Reaction to Leaving Certificate 2026 Geography (H) by Lesley Aslin, Geography teacher at The Institute of Education.
- A challenging selection of short questions was balanced with perfect essay choices.
Geography might no longer be a core subject for Junior Cert, but this paper proves that it is an essential subject for students as they become citizens out in the world.
How students feel about that exam will depend on the order they approached the sections. Many students will have jumped right to the end to look at the large essay questions and been thrilled with the Geo-Ecology selections. Both Soils and Biomes were present and were a perfect reflection of the cycle of questions we’ve seen in previous years. Furthermore, the questions had straightforward wording that allowed students to get the pen moving while also scaffolding all the various stages of their essay nicely.
Some students prefer to get their bearings by starting with the short questions and for them this exam would have started with a steep uphill slog. This selection of questions will have pushed them to an extent they won’t have anticipated in a section that is typically steady ground for the anxious. The inclusion of elevation profiles, UV indexes (which has never been examined before) and text heavy questions that were more reminiscent of a 20-mark task will have made students dig deeper than previous years. Some instances, such as the effects of isostatic uplift, will have left them unsure exactly what the corrector will be looking for.
Between these two extremes, everyone should be content with Part 2: Structured and Essay writing. Most students will do two from Physical Geography and will be happy with the nice bank of topics. The predicted appearance of Erosion will be a relief and staples like Rocks and human interaction with surface processes will be familiar. One question on Plate Boundaries harkened back to material they would have covered at the start of 5th year when they were fresh with the topic and so this 30 marker will have been seen as a nice option by many.
One of the most notable aspects of the paper was Elective 5’s questions on migration. This topic hasn’t appeared on a paper since 2017 despite being widely discussed outside of the exam hall. Students who knew the syllabus and the previous questions will have found this section very approachable and been able to lay out their 15 SRPs (Significant Relevant Points) effectively. However, some students will have been drawn towards a more discursive approach to these questions which will struggle to garner marks within the precision of the subject and the marking schemes. As with all exams, discipline and insight into how the exam interacts with the remit of curriculum was key for success here.