Daughter of Roscommon native receives Honorary Doctorate in UK for services to education

The daughter of a Fairymount native has received an Honorary Doctorate from Birmingham Newman University for her outstanding work in education.

Dr Dawn Casserly, daughter of the late James Casserly from Fairymount, and Breda Casserly from County Kilkenny, is the headteacher of St Paul’s School for Girls, Birmingham, one of the highest achieving secondary schools in the country. 

It is in the top 1% of schools in England and Wales for academic progress.

Many of the staff and pupils are of Irish heritage, including from Roscommon. Dawn received the Roscommon Person of the Year Award, from the Roscommon County Association, in 2017 in recognition of her contribution to the Irish and Roscommon communities.

She attended St Paul’s as a pupil and following the completion of her degree in Theology returned to teach Religious Education in 1992. She held various middle and senior leadership roles whilst also completing Masters and Doctoral studies part time. She became headteacher in 2012.

She is relentless in setting the highest standards for spiritual, personal and academic excellence and is utterly ambitious for all pupils, irrespective of ability, to experience success.

St Paul’s has supported hundreds of primary and secondary schools in the UK and  Dawn regularly leads training at a local, national and international level. In 2022, St Paul’s received the International Schools Award for exemplary work with schools in Nigeria, Beirut, India, South Africa and Romania.

She  said that she was both profoundly humbled and grateful to receive the Honorary Doctorate and accepted it on behalf of “all the wonderful people” who have and continue to inspire her in her educational journey, not least her late father James, and her grandmother May Casserly of Fairymount.