Westmeath students kick off their Junior and Leaving Cert exams

Students across Westmeath started their Leaving and Junior Cert exams this morning, sitting down to English Paper One at 9.30am.

Pupils from over 800 secondary schools across the country took on their first paper this morning, with the number of overall Leaving Cert candidates up three per cent from last year.

After engineering tomorrow morning, English Paper Two will take place tomorrow (June 5) at 2pm.

The number of Leaving Cert candidates undertaking the exam this year is up three per cent on last year.

The Westmeath Examiner caught up with one of those students outside Mullingar Community College. Cillian Kelly just finished his first exam, saying: “I'm happy to just get the ball rolling, it has been a long year trying to manage studying, working and other commitments.

“I prepared well, and I'm happy with what came up on the paper, but it was hard to battle mixed emotions, I was nervous, but at the same time excited."

Cillian was happy with his first exam: “Overall, the paper went really well, most of the stuff I planned came up. Even if this one didn't go too well, I still have the second paper to make up some marks.”

In total 140,457 students are sitting the exams. This is the first time the number has exceeded 140,000, with the increase due to the rise in population.

The exams are to continue as usual for two weeks, with the Leaving Cert concluding on Tuesday, June 24 with Religious Studies, and the Junior Cert finishing on Monday June 16, with Applied Technology.