Manager of the Mount Erin Heritage Centre Patrick Donohue graduated from Trinity Senior High School, now Kildare Catholic College, in 1994. 

Mr Donohue remembered the peer pressure following the release of his Tertiary Entrance Rank, which was replaced in 2010 by the ATAR. 

“My parents were very easy going in terms of how well or how badly me and my siblings went in our reports, so long as we tried,” he said. 

“There wasn’t really any pressure from my parents, but there was a lot of pressure in my peer groups and a lot of calls. Have you got your results yet? How’d you go in this subject? Why’d you get more than me?” 

However for a former student at Mount Erin High School, it was an “anxious” wait for the results to be published in the local paper in the late 1950s. 

“When I did my leaving certificate at Mount Erin the results were published in The Daily Advertiser in mid-January and there was no chance about getting your results early,” she said. 

“January wasn’t a good time because you had to wait until the end of the whole holidays, whereas today the students get their results in early December and it’s all private. 

“Our results were published along with everyone else’s, there was nothing private about the results and it didn’t bother me at the time because we didn’t know any different, but now I think they could have been more respectful.” 

Now a committee member of the Mount Erin Heritage Centre, she said she doesn’t remember receiving report cards but they would have been posted to her parents. 

“I was very anxious I suppose, because I wanted to gain a scholarship at the Teachers College and you had to achieve a certain rank, so it was a very anxious wait,” she said. 

“I think I received my results in mid-January 1959 and being on the land, you would just wait for the paper, and then the phones would ring from your friends and family. 

“But even then, you had to wait more to find out whether you secured a scholarship from the Commonwealth for a university place, or a teachers scholarship to go to Teachers College.” 

The Mount Erin Heritage Centre has four school report cards, 1888, 1919 and two from the 1930s, that have been donated by former students. 

The committee member said report writing has undergone several changes since 1888, where teachers were allowed to score a student’s performance in a subject as ‘unsatisfactory’ without having to explain why. 

“Report writing today has become transparent and teachers have to be responsible about what they write about,” she said. 

“In 1888, report writing was a lot easier because teachers didn’t have to say why a student was bad or unsatisfactory or how they could improve.”