Three Irish students have launched a new online learning resource aimed at taking some of the stress out of the Leaving Cert.
The mocks may be a distant memory, but the Leaving Cert exam dates are coming up fast, and the goal of ExamLearn (http://examlearn.ie) is to make the process of preparing a little simpler.
Founded by Jack Manning, Johnnie Bell and Eamonn Flannery in December 2015, ExamLearn was originally aimed at Junior Cert students and was called JC-Learn, with both free and paid options for users. “There wasn’t a whole lot on the internet to use for studying, so we thought we would create this,” said Mr Manning.
The three, who between them had 30 A grades at Junior Cert level, wrote all the content and put it on the site, using notes and exam answers based on papers from previous years.
JC learn also featured study tips and an online forum, as well as revision notes and a live chat helpline.
The students then decided to branch out into Leaving Certificate, which they launched in December, rebranded as ExamLearn.
Outside experts
Because the founders are still in fifth year, they brought in outside help to work on the service. The answers have been written by students who earned 625 points in their Leaving Cert exams.
ExamLearn now has 13,000-14,000 users between the paid and free services. The bulk of those are with the Junior Cert service, with the Leaving Cert still growing its user base.
“JCLearn has grown really well,” said Mr Manning, who added that about 1,000 users pay the yearly €39.99 fee.
The trio eventually hope to expand outside Ireland, taking the service to other English-speaking markets where standardised tests make the content less difficult to source.
