RACE Scheme Ireland: Reasonable Accommodations at the Leaving Certificate and Junior Cycle

The RACE scheme — Reasonable Accommodations at Certificate Examinations — is the State Examinations Commission's framework for ensuring that students with disabilities, significant learning difficulties, or medical conditions can sit their Leaving Certificate and Junior Cycle exams on an equal basis. It does not give students an advantage. It removes specific barriers their condition creates.

Despite being one of the most important support mechanisms in the Irish SEN system, the RACE scheme is routinely misunderstood — by schools, by parents, and sometimes by students themselves. The result is missed deadlines, refused applications, and young people sitting exams without accommodations they are entitled to.

What Accommodations Are Available

The RACE scheme is not a single accommodation. It is a menu of specific supports, each of which must be individually applied for based on assessed need:

Reading Assistant (RA): A trained adult reads the exam paper aloud to the student. Available for students whose reading difficulty significantly impairs their ability to access the written exam.

Scribe: A trained adult writes the student's dictated answers. Available for students whose writing difficulty significantly impairs their ability to produce written responses.

Word Processor (Laptop): Students can type responses rather than handwrite. Typically requires evidence that the student regularly uses a word processor for schoolwork.

Spelling and Grammar Waiver: Examiners disregard spelling and grammar errors when marking the student's answers. Available for students with diagnosed specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia.

Separate Examination Centre: The student sits the exam in a smaller, quieter room, away from the main examination hall. Available where concentration or sensory sensitivities create a significant barrier in the standard exam environment.

Recorded Response Devices: For students who use augmentative and alternative communication.

Rest Breaks: Scheduled rest periods during the exam paper. Available for certain medical or fatigue-related conditions.

Enlarged Print / Braille / Modified Visual Materials: For students with vision impairments.

Extra Time (2026 Update): For the 2026 examination cycle, students who are granted "direct intervention" accommodations — specifically a Reader, Scribe, Spelling and Grammar Waiver, or Word Processor — automatically receive an additional 10 minutes per written paper. This extra time does not apply to students whose only accommodation is a separate centre, a colour identifier, or scheduled rest breaks.

Who Can Apply

Any student with a documented disability, significant learning difficulty, chronic illness, or injury that creates a specific barrier to demonstrating their knowledge in the standard examination format.

The critical requirement is objective evidence. RACE is not awarded based on diagnosis alone — it requires evidence that the condition creates a barrier to examination access specifically. A student with dyslexia, for example, needs documentation showing how the dyslexia affects their reading or writing speed and accuracy in examination conditions, not just a diagnostic report confirming the diagnosis.

Evidence typically comes from:

• Psycho-educational assessments (from NEPS, private educational psychologists, or specialist services)
• Medical consultant reports (for physical, neurological, or medical conditions)
• Records of accommodations already in use at school

How to Apply: The School Applies, Not the Parent

This is the point most families are not clearly told: parents cannot apply directly to the State Examinations Commission for RACE accommodations. The application must be made by the school's SEN coordinator or principal, using standardised SEC forms.

Your role as a parent is to ensure:

1. The school has current, relevant documentation — if the most recent psycho-educational assessment is three or more years old, it may need to be updated
2. You have explicitly asked the SEN coordinator to apply — do not assume the school will do this automatically
3. The school understands the deadlines and is filing on time

Deadlines for the 2026 Examinations

Leaving Certificate (November 21, 2025): Applications for RACE accommodations at the 2026 Leaving Certificate closed on November 21, 2025. If this deadline was missed, there is no standard route to apply late — the only option is to wait for the following year.

Junior Cycle (December 12, 2025): Applications for the 2026 Junior Cycle closed December 12, 2025.

For families planning ahead for a child currently in 3rd Year or 5th Year, these November/December deadlines apply for the following year's examinations. Put them in your calendar.

Reactivation: If Your Child Already Had RACE for Junior Cycle

If a student was granted RACE accommodations for their Junior Cycle examinations, they do not need a full reassessment for the Leaving Certificate. The school can apply for a "reactivation" — a simplified process that confirms the student still has an identified and continuing need for the same accommodations.

Reactivation still requires the same November deadline to be met. Parents of students who had Junior Cycle RACE accommodations should verify with the school's SEN coordinator that the reactivation application has been submitted, not assume it has been handled automatically.

What to Do If an Application Is Refused

If the SEC refuses a RACE application, an Independent Appeals Committee provides a formal review mechanism. The school initiates the appeal on the student's behalf, and parents should provide any additional medical or psychological evidence that strengthens the case.

The most common grounds for refusal are:

• Insufficient evidence of barrier to examination access (as distinct from diagnosis alone)
• Outdated assessment reports
• Evidence that the condition does not significantly impact examination performance

When appealing, the key is documentation specificity: not "my child has ADHD," but "my child's ADHD creates X-minute attention lapses under time pressure, as documented in the attached assessment and observed in school-based testing conditions."

RACE and the Transition to Post-School

Securing RACE accommodations for the Leaving Certificate is not just about the exam itself — it is directly relevant to the DARE application for higher education.

Section B of the DARE Supplementary Information Form asks the school to document how the disability affected the student's educational experience. A history of RACE accommodations at Junior Cycle and Leaving Certificate level is concrete, objective evidence of educational impact — exactly what DARE's SIF Section B is asking for.

This is why RACE documentation matters even for students who cope well academically. The accommodation record is evidence. Students who sat exams without accommodations they should have received — because an application was missed — may find their DARE application harder to substantiate.

RACE, DARE, the Disability Allowance switch at 16, and the HSE school leaver process are all connected pieces of the same transition puzzle. The Ireland Post-School Transition Roadmap at /ie/transition/ maps each of these onto a single year-by-year timeline from age 14 to 18, with the specific deadlines and required actions for each stage.

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