Home Study for Irish State Examinations
The Leaving and Junior Certificates
It is possible to sit the Junior and Leaving Certificate Examinations as an external student at some examination centres, although these can be hard to track down. There is no requirement to attend a school or to take any online or correspondence course, though it is probably easier to be sure that everything is covered if some structured approach is used. An increasing number of courses involve course work or project work which is assessed by teachers. This is laudable but presents quite a barrier for the home educated candidate, since parental assessment is not possible.
The Department of Education and Science website has a lot of useful information but do not expect much directly aimed at home educators - there is little or nothing. However you can download syllabi for all Junior and Leaving Certificate subjects in PDF format, with Guidelines for Teachers also available in most subjects.
Skool.ie
You probably know this one already, but here it is just in case! The amount of stuff on the site is astonishing and it really is a complete resource area for any student studying for state examinations, whether at home or at school. There are study notes, exam guides, checklists, exam papers, model answers and exhaustive analysis of past papers in all the main Leaving and Junior Cert subjects. There are also extensive links to resources elsewhere on the 'net and a community area for students.
Kilroy's College (Leaving Certificate)
Provide course material and tutor support for a range of Leaving Cert and Junior Cert Courses. Each course is sold with tutor support, with regular assignments required.
Courses on offer are Irish, English, Maths, Accounting, Business, Economics, Geography, Biology, European History (Contemporary Civilisation (1870-1966) & Renaissance Civilisation (1453-1618)), Irish History (Contemporary Civilisation (1870-1966) & Renaissance Civilisation (1453-1618)), Chemistry, Physics, French and German.
Note: There are some subjects where a project or course work element is required and must be certified by a class teacher, for example in Home Economics, Geography and History 20% of marks are awarded on course/project work. While the theoretical elements of the course are well covered by Kilroy's, they cannot provide certification for these parts of the course. Similarly in the case of science it is not possible to cover the practical elements of the syllabus.
Finding Teachers for Grinds
The may come a time when home schooled students preparing for state exams need a little additional help, and this site lists hundreds of teachers all over Ireland who are available to provide tuition to students in their own homes. Many will be quite happy to teach small groups, and where a student is in a study circle this can help to lessen the financial burden.