The results are in and, for one student – who was one of our Leaving Cert diarists in June – their arrival this morning lead to screams her parents couldn’t quite decipher.
Kayleigh Quinn, who left school in second year having struggled with her mental health, achieved her goal of 625 CAO points.
She couldn’t quite believe it. “I woke up this morning and the State Examinations Commission released all the statistics before the actual results, of all the H1s going down. And I was like ‘oh no’,” says the 18-year-old from Navan. “I was thinking the worst case and I was doing the maths in my head, and I was trying to imagine. And then I opened it up and oh my gosh.
“I screamed and my parents probably thought worst-case scenario, because they couldn’t tell the tone of the scream. My mum is in tears. She can’t talk,” Quinn says of her parents’ reaction to discovering their daughter had achieved her goal. “I put in the work and I suppose it paid off in the end.”
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Quinn’s mental health in her early teens deteriorated to the point where she spent some time in Temple Street Hospital. She says that while there a comment from a psychiatrist, “well, we don’t expect you do your Junior Cert”, spurred her on to take control of her own education. Two months before the exams were due to start, she decided to sit them as an external student.
The experience gave her the confidence to take on the Leaving Cert.
She studied the Leaving Cert course through online grinds, which she worked to pay for, and through the use of free online teaching videos on YouTube. She even used ChatGPT to talk her through some maths methods and solutions that she was finding difficult to grasp. “The entire curriculum is online and you can access it on the government website … and the exam papers are up for free.”
Now Quinn has some decisions to make.
“I did my HPAT. I got those results and I have a good chance of getting into [medicine] in Ireland. So I have to think – Ireland or England. Quinn already had the offer of a place to study medicine in the UK, pending her Leaving Cert results. I think I’ve got five days once round one [CAO] offers come out to make my decision.”
For other students who have found the school system didn’t work for them, Quinn has this advice. “Don’t succumb to external pressure. You know yourself, more than any teacher does, more than even your parents do, if school isn’t for you. Don’t try and force yourself to conform to the system. Because, while it’s designed to work for the majority of students, there will always be people at the very end of the bell curve who it doesn’t work for.
“And that’s okay. You don’t have to put yourself down. You don’t have to look at others and think, ‘oh, why are they able to go to school and be normal, and why not me?
“Try and focus on figuring out your interests. Try to get work experience. Get out into the world and make friends. Really find out what interests you and then get a path to it and work towards it bit by bit. There’s a path for everyone.”
For now, it’s about the celebrations.
“I’m so proud of my friends, They did really well as well,” she says.
So will she head out tonight? “I don’t know, I’ve got work tomorrow. I’m sure they’ll understand if I come in hanging,” she says laughing.
