Leaving Certificate Life, Community and Work (LCW)
From September 2026, incoming Fifth Year students at Scoil Pól begin Leaving Certificate Life, Community and Work (LCW) — the Department of Education’s new senior cycle programme, which replaces the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme (LCVP). Our current Sixth Year students will continue to follow the existing LCVP Link Modules throughout the 2026/2027 academic year, sitting the LCVP examination as usual in June 2027.
What is LCW?
LCW is a two-year programme that runs alongside students’ other Leaving Certificate subjects. It helps students understand their own strengths and interests, explore the pathways open to them after school, engage with their local community, and build real workplace skills.
Programme structure
| Module | Strand | Focus |
| Me and My Future | Understanding Myself | Personal development, values, skills, and a personal statement |
| Me and My Future | Understanding My Progression Opportunities | Post-school pathways — apprenticeships, higher education, entrepreneurship — plus work rights and the labour market |
| Community and Work | Appreciating My Community | Community and volunteering, real-life issues, enterprise, and design thinking |
| Community and Work | Engaging with the Workplace | Job applications, interview preparation, and work experience or work shadowing |
Students complete four Applied Learning Tasks linked to these strands — including a personal statement, a career progression plan, and a workplace feedback response plan — and build a Portfolio in Action over the two years: a multi-modal submission responding to a brief issued annually by the State Examinations Commission.
Assessment
- Portfolio in Action: 60%
- Written examination: 40%
- Graded at Common Level: Distinction, Merit, Pass, Not Achieved
- Minimum 120 hours of class contact time over Fifth and Sixth Year
- Minimum three days of work experience or work shadowing
Weekly class time
Under LCVP, the Link Modules are typically timetabled for 2 class periods a week. LCW’s specification instead sets a minimum of 120 hours of class contact time across the whole of Fifth and Sixth Year, rather than a fixed weekly figure.
At Scoil Pól
We look forward to continuing to give our LCW students real-world opportunities alongside their coursework — including engagement with local business professionals, enterprise projects, and mock interview practice — building on what has made LCVP such a valued part of Scoil Pól life.
