WILDGEESE:Emigrant business leaders on opportunities abroad: Irene Woods, Director, Kells Academy, Montreal

IRENE WOODS was just embarking on a promising career in pathology when her life took an unexpected detour. It was 1970 and she was working at University College Dublin when a friend persuaded her to come on holiday to Montreal, Canada. She enjoyed herself so much that she decided to stay.

More than 40 years on, the Cork native is director of an international private school in Montreal. Kells Academy, which offers English-language instruction at elementary and secondary level, has a reputation for creating high-achievers who go on to specialise in fields such as law, engineering and medicine.

Back in the 1970s, immigration to Canada was simple, recalls Woods. There were plenty of jobs and the country was welcoming newcomers with open arms. Woods more or less walked into a job in the pathology department of McGill University, throwing herself into a PhD in experimental medicine.

But, four years on, endless hours in the lab had sparked some soul-searching about her career choices. “I really enjoyed the academic aspects of the work, but I found working in labs isolating, especially during the weekend,” she says. Having done some teaching in the past, she found work coaching children with special needs in a high school.

The experience was a revelation. “That’s when I found my passion – that I had the talent to understand how kids learn,” she says. Back then, people tended to assume children who did not succeed were slow. Woods believed children with difficulties such as dyslexia and dysphasia could learn given the right approach. It was just a matter of reaching them.

Inspired, she took a diploma in special education at McGill University. A couple of years into her degree, with parents still clamouring for her services, she set up a special needs learning centre in an office block, later moving into an old synagogue. Demand was so overwhelming that she ended up hiring a team of extra tutors.

Initially she continued to focus on children with special needs, but soon the centre was teaching mixed-ability groups. By 1978 it had morphed into Kells Academy, relocating onto two campuses in the leafy inner-city neighbourhood of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. “It was entirely driven by demand, not by ambition,” says Woods.

Roughly half of the school’s 300 students are foreign. It’s a state of affairs that came about as a result of Quebec’s strict language laws, which mandate French-language instruction for newcomers to the province. Woods has been able to develop a niche, offering an anglophone alternative within the private system. Along the way, the special needs model has remained relevant, particularly for students who speak English as a second language. Ultimately, she says, it’s about focusing on the needs of the individual within small groups.

Having spent the early years of her career without much of a sense of direction, Woods now acknowledges that her destiny was staring her in the face. She hails from a long line of educators. Various family members have founded schools in Africa, Australia and the US. “So it’s in my blood,” she says.

After studying science at University College Cork, she spent two years teaching at a mission school in Nigeria, an experience that proved formative. Teaching children who desperately wanted an education, who saw it as a path to progress, was motivating. “I found it was possible to make a big difference to people’s lives. That was where I really got the bug,” she says.

The Ursuline nuns back home in Cork would be proud. Woods was greatly influenced by her own education, and bore many of the Ursuline educators’ values in mind when setting up her own school, in particular attaching importance to leadership, relationships and volunteer work. She still goes back to Cork for school reunions.

Woods has no plans to leave Montreal for now. “The lifestyle is better than most parts of the world. It’s possible to live close to the city centre and you’re in close proximity to the slopes and the lakes,” she says. Despite having two Irish parents, both of her children consider themselves to be primarily Canadian. Woods ensured they received part of their education in the French state system. “It’s a great opportunity to have two languages,” she says.

Canada turned out to be an ideal choice for Woods. “It’s not like you’re going into the wilderness,” she says. “With an already established Irish community here, people are always ready to lend a hand. Of course, as an immigrant, you have to expect to work harder, but the Irish generally tend to integrate very easily here.”

Going by the assistance she received from government agencies while setting up the school, she believes it is a particularly good destination for budding entrepreneurs.