Beat’s radio presenter Emma Nolan is going above and beyond the call of duty by re-sitting the Junior Cert this week in a unique social experiment!
Are students in 2016 under more pressure than students years ago sitting exams? To help her answer this question and be more ‘in the moment’ with listeners, many of whom are sitting exams, Beat 102-103 night time presenter Emma Nolan has taken the brave step to go back and sit this year’s Junior Cert English, Irish and Maths; starting with English Paper 1 today Wednesday June 8th 2016.
Leading regional radio station Beat 102-103 dominates the airwaves at night time with a market share 7pm-midnight of nearly 50% so according to Beat 102-103 Chief Executive Gabrielle Cummins “Emma’s show ‘The takeover’ featuring ‘The Top7@7’ is ideally positioned to carry out a social experiment of this nature.” The Beat Boss added that she has been impressed but not surprised by how Emma has committed herself to this project over the last 7 weeks highlighting that “the idea came about in a programming, creative meeting and Emma being Emma immediately jumped at the idea, then Yeats College kindly came on board as a sponsor and the whole project has just spiralled from there.”
Over the last seven weeks, Emma has been getting grinds live on air from fellow junior cert exam students; teachers from her old school Blackwater Community School in Lismore County Waterford have come on board to provide one on one tutorials and listeners from all over the South East region have been providing Emma with their exam tips. The content is being executed not just on air but across all of the station’s social media platforms.
Today, Emma will don her school uniform once again, will sit the exam in Beat’s board room with Invigilators Niall and Vinny from Beat Breakfast keeping watch to make sure she sticks to the state exam rules.
Now that exam D-Day is upon her, we asked Emma did she regret saying yes to this experiment and she concluded “I’m obviously nervous about not doing well but I’m really glad I took part because I can see first-hand the enormous pressure that students are under and sometimes us adults can lose sight of that.” Emma’s exams will be corrected ‘officially’ and like all junior Cert students, she won’t receive her results until September when she hopes to host a massive Junior Cert results party!
