INTRODUCTION
INITIAL PROGRAMME OF ACTIVITIES
I have worked with children on a regular basis for over seven years through many jobs and volunteering roles, including my role as a Camp Energy Leader. Leading these sessions frequently involved supervising numerous children with disabilities (including autism, ADHD, learning disabilities and anger issues), whose specific needs I had to understand and who each required my undivided attention. I adapted to working with this group effectively by ensuring that every session was different, challenging and exciting so that they were of value to every child. Other roles include, House Captain, Young Ambassador, Badminton Level 2 Coach, Creché Assistant and Lifeguard.
I will be progressing into a teaching career in September 2015, and I am currently undertaking work experience in numerous secondary schools.
Through my vast experiences with children, parents and teachers it is often the case that they feel their personal views on facilities and provisions are overlooked. This, coupled with my own challenges when supervising groups of children with special needs in a facility with limited provisions, became my focus point for the research project.
I want to highlight this issue in a school environment and find out whether the design for special needs schools is influenced by people who use the spaces every day. Teachers are in the best possible position to establish what works and doesn't work within their own school, and, along with parents/carers, they understand the needs of every single pupil. I am intrigued to find out if the guidelines for a consultation process fully progresses to these experts or is simply stated in documentation and met by architects.
MOTIVATION
TOPIC CHOICE
Figure 1
OUTLINE OF SECTIONS
DESIGN GUIDANCE FOR SPECIAL NEEDS SCHOOLS AND PERMANENT PROVISIONS PREVENT THE POTENTIAL INPUT FROM EXPERT KNOWLEDGE.
Underneath this section, I will clearly outline the following:
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My motivation behind the topic choice
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An initial programme of activities
Within this section, I will outline my intended:
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Aims
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Objectives
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Methods
I will also state my limitiations to research.
I will be conducting research at special needs schools, which will be outlined in the password protected 'School Identification' sub-page underneath Appendix.
This research will be seperated in to the following sections:
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Observations
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Interview
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Questionnaires
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Case Studies
I will be investigating the following through secondary resources:
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Background information on the existing design guidance for special needs schools/permanent provisions, including any changes and any information on designing for individual disabilities
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Impact the design of special needs schools/permanent provisions have on the children, teachers and non-teaching staff and how the layout and design of these provisions influence a child's development and learning
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Consultation processes for parents, carers and teachers and restrictions that exist when designing special needs schools/permanent provisions
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Advice on briefing process
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Considering all of my research (primary and secondary) I will analyse my findings, including their relevence and reliability, whilst stating any further limitations that I found which may have had an effect.
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Discuss whether the design guidance for special needs schools/permanent special needs provisions prevent the potential input from expert knowledge based on both my primary research and secondary research findings, including all relevant background information.
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Discuss the impact of design and how special needs schools/permanent special needs provisions influence the children's learning, including which aspects of the design benefit them the most.
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Analyse the consultation and briefing processes within design guidance and discuss whether these boundaries can be pushed to create learning environments for the children which have been influenced by expert knowledge (people who use the space every day).
Conclusion:
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I will construct a conclusive paragraph which will summarise my discussion and analysis.
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I will write a finalised, decisive statement which will either prove or disprove my hypothesis or remain inconclusive.
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The conclusion of my knowledge and findings that have been developed through this research project, will inform my design brief for my final project. This well-informed brief will have allowed input from teachers, parents and users of the provisions to be involved in the briefing process for my scheme.
Bibliography:
A structured and alphabetised collection of all references used within my primary and secondary research. These references have been collective arranged into alphabetised groups based on the different types of sources such as 'Books', 'Websites', 'TV Broadcast'.
Personal Communications:
This section is used to list all confidential information that would normally appear in the bibliography, but for purposes of this research and maintain the confidentiality of the individuals have been added to a separate drop down.
This page will be password protected.
Figures:
A structured collection of all visual references used within the blog. These are shown in the order they appear as you navigate through the website, from left to right, and top to bottom.
Site and Context:
A diagramatic approach to how I will be selecting my site. This methodology is listed next to the images.
I would like to find a site that will materialise as a central community hub for surrounding schools in Lincolnshire, specifically focusing on the schools that have directly contributed to and influenced my research.
School Identification:
This section will be used to outline the identification of 'School A', 'School B', 'School C' etc used throughout my research. This has been put in place in order to maintain the confidentiality of the schools and individual participants views and responses.
This page will be password protected.
Acknowledgements and Ownership:
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Acknowledgments showing thanks to people and organisations that helped with my research. I will identify who to thank and outline how they helped me. I will also decide which order to thank people in, dependant on their input and how I will express my thanks.
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A signed statement acknowledging full understanding that copyright of this research project proposal rests with Nottingham Trent University, and that no information dervied from this research project can be published without prior written consent of the University.
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A continuous daily blog showing every stage of my journey throughout this research project, which began in June 2014.
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These blog posts document all pieces of research that I initially found which I considered to have relevance to my research topic. They also include all email correspondence, scanned questionnaires results, notes from secondary sources including quotes from books, e-books and publications, primary research observations and photographs, scanned completed ethical form and my proposal submission.
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All blog posts have been referenced accordingly using the Harvard Referencing System.
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All blog posts have been given 'tags' for ease of searching for a particular category. The archive section allows blog posts to be searched through by the month they were posted.
This page will be password protected.
My hypothesis will be investigated throughout this research project, which will in turn underpin my main studio project. This integrated approach results in design work of greater complexity and richness because it is informed by a body of wide ranging and in depth research.
This website shows completed, necessary research, including site research, analysed material and clearly indentified issues relevant to my design. This will inform my design brief, which I will work to in my design studio project. However, I will not be exploring possible design solutions at this stage.
This introduction section will cover my motivation, topic choice, initial programme of activities, outline of sections and a glossary of terms.
Please use the navigation buttons, to move throughout my website with ease.
Please note, the project logo located on the top left of all pages will navigate you back to the Home Page.
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I decided my general subject area/topic would be schools and permanent provisions for children, based on my personal involvement mentioned in the motivation section.
My narrowed area of interest would be focused on special educational needs and disabilities.
After an initial visit to 'School A' and a conversation with the Head teacher, I learnt that the school were expanding to another site and the developers/architects were involving the Head teacher in the design process due to his background in the industry. I decided to research in to the existing design guidance for special needs schools and permanent provisions to see if this was the case (regardless of background) at other schools and provisions.