Rockall’s year turned upside down by the coronavirus

CLAIRE Rockall should be preparing for what was shaping up to be the busiest summer of her life, with key events looming in her sporting, professional, and personal life on the horizon. And then the coronavirus as good as shut down the entire world.

A secondary school teacher by profession in Glanmire Community College in Cork, the Oranmore woman and Irish international is one of a select group of teachers around the country in charge of the first batch of students who will take PE as a Leaving Certificate subject.

On the sporting front, she was heading into the Women’s Super League post-season play-offs with her childhood club, Maree BC, in the club’s debut season in the top-flight before the campaign was prematurely ended due to the coronavirus, with the global pandemic also forcing the cancellation of the European championships in Cyprus in July.

Then there is also a personal impact – she is due to get married at the end of the July, but question marks hang over that walk down the aisle because of the restrictions currently in place in Ireland on social distancing, large gatherings, and movement being restricted to essential journeys.

“Yeah, you could say it is a strange time all right,” says Rockall (29) when that unwanted hat-trick is put to her, “but everyone is in the same boat.”

The people she feels most for is her class of Leaving Cert students in Cork. Glanmire CC is one of 64 schools from around the country that is essentially ‘piloting’ the addition of PE to the Leaving Cert curriculum.

Given the fact that this is the first year it is being examined as a subject, the students have no previous exam questions books to reference, while a subject-specific book was only made available in recent months.

“We had limited resources as it is,” explains Rockall, who also teaches Maths. “There are no exam papers to look back on, the text book only came out a few weeks ago, so the students were already at a disadvantage compared to other subjects, and it is really tough on them not being able to be in class in these weeks heading into the exams.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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