Headsets for Hope

Many children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) find experiences such as travel and transport daunting and anxiety-provoking. A previous project, Headsets for Travel, has been piloted by the project partners: Billing Brook School, VR Therapies and Digital Northants. This project investigated the impact of a planned programme of virtual reality experiences on the theme of journeys to school on the attitudes and confidence of school pupils with SEND. The VR experiences simulated real-world scenarios and provided problem-solving exercises to enhance pupils' skills and confidence in navigating school transport challenges. This project tapped into pupil voice to identify common challenges faced during transportation, such as changes in routes, and small changes that improved their experiences, such as having access to their own music, reducing air freshener smells and being warned in advance of delays or diversions.

The proposed project adds scalability and sustainability to the pilot project by collaborating with the project partners to create a resource bank of Immersive Reality (IR) experiences, training materials and equipment so that other schools can design and deliver their own tailored interventions related to the theme of travel and the local environment. It is based on the premise that IR is an effective and engaging medium for children and young people to rehearse scenarios linked to aspects of travel such as journeys to school, using public transport and engaging in field trips. Their anxieties are reduced by gaining familiarity with simulations of these challenging experiences within a safe, interactive and game-like environment that enables them to develop a range of coping strategies to support self-regulation. Promoting pupils’ travel independence reduces the need for 1-1 interventions. By providing a resource bank in which staff from across the county and further afield can access training and resources, the project enables other providers to better support pupils in their care, reducing the cost of individualised travel and enabling pupils to take part in a fuller range of school experiences, including field trips. The local economy potentially benefits from pupils and their families gaining confidence to use public transport and access local shops, amenities and services.


This project aims:

To use project resources to create a resource bank of IR materials to empower young individuals with SEND and mental health challenges to develop independent life skills and improve their wellbeing.

To secure the sustainability, scalability and impact of the project partners’ recent pilot initiative.  

To extend and consolidate community partnerships by combining IR experiences with community-driven approaches. 

To explore the use of immersive technology as a catalyst for positive change within a local community. 

This project aims to use virtual reality to support children who experience anxiety traveling to and from school. By experiencing their journey virtually they may be able to feel more confident travelling to and from school and more widely. This project will work with the young people to create a resource bank of journeys for sharing more widely.