Sarah Galea.
MSc Education Management and Leadership.
I am Sarah Galea, a student at the University of Southampton studying a Masters degree in Education Management and Leadership. In partial fulfilment of the course, I am carrying out a dissertation titled, ‘Managing educational transition for students with autism from pre-school to primary education’, supervised by Professor Sarah Parsons. This study aims to investigate how sending and receiving schools manage the vital transition process and planning for students with autism. To explore this phenomenon, three research questions were developed:
- What strategies do sending and receiving schools use during the transition planning and process?
- What similarities and differences are there in such strategies between different schools?
- What classifies as a good transition by the schools?
The study has been approved by the University Ethics and Research Governance Committee, and is currently in the process of collecting data. Due to lack of literature on the transition process with relation to students with ASD, more specifically from an educational management perspective, the results from the study will provide a better insight on the phenomenon. Additionally, as the study is part of ACoRNS, the results will help practitioners answer their queries on the transition, which in turn will help the students themselves experience a smoother transition. You can read in detail about the project’s findings here.