For decades, post-school transition pathways for students with SEND have been dominated by health funded day services. Despite Ireland’s commitments to uphold the rights of people with disabilities under the UNCRPD (2006), ratified in Ireland in 2018, and a subsequent policy drive towards inclusive accessible employment and education by two successive governments, Ireland continues to have the lowest disability employment and post-school education rates in Europe. The primary aim of this research was to explore the experiences of key stakeholders involved in transition preparation and transition planning for students leaving Special schools in the Republic of Ireland and identify the Teacher Professional Learning needs of teachers to enable them to support transition preparation & transition planning​. The overarching research questions were: A) What are the views and experiences of students, parents, teachers, and principals in Irish Special schools of transition preparation and transition planning? B) How can the teacher support the development of autonomous postschool choices? This research was contextualised within the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of human rights (UNCRPD, 2006) and social participation (Simplican et al., 2015). The voices and perspectives of a number of stakeholders (students, parents, teachers and principals) were harnessed through a participatory social justice explanatory sequential mixed method design. The Mosaic approach (Clark & Moss, 2001) was used to specifically situate the students as the expert in their own lives and aimed to capture their experience of preparation for transition through mapping their vision for life post-school. This research demonstrates that while students and their parents hold high aspirations for life post-school, schools continue to face significant challenges in implementing effective transition planning practices, without adequate policy guidance, legislation and resources. This research highlights the specific policy issues that need to be addressed if Ireland is to realise its commitment under the UNCRPD (2006).