Students learning life lessons instead of chasing points

Cork Life Centre, 95% staffed by volunteers, is not focused on the ‘points race’. The students, reap the benefits, writes Colette Sheridan

You wouldn’t normally expect to see a pool table in a school but the Cork Life Centre isn’t any ordinary school. As its director, Don O’Leary (a youth worker and former Sinn Féin councillor with Cork City Council), points out, it isn’t a school in the traditional sense.

He prefers to call it an education centre. Playing pool is supposed to be an indicator of a misspent youth but for the 52 young people, aged 12-18, attending this relatively unique centre (there is just one other, in Dublin), chilling out in the pool room or spending time in the quiet space in the library, is all part of the holistic approach to education practised here.