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Transition to secondary school is a significant childhood event, especially for the most vulnerable children. Many looked after children experience multiple episodes of instability, loss and change which can affect this move. Research shows that school belonging promotes acceptance, inclusion and respect, and impacts positively on school transfer and participation. Asking children for their views on matters that affect them can ease the process and increase their belonging and well-being. This article seeks to echo the voices of 36 children aged 10 to 12 who participated in a therapeutic primary to secondary transition initiative for looked after children. Informed by a participatory action research approach, its focus was to facilitate the child’s voice. Child-friendly, multi-method techniques and activities were used to elicit their views about the transition. Social connections, relationships, feeling safe and belonging within the school environment emerged as key themes. Children specifically highlighted the importance of friendships as a mechanism for supporting their belonging during this time. They also voiced the need for their social connections and belonging to be promoted. This unique intervention provides a framework for facilitating the voices of looked after children and underlines the need for practitioners to listen and understand moves from primary to secondary schools from the child’s perspective.

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Lipid droplets (LDs) are vesicles present inside a wide variety of cells. LDs play a vital role in storing neutral lipids as a source for nutrients. While LDs are readily detected intracellularly, their extracellular presence is not widely reported. The cellular origins of LDs and the functions they serve in the thymus remain largely unknown. We detected presence of LDs in the mouse thymus and lymph nodes. We have investigated the proteins expressed by mouse thymic LDs and their functional role. To facilitate this inquiry, we first developed a novel method to isolate and quantify LDs from the thymus. Isolated LDs were analyzed by flow cytometer after staining with either fluorescent-tagged antibodies against immune cell proteins, or a lipid staining orange dye oil stain scarlet 6G. We report that the thymic LDs are heterogeneous in size (range 5 to 100 μm). LDs, on their membrane, express many immune molecules, including T cell receptor αβ in significant amounts. Thymic LDs do not express MHC proteins and are functionally incompetent to serve as antigen presenters. However, when included in antigen presenting assays using bona fide antigen presenting cells, LDs inhibit CD4+ T cell responses. We conclude that LDs found in the thymus express immune molecules on their membrane. While LDs do not directly present antigens to CD4+ T cells, however, their inclusion in cell cultures inhibit antigen-specific clonal expansion of CD4+ T cells in the presence of APC and an appropriate antigen.