Collingwood student Alfie conceived and directed a short film which allows us a glimpse into the world as he sees it. Every shot was carefully planned to show how a ‘normal’ situation can be a challenge and how we shouldn’t jump to conclusions when looking at the behaviour of others. The film was shot here at Collingwood using our own Media facility.

Top BBC nature presenter Chris Packham recently made a groundbreaking, highly acclaimed series for BBC1 called My Autistic Life.
In these programmes, neurodiverse young adults described how they lived with autism, and produced short films which communicated their experiences and perception of the world to family, friends and viewers.

On viewing these programmes, we at Collingwood recalled that we had already done something very similar with Alfie, one of our young people. Through our BBC Mentor, Mark James, Chris Packham got to see the short film. He was suitably impressed, and kindly sent us a video response.

Alfie’s original film and the video message from Chris Packham can be seen below.