Simon Currigan: 0:45

Can cutting edge technology such as virtual reality be exploited to transform learning experiences for young people with additional needs? And what could that look like in practice? In this week's podcast we join Ange Anderson, head teacher of an innovative special school in Wales who has used VR to support the children in her care. Join us as we explore how VR can help prepare young people for real life situations and how technology can make life in school easier for everyone. Click play to learn about the future of education. Welcome to the School Behaviour Secrets podcast. I'm your host, Simon Currigan. My co host is Emma Shackleton, and we're obsessed with helping teachers, school leaders, parents, and, of course, students when classroom behaviour gets in the way of success. We're gonna share the tried and tested secrets to classroom management, behavioural special needs, whole school strategy, and more, all with the aim of helping your students reach their true potential. Plus, we'll be letting you eavesdrop on our conversations with thought leaders from around the world. So you'll get to hear the latest evidence based strategies before anyone else. This is the School Behaviour Secrets podcast. Hi, everyone. Simon Currigan here, back for a quick essentials episode of the School Behaviour Secrets Podcast where we dive into some golden oldies from past episodes sharing those key takeaways that can seriously transform your classroom or school. Remember even the smallest of reminders can make the biggest of difference when it comes to classroom behaviour and student success. But before we dive in, I've got a quick favour to ask you. If you're enjoying our podcasts, please hit subscribe to stay up to date on the latest episodes of School Behaviour Secrets. And today we're going to head back to original episode number 89 to join the conversation I had with Ange Anderson discussing how virtual reality and augmented reality can be used practically in the real world to support children with social, emotional, and mental health needs. So without further delay, let's press play. In your book, you talk about using VR to help teach children real world social skills. Now initially, that could sound counterintuitive because when we imagine someone using VR, we picture someone with a headset on and they're effectively locked away from the outside world. So how does VR work to help pupils develop social skills?

Ange Anderson: 3:20

There are many, many VR apps now that will help students understand emotions, for example. So if you just go on YouTube to sample some, one that springs to mind is meeting strangers in the metaverse, which is directed at teenagers, and you wear a headset for that. But VR hasn't got to mean wearing a headset. VR enables a student to practice an experience with the that would not be possible in real life. I know, for instance, of a college currently using VR for students to practice work experience situations before they actually go there. The whole of the shop floor can be experienced in the safety of the school beforehand. We use the VR room for transition for those who couldn't face leaving our school to visit the secondary school. But by visiting that school and its staff in our VR room, their anxiety levels were reduced. And once they became familiar with the school, the staff, the bus ride, they felt able to visit. And we had a 100% successful transition, and we hadn't had it before our use of VR.

Simon Currigan: 4:19

So this is really powerful, isn't it? This is preparing yourself in virtual reality for completing a task or visiting an environment. So when you actually arrive in the real world, you know what to expect. You've been there. You've done it.

Ange Anderson: 4:32

Exactly. Exactly. And the number of meltdowns that parents experience experience even today, I mean, I was very lucky that I was able to do that in our school and change the lives for those parents and children. But this isn't happening everywhere, unfortunately. I know some good schools I mentioned later that that is happening in. But this needs to be more universal because parents are still suffering with the meltdowns that some students have because their anxiety levels are sky high when they're going to these places. And if only they have the chance to practice these out beforehand, these issues wouldn't arrive. And I tell you what, these issues are so painful. I know of one student, for instance, who kicked his dad so dreadfully on a train because he couldn't cope with the transition on the train, that his dad had to go to hospital, and it was very serious. And he had got into that meltdown because he didn't know what to expect. His anxiety levels were so high.

Simon Currigan: 5:29

In your book, you describe using a virtual reality room to help neurodiverse pupils learn to cross the road safely, and you've touched on this already. I wanna say I found this personally, this example, really, really fascinating. It's a really practical example of how this can work in the real world. It was a bit of an eye opener. So could you talk us through what that virtual reality room looked like and what the results were?

