Junior Cert results out today

The State Examinations Commission (SEC) congratulates all of the candidates who sat the Junior Cycle examination in 2025 and whose results are issuing today. A total of 73,336 candidates are receiving their results, similar to the 2024 figure of 72,833. This is the third year in a row that the number of candidates taking the Junior Cycle examinations (or any of its predecessors - the Junior Certificate or Intermediate Certificate) has exceeded 70,000 candidates.

From this morning school authorities can access the results in digital format through the SEC’s Schools Portal. School authorities will arrange to print the Statements of Provisional Results, which are in PDF format, and prepare them for issue to candidates. As in other years, the timing of the distribution of the results to candidates is at the discretion of the school authorities who exercise a common-sense approach in this regard.

Revised Junior Cycle grade bands have been introduced this year following the announcement by the Minster for Education and Youth in April 2025. There are the same number of grade bands as before with the top four grade descriptors (Distinction, Higher Merit, Merit, and Achieved) being evenly distributed in bands of fifteen percentage points. The decision to make this change followed careful consideration by the Department of Education and Youth in conjunction with the SEC and the NCCA taking on board feedback about the impact that the previous grade bands may have been having on the teaching and learning experience. This feedback came from many stakeholders including teachers and school leaders as well as candidates taking examinations, their parents and guardians.

For 2025, in order to give effect to this announcement ,the revised grade bands have been implemented by the SEC as a technical adjustment. This means that the examinations were marked by examiners in the normal way using the grading standards based on the previous grade bands. When all of the marking and the results quality assurance procedures were completed, the SEC implemented a technical intervention to apply the new grade boundaries to the marks achieved in the examinations. More information on the Grade Band changes and their effect on the results is included below.

The date for the issue of results this year aligns with last year’s results despite the additional time needed for the technical intervention to be implemented.

OVERVIEW

This is the fourth year of the SEC’s return to externally delivered Junior Cycle examinations for all candidates under the reformed Junior Cycle curriculum. Due to the impact of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the Junior Cycle examinations were cancelled for most candidates and replaced by school-based assessment. Junior Cycle examinations were held in November in each of those years for adult learners and early school leavers only. Until 2019, only English, Science and Business Studies had been examined under the reformed Junior Cycle curriculum. Apart from Irish, English and Mathematics which are examined at Higher and Ordinary level, all other Junior Cycle subjects are at Common level.

Some 646,602 grades in 21 individual subjects are being provided to 73,336 candidates this year. The overall number sitting Junior Cycle examinations has increased by 0.7% on the 2024 figure of 72,833 and the proportion of candidates who are re-entrants to education has increased slightly from 0.3 % of the cohort in 2024 to 0.34% in 2025 (from 219 to 252). Just over 630,000 of the 646,602 results issuing to candidates at the 2025 Junior Cycle are in subjects which were either fully or partially marked using the online marking system.

The publication Assessment Arrangements for Junior Cycle and Leaving Certificate Examinations 2025 available here sets out the adjusted assessment arrangements for students who sat the certificate examinations this year. These arrangements are designed to take account of the disrupted learning experienced by Candidates during the Covid-19 pandemic.

CHANGES TO GRADE BANDS

Revised Junior Cycle grade bands have been introduced this year. The decision to effect this change was announced by the Minster for Education and Youth in April 2025, taking on board feedback about the impact that the previous grade bands may have been having on the teaching and learning experience. This feedback came from many stakeholders including teachers and school leaders as well as those taking examinations, their parents and guardians. The SEC was asked to implement this change for the 2025 Junior Cycle examinations.

With this change there are still the same number of Junior Cycle grades as before; Distinction, Higher Merit, Merit, Achieved, Partially Achieved and Not Graded but the Distinction band has been widened and now ranges from 85% or above to 100% and the Merit band has been narrowed and now ranges from 55% or above up to 70%. The impact of these changes is that more candidates will achieve the Distinction and Higher Merit Grades than previously with fewer Merits being awarded. This is because more candidates, who would previously have received a Higher Merit, will now achieve a Distinction, and more candidates, who would previously have achieved a Merit, will now achieve a Higher Merit.