Students Marek Ostoinski, Leah Cormack and Ciaran Cullen from St John of Gods
St John of God students celebrate Leaving results
EIGHT students from the senior cycle of St John of God Special School in Kilmainham, including six from Tallaght and Clondalkin, received their Leaving Cert results on Friday.
Students with additional needs received certificates after they completed the new Senior Level 1 and Senior Level 2 programmes at the school by the National War Memorial Gardens.
The new set of programmes have been designed with young people with learning difficulties in mind, and allows them to have more opportunities to achieve the same milestone as many other students.
The students’ teacher Katie Mullen described what the day meant for her pupils, as well as their families.
Katie said: “It was really nice to see all that come together and to see how happy they were and how excited they were to get their results.
“For the parents as well, to see how delighted the parents were, it was just huge for them.
“A lot of them thought their children would never get a leaving cert, and even if they had finished school one year ago, they wouldn’t have got the leaving cert, so I do think it’s absolutely massive.
“It’s really nice to be able to come together and have a celebration and really just see all that culminate in the lovely day that we had.”
The Senior Level 1 and 2 programmes are tailored to the individual learning needs of the student involved and allow them to carry out tasks in ways that work for them.
The aspect of the constant need to memorise topics or phrases and other things does not play a big part, instead a continuous assessment model is in place that allows teens to create a portfolio of work over time.
“The new learning programs are more based off developing life skills and things that young people will need for living as independently as they can.
“So, things like managing money and being able to communicate what they want or what they need, or being able to keep themselves safe when they go out into the community and that kind of thing.
“It differs from the traditional Leaving Cert in the way that it’s done. It’s assessed by continuous assessment as opposed to exams. Young people put together a portfolio of work that shows them meeting the learning outcomes, as opposed to sitting down and doing a big exam on the day.
“So, it offers that flexibility.”
