{"id":490387,"date":"2026-06-09T09:43:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T09:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/490387\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T09:43:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T09:43:15","slug":"sophie-should-be-doing-her-junior-cert-exams-but-instead-shes-sorting-out-her-wardrobe-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/490387\/","title":{"rendered":"Sophie should be doing her Junior Cert exams, but instead she\u2019s sorting out her wardrobe \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sophie should be in the middle of her Junior Cycle<\/a> exams, but instead she\u2019s at home sorting out clothes in her wardrobe.<\/p>\n

She is dyslexic and after a very difficult few years, where the impacts of dyslexia on Sophie\u2019s learning began to affect her life beyond the classroom, her mother made the difficult decision that her daughter shouldn\u2019t sit the exams.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s embarrassed not to be sitting the exams,\u201d says her mother, Kate, especially as people have asked her why. Sophie has given various excuses to those who ask. \u201cShe\u2019s trying to find a way to avoid people thinking she\u2019s not clever.<\/p>\n

Sophie was diagnosed with dyslexia<\/a> when she was six years old, her mother, who is also an SNA, explains. Dyslexia has made her life \u201cso much more difficult\u201d, her mother says.<\/p>\n

Those difficulties increased significantly when Sophie went to secondary school. She was \u201cjust thrown straight into the deep end and she was expected really to do the same level work as everyone else\u201d. <\/p>\n

Kate doesn\u2019t blame the teachers. \u201cIt\u2019s not really their fault because they don\u2019t have the understanding. That\u2019s the problem with dyslexia. When people hear the word dyslexia they think, \u2018Oh, they just can\u2019t spell properly\u2019. And that\u2019s the biggest misconception of dyslexia ever. Because dyslexia is so much more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lack of understanding makes life very difficult for adults and children, Kate says. \u201cEspecially school life, when you\u2019re all put into the same box, are expected to know the same things, be able to learn the same things, and that\u2019s just not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sophie struggled to keep up with her school work in secondary school and began to stop attending. \u201cShe was getting sick every day from the anxiety. She was having panic attacks in school.\u201d<\/p>\n

She got support from a \u201clovely\u201d special education teacher, Kate explains, \u201cbut she was embarrassed going into special education classes. Because, when they hit the age of 14, 15, people start noticing, and they start calling you names and they\u2019re slagging you. And she really took that to heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Leaving Cert maths paper two gets far more positive response from studentsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Sophie was put on a reduced and restricted timetable and she didn\u2019t do some classes. \u201cIt was coming closer to the exams and we ended up having to bring her to Pieta House because she was so stressed out over the exams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kate\u2019s decision that Sophie shouldn\u2019t sit the Junior Cycle exams, a decision taken alongside her school, was not an easy one, she explains. \u201cI was stuck between a rock and a hard place\u2013 do I encourage her to go and do the exams, or is that putting too much pressure on her? Am I making the anxiety worse?\u201d<\/p>\n

She had hoped her daughter might sit the exams in the end, and Kate sought the supports she was entitled to. \u201cShe had gotten the allocation. She had gotten the 10-minute additional time and she had gotten the spelling waiver. She could not believe that the [additional] time allowance was only 10 minutes. She was like, \u2018Mam, it would take me 10 minutes to read one question\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kate has another child who is dyslexic, \u201cbut not to the same level\u201d. She has seen the different efforts put in by her children without dyslexia, versus the work Sophie needs to do, often with few positive results. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to get the proper guidance. A lot of the time what you\u2019re told is, \u2018keep reading to her. Get her to keep reading\u2019. That doesn\u2019t work for everyone, because everyone is different.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the school refusal comes from – there are teachers who have a great understanding of this and there are teachers who have very little understanding. So, she is constantly told, \u2018You\u2019re just not trying hard enough\u2019. But none of these teachers are at home, alongside me watching how hard she tries. And that comment really, really gets her. It just ruins everything. She just can\u2019t wait to be finished school.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is amazing at so many other things,\u201d Kate says. Sophie will begin studying the Leaving Certificate Applied in September. \u201cThat\u2019s where she needs to be. That\u2019s where she will thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sophie is hoping to study psychology when she finishes school and Kate is determined to help her realise that dream, \u201cwhatever back doors we need to go through\u201d. <\/p>\n

Names have been changed but are known to The Irish Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sophie should be in the middle of her Junior Cycle exams, but instead she\u2019s at home sorting out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,17163,207572,61,60,3184,28205,2055],"class_list":["post-490387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-classroom-to-college","tag-examwatch","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-leaving-certificate","tag-second-level","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}