Abstract
This participatory research aimed to explore the experiences of children who had transitioned from a special school into a mainstream school in a creative and inclusive way. There is a dearth of literature on special school to mainstream school transition, particularly from a child’s perspective. The Mosaic Approach was adapted for older children which used multiple methods to offer a child-focused way for two autistic children to construct their understanding of their school transition.
The children took part in semi-structured interviews where they were able to draw and craft and one of the children led the researcher on a tour of their school, taking photographs along the way. Visual and textual data was analysed using inductive, reflexive thematic analysis to identify themes. Children’s understanding and feelings about their transition and inclusion in mainstream school uncovered themes of contrasting school experiences, “things that you need to know”, child and adult relationships and how did I get here? The deeper opportunities that children found in mainstream were evident as was the value of including children when making decisions about their placement.
Potential implications for educational policy and practice and educational psychologists’ practice were underpinned by Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory and used to make best practice guidelines to support transition to mainstream school.