Lessons from the 80s

Reflecting on my school experiences, I've realised I benefited from whole-school inclusion, accommodations and simple approaches that I would still recommend to schools today.

When I started writing about it, I found my voice. It was a child's voice, reflecting on school life: words on a page conveying the deep and endless emotional reflection I had in response to specific situations, which I can still tap into from more than 40 years ago. I've since learnt words to explain that ability, "autistic rumination" and "episodic memory", and I'm grateful for it. It helps me connect with others, and offer what I hope is a relatable, disarming insight into one person's AuDHD experience.

In expressing my childhood experience, I also connected with how my teachers may have seen me, particularly at junior school (Key Stage 2), where I really did feel seen and accepted. Earlier school experiences seemed to land me in more trouble, but that's a story for another day. At this school, the teachers seemed to have an instinctive awareness of what I needed.

It's 10 years since I qualified as a SENCo, and 10 years I've been recommending inclusive strategies to schools. But only recently did I piece together that those accommodations were my experiences too. My very delayed autistic processing in action!

I will always advocate for labels as a pathway to self-understanding and acceptance, which can be truly empowering. It's other people who can use them to disempower. The self-awareness and self-acceptance that came with my own diagnosis have brought me more peace than I've ever had. But we can still help neurodivergent children in schools, whether they're diagnosed or not. Maybe you think that's impossible. It isn't, and I'm testament to that.

The accommodations that helped me at school

• Movement and brain breaks
• Being allowed to fiddle and doodle
• Reset and decompression time when overwhelmed
• Alternative arrangements for play, breaks and before school
• A safe person and a safe space

The foundations of supporting any neurodivergent child

1. Accept that the child experiences the world differently to you, and it may never make sense to you. That's OK.
2. The child probably isn't aware that the way they experience the world is different.
3. So much of what they experience happens on the inside, and is invisible.

Working in a school?

I share my lived experience and 20 years in SEN with schools through training, talks and coaching, to help staff understand the invisible world of neurodivergent children.