‘Oxford didn’t ask me for my Leaving Cert’
TWO weeks into fifth year, Dubliner Rosa Devine’s education was severely interrupted when she was struck with chronic fatigue syndrome.
What was later diagnosed as ME/CFS made it very difficult for the then, St Andrew’s College, Booterstown, pupil to attend school.
At that stage in the life of a typical Irish teenager, as Rosa recalls, “it’s all about the Leaving Cert”.
When it came to what should have been the start of sixth year, Rosa had not abandoned the idea of trying to return to school, but took advice to try something different.
She started a post-Leaving Certificate (PLC) Level 5 art course at Sallynoggin College of Further Education: “They took me in and said just come in on the days you can. There was no expectation,” she says.
The course is very popular with applicants to third-level art courses who are required to submit a portfolio.
Rosa settled into the course and around November a tutor told her that she “might just have what it took to study art”.
She says art was something in which she was interested, but “it was not really a long-term plan”, and she also had strengths in maths and science.
She finished the course with distinctions in all eight modules, deemed to be the equivalent of 400 CAO points. Rosa used this, and her portfolio, as a basis for application to the CAO, applying for art courses and others, including forensic science and business.
She accepted an offer at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) and “before I left there I decided I wanted to go into teaching”.
Rosa followed that with a post-graduate teaching programme in the UK, called Teach First, and when she finished two years ago, walked straight into a job in the school in which she had done her work placement.
Rosa (27) is now head of subject for fine art, photography, catering, design and technology and textiles, and also has a position of responsibility for robotics and the STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and maths — “everything creative, except dancing and singing”.
“I love teaching,” says Rosa, who has been a volunteer on the Fighting Words initiative in Dublin since her NCAD days and to which she devoted some of her summer break. Fighting Words provides free tutoring and mentoring to children, young adults and adults with special needs.
When she returns to school in September, Rosa will start a two-year, part-time masters in education in Oxford University.
“For someone who didn’t do the Leaving Cert, I feel it is the final vindication. A great Leaving Cert opens lots of doors, but there are other routes. Oxford didn’t ask me why I hadn’t done the Leaving Cert,” she says.
Rosa continues to deal with the challenges of ME/ CFS, and has taken the precaution of registering with the disability service in Oxford.