Each person lives in the midst of language. Language is fundamental to learning, communication, personal and cultural identity, and relationships. This syllabus aims at initiating students into enriching experiences with language so that they become more adept and thoughtful users of it and more critically aware of its power and significance in their lives.

Leaving Certificate English Syllabus

This syllabus builds on the aims of the Junior Certificate English syllabus, which emphasises the development of a range of literacy and oral skills in a variety of domains, personal, social, and cultural. In the Leaving Certificate course, students will be encouraged to develop a more sophisticated range of skills and concepts. These will enable them to interpret, compose, discriminate and evaluate a range of material so that they become independent learners who can operate in the world beyond the school in a range of contexts. In Coolmine Community School, students are encouraged to enrich their experiences with language, through their involvement in class activities and extra curricular activities such as debating competitions, drama activities and visits to the theatre.

English at this level must excite students with aesthetic experiences and emphasise the richness of meanings and recreational pleasure to be encountered in literature and in the creative play of language. Students should be engaged with the voice of literature, learn to dialogue critically with it, and so come to understand its significance and value. In Coolmine, students are encouraged to relate their classroom activities with what happens in their lives outside of the class. Students are encouraged to develop their opinions and ideas, for example, on the latest films they have seen, and on the novels and poetry they are reading, by discussing them with family and friends.

An English course at Leaving Certificate must also be wide-ranging enough to accommodate not only vocational needs and further education, but also the life long needs of students and the language demands, both oral and written, that are placed on them by the wider community. In a very practical way, Coolmine students are given the opportunity to be well prepared for their examinations and for life outside school. They are also well prepared for the demands that are placed on them by the wider community. Coolmine’s success at examination level, and the success of its students in the world of work, attest to this.