [St. Patricks Day parade stuff, Christmas nativity scene for the school etc.]), other school activities (this does come down to individual schools, we were lucky enough to have a few pro-active teachers who encouraged participation in some of the national Science and Maths competitions - not for everyone, but whatever area a student is interested in there are activites which could be taken up)........

These are just a few of the things that spring back to mind when I thought about TY for the couple of minutes it took to type this reply. I found it a great year to follow on areas of interest which you normally don't get the chance to indulge in. 5th and 6th year have heavy workloads, then college hits so the workload increases and summers are spent earning to help pay for college, then work starts (possibly without the college) and it leaves very little time to persue these interests. It also provides a chance for students to consider what subjects to continue on with to LC and what career path they wish to continue on following the LC........ not all students will do this however, so how much can be gained from TY comes down to the student in question.

My own suggestion is to ask the child if they wish to do it. Teachers allow for a lower workload as it provides a chance for some of the activities mentioned above. If the student doesn't wish to do anything, chances are they won't be forced too and just spend the year doing as little as possible.


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## Moose (8 Mar 2007)

Transition Year wasn't even an option when I was at school and I'm sure if it had been that the same worries would've applied - getting out of the study habit - and I'd possibly have been dissuaded from doing it by others' concerns. But I've seen what a positive experience it has been for my cousin and my neighbour's daughter (whose mother was initially dead-set against it) and it certainly wasn't a slacker year for them. If anything, my cousin, in particular, was constantly on the go and her TY workload was quite high (it included studying a new language, staging a fashion show, a start-your-own-business venture, outdoor activities, etc.). 

You could also argue that those taking time out for a gap year after the LC would find it hard to settle down again after a year's travel, or find it hard to forego a wage slip if they'd used the year to build savings for college. So that option has its own potential problems.

For me, not doing TY meant I did the Leaving Cert at age sixteen and wasn't even twenty by the time I did my final college exams. I'm now the ripe old age of thirty-three, have just been made redundant, still feel completely clueless as to what kind of career I really want, and am actually hoping to temp for a while, with a view to making it the transition year I never had!


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## mprsv1000 (10 Mar 2007)

Moose said:


> I'm now the ripe old age of thirty-three, have just been made redundant, still feel completely clueless as to what kind of career I really want, and am actually hoping to temp for a while, with a view to making it the transition year I never had!




At 28 I was in the same position and went to China to teach english and from that fell into teaching/youth work which I love. Best thing I ever done, there were young people there from the U.K who had just finished their A-levels and had a gap year in China, an amazing experience for someone so young. So its not alawys necessary to go straight to university from school, many young people take a year or two out to try something different...doesn't have to be travelling around Austraila.....


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## Lingua (12 Mar 2007)

Thanks to all for your very positive contributions.


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## redchariot (13 Mar 2007)

My class was the very first in my school to do transition year so obviously it was a bit experimental at the time.

You get to do some good work experience but ensure that a worthwhile place is found for this. The last thing you want to do is work behind a counter in a shop or work on a factory line as these would be just be unpaid labour. The best thing to do is try to get into something where your possible career aspirations are (I know that is not exactly easy at the age of 15/16); I worked in a lab for a week shadowing a worker there and it was a great experience.

You get to do all sorts of projects and other activities which you would not get to do otherwise. For example my school got us all into groups and we had to do a studies on local business, how they operated etc which was great.

It is a year break between the hectic Junior Cert year and before you go into the Leaving Cert cycle and we got to try out several different subjects throughout the year, so we had a lot better idea when it came to selecting Leaving Cert subjects.

However having said all that, looking back I think it really was a waste of a year; sure it was nice to have a break but it really was too much of a doss and I could have been out into the big bad world (university) a year earlier.


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## Daisybell (14 Mar 2007)

My son is hoping to do Transition Year next year.  I have to go to a TY presentation tomorrow night.  I wasn't keen for him to do it at all until this year.  He would get to do so much that he wouldn't have the opportunity to do otherwise.  His school has quite limited subjects so he didn't get to try out anything like woodwork or tech graphics in 1st year.  It's also a year where they will do practical skills that they'd never get the chance to do normally (the likes of First Aid etc.).  I'm really behind him doing it now.  His teachers assure me it would suit him down to the ground and that it would help him mature.  I was afraid of him getting out of the study habit but I think if you're going to doss, you're going to doss whether you do TY or not.  I certainly never did a tap in school and often thought that if I'd done TY myself it might have helped me "find myself"!  I also have a teacher friend who as a TY co-ordinator for a couple of years.  She told me that there are statistics to prove that children who do TY don't repeat the Leaving Cert and they all go on to Third Level.  She would whole-heartidly recommend it.  Good luck with your decision.


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