Ange Anderson: 5:53

Okay. Well, as I said before, we did approach parents as to what situations were most important to them, and we just asked them to give us a list. And to be honest, the staff and parents voted for learning to cross the road. That was the number one, as the first VR experience, certainly the local road, because our students had experienced difficulties when they were expected to wait at that local pedestrian crossing, which had a waiting time of 3 minutes. 3 minutes is quite a long time to wait for a student who's already anxious. One of our HLTAs, Helen, visited the local crossing, took 360 degree photos, and made recordings of all the sounds encountered there. Samantha, our technology lead, transferred these onto a program on the VR computer that was connected to the rest of the VR equipment in the multisensory room, and this produced a seamless 3D version of the crossing with relevant sounds and actions projected onto 3 walls of the room so that students were surrounded by a real life situation within the safety of the school. It was decided that 30 students, aged from 7 to 11 would benefit from this opportunity, and consent forms plus useful information was sent home to the parents. All parents consented to the trial. The panoramic view of the junction was projected onto the 3 walls. The colored spots on the floor were beams of light projected from the ceiling, and each had an image attached along with an accompanying sound where relevant. These were activated by students with or without support, passing a handheld controller across the appropriate color to break the beam. Each student was offered an individual session of 10 to 15 minutes in length once a week, spanning a period of 8 weeks, and these sessions were split into 3 stages. During this time, each student was encouraged to act out crossing the road. They were required to listen out for sights and sounds. They learned how to press the button to control and activate the traffic light system, and they learned to wait patiently as they looked and listened continually. The immersive room experience is very real. It allows students to explore and experience situations as if they were actually present in that environment or place. And at the 3rd stage, students were taken to the actual crossing to see whether the VR session had been successful or not in helping them to cross the road in a safe and timely manner. During 1 week, each student was taken to the cross with staff, and the success or failure of the program was observed, and they had a 100% success rate.

Simon Currigan: 8:19

Right. That's remarkable. So that is a real world scenario that for a very long time has provoked anxiety and concern in those children. And it was an 8 week intervention? Yeah. A complete turnaround?

Ange Anderson: 8:32

Yeah. Complete turnaround.

Simon Currigan: 8:33

That's remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. So what would you say to someone who thought using VR or AR in this way was an expensive gimmick based on that?

Ange Anderson: 8:42

Well, I I would say check out what the NHS are doing now. They're providing VR to assist those with mental health issues. And if you just do a search, you'll find out why they're doing it. Multi sensory rooms are in many special schools, and I think you could claim that they were an expensive gimmick. And I didn't want that because I myself believe they're an expensive gimmick. A VR room, though, makes better use of those multi sensory rooms, in my opinion. It has been developed to assist social skills and deal with anxieties, fears, and phobias. I know of other schools and colleges who, on top of installing a multi sensory room, have employed outside disability nurses who use these rooms with students to deliver VR in the same way that we did. I myself believe in training school staff because this can add to their CPD, but it does certainly work for that school as well. In conjunction with the disability nurse, they have had a first group of students access a 6 week programme, which has a significant impact on anxiety reduction, social confidence, and 1 student is overcoming a lifelong fear.

Simon Currigan: 9:51

And that's where we'll have to press pause because that's all we've got time for today. I honestly felt that Ange gave us lots to think about especially about how we use technology effectively to help students overcome their fears and anxieties in a safe way before using those skills out in the real world. It felt like we were just scratching the surface of what we could do to use technology in schools in the future. If you'd like to hear more, feel free to pop back to the original episode. I definitely recommend that you do. That's episode number 89 and I'll put a direct link to it in the podcast description. If you're the type of person who enjoys helping others, why not do a friend or colleague a favour by sharing the link to School Behaviour Secrets and letting them in on all the good stuff we've been sharing with you. All you gotta do is open up your podcast app and click the share button, and by the magic of technology, they too will be able to listen into the show. So thanks for listening today, and I'll see you next time on School Behaviour Secrets.