Case Study: Cedar Lodge Special School supports pupils and families with ThingLink

Cedar Lodge Special School creates accessible immersive tours for 90% of transported pupils with ThingLink

Cedar Lodge Special School, a special education school in Belfast, faced the challenge of creating accessible and flexible digital experiences for its diverse student population with special educational needs. The school needed to support varying levels of sensory engagement, strengthen family connections, and help new students become familiar with the environment, as 90% of students were transported to school and lacked a traditional "school gate" community. They turned to the vendor Thinglink to address this.

Using Thinglink, Cedar Lodge transformed a two-dimensional digital tour into a layered, 360° immersive virtual tour for its website. The solution included "Living Lessons" within the tour and was used to create differentiated social stories for students. This provided a graduated approach to immersion, allowing exploration on standard devices or VR headsets. The results included greater accessibility for students and staff, stronger family engagement, and recognition through the Capita ICT Excellence Awards for innovatively "breaking the ceiling of learning."

Cedar Lodge Special School