Dr. Sarah O'Grady

Sarah mainly teaches on the BEd in Gaeilge, and French or German or Spanish (BEdLan) programme and lectures on the Professional Learning and Teacher Education strand on the DCU Doctoral Programme. She is also Academic Coordinator of Professional Placement for the BEdLan programme, responsible for leading the design and assessment of placement periods across the four-year BEdLan degree programme. She is also a member of the BEdLan Steering Committee. 

Sarah is a former member of the Faculty’s Professional Development and  Partnerships Committee, which oversees the IoE’s programme of professional development supporting stakeholder partnerships and DCU’s overall Strategy. As part of this committee, she was the Post-primary Sector Coordinator for DCU’s Partnership for Learning. Along with colleagues from the DCU Partnership for Learning Team, Sarah was the recipient of the President's Special Merit Team Award for Engagement in April 2025.

Sarah’s doctoral research focused on exploring how changes to policy and initial teacher education programmes were perceived and experienced in practice by school-based stakeholders in post-primary schools.

Sarah also taught modern languages for fifteen years in an all boy’s post-primary school in Dublin, where she was Head of the French Department for several years. There, Sarah led and took part in several whole-school policy initiatives, she was Chairperson of the Education and Ethos Committee, and was also elected by colleagues to the Board of Management of the school.

Prior to joining the Institute of Education at DCU, Sarah was seconded to the Teaching Council. As a Teaching Council Associate, she worked in the Initial Teacher Education and Induction Section of the Council, and her work was focused on the development of national teacher education policy. 

Sarah is an active member of two research centres:

• DCU CREATE, the Centre for Collaborative Research Across Teacher Education at DCU, and is a member of the Centre’s Steering Committee.

• Chomh maith le sin, is ball í do SEALBHÚ. lárionad atá tiomanta do thaighde a dhéanamh ar fhoghlaim agus ar theagasc na Gaeilge. [As well as that, she is a member of SEALBHÚ. A Centre dedicated to research into the learning and teaching of Irish].