Amber Warren.
BSc Education and Psychology.
My name is Amber Warren and I am currently carrying out my dissertation for my degree in BSc Education and Psychology titled ‘Exploring transitions and resourced provision for children with Autism in a mainstream school: pupil and teacher perspectives.’
This project aims to find out what children with autism think about school, particularly how they feel about transitioning between a specialist resource base and their mainstream classroom. We want to discover which parts of the day are significant to the children, including the friendships they’ve formed and which parts they like and dislike. The little research which exists in regards to specialist resource bases suggest that this ‘best of both worlds’ scenario within mainstream education is effective, however it has focused highly on teacher and parent’s perspectives and has not heard from the voice of pupils. Therefore this project will investigate from the perspective of the pupils and also their teachers who work closely alongside them during their day at school to create an overall picture of the pupil’s daily experiences with use of such provision.
I aim to explore these research questions:
- What are the views and experiences of young pupils with autism about daily transitions between a specialist resource base and the further areas of their school?
- What are the views and experiences of teachers about the transitions of young pupils with autism between a specialist resource base and the further areas of their school?
- What do these views and experiences identify as the effective practices that support transitions and the practices that could be developed or improved further?
To do so, pupils from a primary school will create a project about their average day and I will then conduct interviews with these pupils and their teachers to understand overall thoughts and perspectives on the daily transitions which they engage in every day and how they feel about school. The pupils will have the opportunity to share their experiences to other pupils, teachers and parents outside of the specialist resource base through also presenting their project. You can read in detail about the project’s findings here.