CREST is a nationally recognised scheme for student-led project work in the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). Supervised by Mr Lovibond, Abbey students have the opportunity to improve their independent and reflective learning skills through enquiry-based project work.

Tereza, Upper VI (Year 13) explains below about her recent Gold Project:
“I started the CREST project with a friend simply because I was told it would look good on my UCAS uni application. Not knowing what UCAS was at the time, took my teacher’s word and committed to the bronze project in year 8.”

I really enjoyed it and so took it further to a silver which quickly turned into a gold project; all on the same topic of Autism. I went from, “what is Autism?” In my Bronze 10 hour project to developing a learning tool for children with ASD in mainstream education in my Gold 70 hour project.

I decided to research Autism because I had a friend in primary school who had ASD and found it so interesting how a seemingly ‘normal’, kind boy can be so different to us, his peers, at the time.

He would ask me template based questions every Monday morning about my weekend, never making eye contact, with the aid of his ‘helpers’. Having a a conversation with him would be so different to the other primary school playground conversations I’d had. This sparked an interest early on and popped back up when considering what my would project will be on.

My project involved online courses, reading books, online sources, countless studies and interviewing professionals to first build a foundation of knowledge then use that to create something, theoretically, that can help in the real world.

The professionals I interviewed included Donna Atkinson (a preschool head teacher) and Jess Debnam (a holistic model school therapist). They work together to get to know children in their care and send them off to primary school with a file of information about their learning styles and suggestions for how the primary school can most beneficially help the child’s education and development.

They were the two most significant sources used during my project. I found Jess Debnam, my mentor, through Mr Lovibond, my school CREST supervisor and she introduced me to Donna Atkinson. They helped me bridge the foundation of knowledge I had built to form a tangible and applicable tool.

The learning tool was a storytelling technique to be used by children with ASD which developed skill such as applying feedback and stimulating physiological parts of the brain to theoretically increase their function and build skills that would benefit them in the classroom.

The feedback I received from the CREST organisation:
Thank you Tereza for submitting this extensive and fascinating report. I am delighted to tell you that you have met all 15 criteria for the Gold Crest Award. Congratulations.

This was a fantastic and at times very complex and challenging read and I followed the arguments and explanations with real interest. Your choice of topic was extremely brave in a field where as you point out there is no `norm` or clear definitions – No easily identifiable features common to all and indeed no clear physiology or Psychology for all.

Nevertheless you managed to make a coherent argument. You then delved into another field- Education and once more provided an argued approach to an educational tool.

As a teacher and an Education Consultant I was very impressed with the research and the outcome. The product that you came up with has real potential and I hope that you can go onto see it in action in a class one day and assess the outcome. Congratulations again.