How can extracurricular trips support autistic young people’s learning?  

In this article, Emma Braisby, Autism Unit Head at Maplewell Hall School, considers the benefits of using extracurricular trips to aid autistic young people’s learning and life skills. 

Having worked with young people with special educational needs (SEN) for over 15 years and more recently leading an autism unit at Maplewell Hall School.  The Autism Unit at Maplewell is has an intake of 10 pupils per year group, these pupils all have a diagnosis of Autism but also often struggle with anxiety. It is very apparent that much of the learning that young people do can occur outside of the classroom, in environments that enable them to feel safe but are new to them. Experiential and adventurous learning has many benefits for autistic young people, and this article hopes to use personal recent experience to summarise these benefits. 
 

Experiential learning experiences 

Maplewell Hall School is a secondary special needs school. The Maplewell Autism Provision has 60 pupils with a diagnosis of autism, and the main part of the school has an intake of pupils with Moderate Learning Difficulties (MLD) but also other co-morbid diagnoses including Autism.  

At Maplewell Hall School, we are based within acres of woodland, and this calming, outside setting has been very advantageous to the learning and skills of the young people that attend; for example, by supporting pupils’ regulation and wellbeing. Because of this beneficial impact of experiential work on pupils’ wellbeing, we have taken further steps towards expanding our residential and experiential learning. 

As a school, we offer residential trips in each year group. These vary from adventure breaks for three days doing activities like archery, kayaking and teambuilding exercises, to farm living experiences where you experience being a farmer, feeding and cleaning out the animals, milking cows and tasting different farm products, all the way to 11-day expeditions to different countries for animal conservation projects.   

The impact of these types of trips has been overwhelming, feedback from parents and students has been very positive with a decrease in behaviours noticeable when out on trips and visits too. Using this type of experiential experience often breaks down barriers that may have been built in earlier experiences or previous traumas. The use of a different setting allows new behaviours to be built that can then be embedded when returning to the school environment or in later life during employment. 

When looking into this area whilst at my last school, I found very little research into the benefits of trips and residentials for autistic young people, but it was clear to see by staff that knew the pupils that there were many changes observed by taking the students on trips and visits that we didn’t see in pupils that didn’t attend. At Maplewell Hall School, I have used the compact version of the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire as a way of measuring the impact, along with other life skills and observational outputs. 
 

Preparing for a school trip to Thailand 

In October this year, Maplewell Hall School will be taking 18 pupils (17 with a diagnosis of autism) to Thailand to work with elephants on a sanctuary for 11 days. The pupils have an itinerary that includes carrying out manual work such as feeding, bathing and mucking out the elephants, as well as maintaining infrastructure like roads and water sources at the sanctuary. When their work is done at the sanctuary, the pupils will also experience the local culture in the village surroundings, visit a local island and even have a go at paddle boarding. 

The benefits of residentials for our autistic students have been noticeable, even from the smaller, more local residentials. These benefits have included increasing their sensory tolerance and foods that are included in their diets, all the way through to finding new ways to support emotional and sensory regulation whilst in new environments. 

The pre-scores using the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire have now been attained for the pupils going to Thailand for a year before the trip and six months before the trip. The scores will then be taken again once back to look at the difference. 

Preparations, to raise money for the trip, gave opportunity for students to be ‘work ready’ and to develop skills that would support them during the expedition. For example, in October we held a team building events, a Cabaret evening where the pupils were serving staff for the evening, planning and running a Fete and bike race and organising and running a fireworks event where the pupil ran stalls and were carpark attendants. 

The skills the pupils have used in the preparation work have been very beneficial so far and can be transferred to the world of work. I expect the pupils to gain even more skills and experiences from the expedition itself. 
 

Conclusion: 

The benefits of including these types of trips within the school year has been immeasurable, but some of the benefits we have seen include: 

• An increase in tolerance to different food types and sensory exposure 
• Building of new strategies for ‘real world’ situations 
• The increase in happiness scores (by comparing pre- and post-trip happiness scores) 
• Increase in happiness scores during the planning, teambuilding and fundraising efforts 
• Additional ‘real world’ transferable skills that will benefit the pupils in their further learning and employment in the future. 

There have of course been some difficulties with this type of adventurous activity. For example, extensive planning and risk assessments are involved – but the time spent on these has been well worth the reward. 

The future development of this type of experience going forward is to be able to offer a residential opportunity to each year group every year through their school career, with an adventurous expedition opportunity every two years in key stage 4. The collection of evidence will continue to document the importance of offering these experiences for all pupils with SEN, but for autistic students in particular. We also aim to increase our impact within the fundraising and awareness for these expeditions with larger charity events and podcasts to encourage more understanding of the benefits of these opportunities. 
 

Article Sources/References: 

Lapham’s Quarterly (2019). The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire. (Accessed: 20 June 2023).