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Visit from the BBC

Pupils were excited to receive a visit last week from CBeebies and Paper Owl Films. The team is consulting with young people on the development of a new game highlighting what life is like on the autism spectrum.

Grainne, Rosie, Suzanne and Hannah are involved in creating a new TV show called Pablo. Pablo will be an animated 52-part series about a five-year-old boy who creates an entire world from his imagination. All the characters in the world he creates have traits that could be similar to someone on the autism spectrum. These are traits that Pablo shares in the real world.

The entire cast for the show are autistic and many have been involved in writing scripts for the programme too.

The key aim of the show is to create empathy with what it might feel like to be on the autism spectrum.

As well as creating a new TV show the team are going to create a game that will engage young viewers with the thought processes and challenges of having autism. The team came to New Struan School to get ideas and input from our pupils.

Discussions with pupils were centred around autism and what might make a fun and engaging video game. Pupils were introduced to the characters that will feature in Pablo and asked what they thought of them. Jack said that:  'A lot of pupils here have similar traits to the characters' and that he liked the characters going on to say, 'some people get shy in the outside world and need imaginary friends.'

The team spoke with pupils about what myths they would like to dispel around autism, what life scenarios might show what it is like to have autism and lots of other discussions that helped them to gain insight into life on the autism spectrum.

Another discussion topic was around suggestions pupils had for a Pablo video game. Jason and Jack had some great ideas, including a game where kids can make up their own stories about Pablo and being able to change a character’s feelings to match your own.

It was novel and exciting to be involved in a project run by the BBC. Especially since a number of our pupils really enjoy video games. Thank you to CBeebies and Paper Owl films, we can’t wait to see Pablo and the new video game!

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