Evaluating whether digital stories can support children in their transition from nursery to primary school (Funded Project)

Henry Wood.

CRI Research Fellow.

My name is Henry Wood, and I am a Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Inclusion (CRI), Southampton Education School, University of Southampton. I also work as an Educational Psychologist, and have long-standing interests in autism, inclusive education, and person-centred approaches.

As part of my Research Fellow role, I am involved in evaluating whether Digital Stories can support children in their transition from nursery to primary school. Digital Stories are short videos that show who the child is, including their strengths, capabilities and preferences, rather than focusing on their difficulties and challenges (as tends to be the case with written reports).

I am working with new nursery settings to equip their practitioners with the skills to develop Digital Stories for their children. The videos will be shown at the beginning of multi-disciplinary transition meetings to help plan for the move from early years to primary settings. Adult stakeholders will be asked to give feedback, and possibly take part in a semi-structured interview, in order to evaluate the use of the Stories. I am also hoping to trial using Digital Stories as part of early years assessments carried out by Educational Psychologists, and evaluate their efficacy to this process.

We aim to answer the following research questions:

  • To what extent do adult stakeholders involved in supporting autistic children transitioning from early years to primary settings perceive the Digital Stories to be helpful?
  • How can Digital Stories be used in multidisciplinary meetings to support such transitions?
  • How can Digital Stories be used to help represent children’s voice in early years’ assessments and reports?
  • To what extent do adult stakeholders perceive digital stories to be useful to early years’ assessments?