Doing the Leaving Cert through Braille

If I could change one thing about the Leaving it would be that you can’t re-sit any of the subjects in the same year. It’s so cruel. You get sick, you have a bad night’s sleep? That’s it. A year down the drain. It doesn’t bear thinking about. If I could change one thing about the education system, that would be it.

Having six subjects versus nine definitely makes the Leaving more manageable than the Junior Cert. School work still takes forever. I’m always studying, always being sensible, but the difference is that I’m studying smarter than I did for the Junior Cert. I’m being more strategic with exam questions – giving priority to the ones with the most marks. I think it’s coming together.

The Junior Cert was not a pleasant experience. It was very intense, very stressful. I was having awful headaches and eye pain so I’d have my pain meds beside me, and cool pads for my forehead in the exams. That took its toll, plus I had the worry of impending eye surgery hanging over me. After all that, I actually ended up doing pretty well.

I had a bit of a setback a couple of weeks ago. One of my retinas detached so I had to have an operation, and then 24/7 in a facedown position. The operation went well so that’s great.

I don’t dwell on it too much. It’s always there. The pain is always there. They can’t explain why – something about my eyes being over-sensitised from all the operations. I’m used to it. I’ve lowered my pain meds dose in anticipation of the Leaving, just so that I can up it again if things get bad.

The sight I have isn’t a huge amount of use but it does help with mobility, together with my cane. I can tell day from night, shadows and shapes, that sort of thing. It’s not ideal but at least surgery to date has helped to maintain the health of my eyes, which is important in case there’s any future scientific breakthroughs. I honestly don’t really think about it though. You can’t. I can’t change it so I just plough on ahead.

I’m doing six subjects: English, maths, French, business, biology and music. I didn’t opt to do transition year. I had already lost a year of primary school because of eye surgery so I just figured it’d be best to dive in and do the Leaving. I’m ready.

Peer support

I’m still busy outside of school. A couple of my friends and I have started a band. I’ve been playing piano since I was four so it’s just really good fun to get together and do that. We do a bit of everything, One Republic, Avicii and we’ve begun experimenting with our own stuff. We recently took part in the school musical

Detention 2115

in the Moate Theatre, Naas.

I’ve also become involved in this annual event called CampAbilities which organises adapted sports for blind and visually impaired people. You can go water-skiing, tandem cycling, they do blind soccer, which is shockingly competitive but brilliant fun. I’m trying to get a blind rugby team going with a couple of my friends from there.

It was the first time I had bonded with a peer group with the same issues. It’s nobody’s fault but when you’ve a visual impairment, there’s not a whole lot of PE you can do in school. No matter how brilliant and accommodating everybody is, you always end up standing back.

You’re reminded that it really can happen to anyone. I’ve had my issues from birth but there were people there who had only recently become blind or got news that they had some eye condition. We’re a bit of support for one another.

Sight loss can be very isolating. I’m lucky, stick me beside someone and I’ll talk to them for hours. But for a lot of people, it really knocks their confidence. When you’re in touch with people who understand, it helps. There are about 14 or 15 of us now. We’re in touch all the time.

But mostly, just now my life is full of study and college applications. As with everything else, choosing a college when you have a disability is complicated. I’d like to do politics and law, ideally in DCU. I’ve applied through the CAO via the DARE scheme (Disability Access Route to Education.) DARE is not straight forward. Every college operates it differently so there are a lot of options to figure out. We visited a couple of places to see what sort of supports are in place. A lot of it is about attitude as well as a willingness to help out.

All of my technology belongs to the Department of Education, so when I leave school, they revert back to the department. My college is going to have to provide me with what I need. I have a Braille mPower which is like a Braille laptop, and I have an old-fashioned Braille typewriter called a Perkins Brailler. That embosses the Braille onto paper as I type. I use a laptop as well.

In my school at Holy Family Community School, Rathcoole, I have a base room for my machines and four full-size filing cabinets dotted throughout the school to hold all my books – Braille books are massive. I’m also hoping to get a guide dog. Again, any college I go to has to be open to those things. So I suppose while applying to college is a complicated process for me, I’m not exactly a straightforward applicant for them.

I’m hopeful, but not exactly confident, about doing well enough to get a place. I’m smart enough but the practicalities of exams means reaching the required points could be a very tall order.

Exam times are always tough. I’ve to cope with ongoing pain and the challenges of doing everything through Braille, plus I end up falling asleep at lunch time between exams and stuff like that but that’s just the way of it.

Minimum entry

I’ve just done my mocks so it’ll be good to see whether my exam strategy is working. Time management used to be a major problem but it wasn’t so bad this time apart from maths and Braille music composition, which is a real race against time. I do the exams in a different room. My SNA is my reader but I have the Braille copy of the exam too. I use that for things like the unseen poem in English, music composition or maths. It’s easier to read some things than to hear them.

I am really looking forward to life after the Leaving. I just hope it all goes well and I get a place somewhere. The points for my courses are high, even through DARE there’s a minimum entry requirement. It won’t be for want of effort. There is so little down time. I took Christmas and St Stephen’s Day off but that’s it. I’ve been studying every day since. I just hope I can keep it going.

In conversation with Gráinne Faller