Ms Offaly seeks to change perspectives around Leaving Cert results

By Navjyoti Dalal

With the Leaving Cert results out tomorrow (Friday), points totals will be making headlines once again. While the 500 to 600-plus achievers are celebrated, there will also be students who may view lower scores as an end to their academic road.

For Ms Offaly 2026, Cleo Knight, this time of the year is a reminder of the importance of perseverance, and how far one can go even if their Leaving Cert results are not ideal.

The Portarlington woman wants to use her Ms Offaly platform to challenge the idea that a young person's potential can be determined by a single set of exam results.

She said she "left school with fewer than 100 Leaving Certificate points" but is currently working as a business and media lecturer, and also as a course coordinator at a Dublin college.

In an effort to give hope to students who haven't scored as well as they would have liked, Cleo has launched an education campaign called 'Further Than You Think – Opening Doors. Unlocking Potential. Inspiring Futures'.

Inspired by her own journey, the campaign is aimed at challenging perceptions around Leaving Cert points, educational disadvantage and alternative pathways that can become roads to success.

Her goal is to start a wider conversation about Leaving Certificate points and educational inequality. "Not every child can write essays to prove their potential. The evaluating system must be inclusive and give people an option to showcase their intelligence another way, instead of through a standardised assessment," she commented.

Cleo, who is also a model and passionate fashionista championing the idea of sustainability, will be representing Offaly at the Ms Ireland Final on October 3.

Recounting her experience of leaving school, she said: "My Leaving Cert results made me feel like a failure. I genuinely believed that I didn't belong in the academic world. When you are 18 and everything seems to revolve around points, it is very easy to confuse the number you receive with your intelligence and potential."

When she looked at the courses open to her, she said 'jam-making' was all that seemed to be available at first. Her results made her believe that she wasn't academic, that higher education wasn't for her and that perhaps she simply wasn't capable.

"I loved learning, I had ambition, but the points made me feel like I was not intelligent or smart enough," shared Cleo, who felt a guidance void for students like her.

"Students don't have a standard mental make-up, they are diverse in terms of aptitude, or even in their circumstance," shared Cleo, who is one of five children that her widowed mother raised. This put the day-to-day running of life at centre stage, while dreams and ambition was sidelined.

After the points crushed her spirit, further education became a breakthrough and turning point. It gave her an alternative route, allowed her to rebuild her confidence, and ultimately led her back into education.

"Today, I teach Business and Media and coordinate an Honours Degree in Business and Psychology. I went from believing I didn't belong in education to building my career in it.

"I now stand at the front of classrooms and work with students who sometimes remind me of myself at that age," said Cleo. Having witnessed no representation of students like herself in academia, she is happy that she has become the change she wanted to see.

While every Leaving Cert student is ultimately measured using the same points system, Cleo emphasises that they do not necessarily begin from the same starting point. They can have different levels of access to educational resources, financial security, technology, private tuition, family experience of higher education and knowledge of the different paths available to them.

"For some young people, university feels like the natural next step. For others, it can feel like a world they don't belong in," said Cleo. "We need to break the cycle. If a young person grows up believing that university or certain careers aren't for people like them, we risk losing enormous potential."

Cleo believes further education can play an important role in helping to break that cycle by creating accessible inroads into education, employment and higher education.

She also wants to challenge the perception that further education is simply a fallback for students who don't achieve enough Leaving Cert points. "Further Education wasn't my consolation prize. It was the door that opened everything else for me. A different route does not mean a lesser destination," she added.

Through her campaign, Cleo particularly wants to reach students who receive disappointing Leaving Cert results and feel that their future has already been decided.

The campaign focuses on further education, alternative pathways into higher education, educational inequality, breaking cycles of disadvantage and encouraging people not to allow exam results to define their potential.

"If I could speak to the 18-year-old girl who received fewer than 100 points and thought her only option was making jam, I would tell her to keep going," she concluded.