Terry Mulcahy has been teaching physics at Colaiste Raithin, Bray, Co Wicklow, for the last four years. Some 45 students are sitting the Leaving Cert there this year, but only eight of them are doing physics.

"Last year I had a much bigger class and next year, I'll have 17," the physics teacher says. Only one of this year's crop of physics students is planning to continue with the subject at third level.

The fact that Daithi has worked consistently throughout fifth and sixth years means that he has less work to do at this stage, Mulcahy confirms. He's lucky, too, that he picks things up quickly, he says. Some students are putting in longer hours and suffering higher levels of stress. "What can often happen with physics is that people can become intimidated by the subject and fall behind. There's quite a discontinuity between Junior Cert science and Leaving Cert physics and it can take a while to get into it.

"A lot of people struggle a lot and it takes them time to get their confidence back." It's a pressured time for teachers, too. "You have a number of different roles. You have to keep them focused on the exam, be there as a support for them and make sure that they're confident, happy and have their stress under control."

According to Mulcahy, people chose to do physics because they are mathematical and feel that they can get a higher grade than they would in a humanities subject.

"The current physics course is a very good foundation course. There's loads of opportunity for practical work and students enjoy the experiments hugely. "The new course [to be introduced in September and examined in 2002] will remove some of the more challenging maths. "I can see the merits of that but it means that there will be fewer opportunities for kids to solve problems mathematically."

At Raithin, this year's Leaving Cert physics class is great, their teacher observes.

"With a different cohort I could be ripping my hair out," he says. "Getting the course finished can be a major problem, but because of the students' approach to their work, we finished it two months ago.

"It's meant that for the last eight weeks we have been revising, looking at exam technique and answering exam questions.

"I think they'll all do great in the exams."