“I decided to repeat my Leaving Cert for the same reason anyone does – I didn’t get offered any of the courses I wanted,” explains 18-year-old Derek Ford, adding that it wasn’t really a difficult decision to make: “When I got my results I knew straight away.” Ford was just 17 sitting the Leaving Cert the first time, and feels that he was too young. So although many of his friends were heading for new beginnings at college while he was preparing himself for yet another school year, Derek remained upbeat.

One thing that made repeating his Leaving Cert bearable, says Ford, was the great bunch of people he met at the Dún Laoghaire College of Further Education (DCFE). His brother also repeated his Leaving Cert at DCFE, and Ford was influenced by how well he has done since. The second time around, he says, things were more straightforward: “I didn’t feel half the amount of pressure when I repeated. I think it was because it was nothing I hadn’t done before, and I knew what to expect.”

There were 30 people in Ford’s class – half were students repeating, and half were undertaking their final school exams for the first time. The students in his year who were doing their exams for the first time were more nervous than the others, but he says they all helped keep each other thinking positively: “We all just got on so well. We organised study groups and kept each other going. Most of us are off to Amsterdam for a holiday over the summer.”

Derek Ford says the atmosphere in DCFE was entirely different to what he was used to in his secondary school at Clonkeen College in Blackrock, Dublin: “For one, it was mixed and we didn’t wear uniforms. It was really like a small taste of college life. The work was left up to you.” Ford dropped one Leaving Cert subject – accounting – and chose to focus on six subjects. He feels, “fingers crossed”, that the exams went well. Ford hopes to get enough points this year to gain a place in UCD’s computer science degree programme.

His second CAO choice is engineering in DIT. He says the teachers were extremely helpful and the amenities at DCFE were very good, particularly the computer facilities: “The first time, I didn’t try as hard as I could have and I had no idea what to expect. Also, I worked throughout sixth year in school. But because I chose to repeat, I worked much harder and was more focused on what I had to do.”

Ford says he has no idea what he’d be doing now if he hadn?t chose to repeat: “I’d probably be signing on in the dole office right beside DCFE. I don’t even want to think about it.” Pleased with how the exams went, he maintains that repeating his Leaving Cert is one of the better decisions he’s made. “My advice to students who aren’t happy with their college offers, is just repeat if you have to,” he continues.