is a SENCo, Executive Headteacher and former barrister, championing relational approaches, ethical practice and affinity-based education, influencing policy and practice to ensure that every learner is supported to thrive.
Leading from the inside
There is a particular kind of knowing that comes from living inside a system while also trying to change it. As an autistic school leader, I move through education with a dual consciousness - I am responsible for creating environments that enable belonging, and at the same time, I know how it feels when belonging is absent. My personal experiences did not stay neatly separate from my research— they shaped it. They shaped the questions I asked, the attention I paid to nuance and the urgency that sits behind my findings. Through every strand of my research, the same themes consistently emerged— belonging and voice.
Belonging
Belonging, as articulated by Marlow (1943) decades ago, is a fundamental human need. The autistic young people in my research expressed it in ways far more potent and personal. They spoke about it as not simply being placed in a classroom but feeling wanted and understood. It was something that developed through relationships with teachers, peers and sometimes with environments that finally felt manageable after years of sensory overwhelm. What became clear was that belonging was relational before it was structural. They shared how their sense of identity, self‑esteem and emotional well-being rose or fell depending on how adults interpreted their behaviour or listened to their views. Belonging was not formed by inclusion policies, it was created in the micro‑interactions of everyday school life— the patient pauses for processing, the willingness to ask rather than assume.
For many autistic young people, the school environment is already laden with sensory unpredictability, social complexities and hidden rules. Relational affinity acts as a stabilising force, communicating that you won’t navigate this alone. This is not a soft optional extra. It is the infrastructure of inclusion. Without it, even the most well‑designed provision fractures. Interestingly, alternative provisions often excelled in this area. Their smaller scale, flexibility, and relational emphasis allowed autistic young people to feel seen and valued. In contrast, larger mainstream settings often struggled to provide the consistency and attunement needed to make relational affinity possible. This highlighted that belonging takes relational labour and that labour must be prioritised, resourced and protected within school systems.
Voice
A painful truth emerged through my research: autistic young people are often spoken about, not spoken with. Despite the SEND Code of Practice and Article 12 of the UNCRC emphasising children’s participation rights, autistic young people described being excluded from decisions about their support, their placements and even their daily routines. Many of them had stories in which adults gathered their views but did not act on them, creating an illusion of participation without its substance.
Voice is not merely the act of eliciting opinions but requires influence. It involves action and adults who take responsibility for ensuring young people’s perspectives shape decisions in meaningful ways. This is particularly important for autistic pupils, whose communication may be non‑traditional and whose silence may be misinterpreted. Voice requires structures that validate autistic communication in all its forms. Autistic voice cannot be restricted to one method or moment; it must be built into the culture of the school.
My policy analysis revealed a jarring disconnect between policy rhetoric and lived experience. Medicalised and deficit‑based language was frequently used, describing autism as a lifelong developmental disability and framing autistic people as passive recipients of care; thus reinforcing narratives that view autistic individuals as in need of fixing rather than recognising autism as a distinct neurotype with both challenges and strengths. Moreover, commitments, though well‑intentioned, lacked the depth and autistic‑led insight required to transform practice meaningfully.
Not themes but lived necessities
My positionality was not incidental to the research but integral. I openly share the multiple perspectives I inhabit: educator, leader, researcher and autistic adult. This internal plurality heightened my sensitivity to the nuances of power and to the ethical responsibility of representing autistic young people’s voices accurately and respectfully. Holding these roles simultaneously brought the clarity that belonging and voice are not just academic themes but lived necessities. If we centre belonging and voice— as we must— education begins to reshape itself. Schools become places where autistic young people are not merely included but welcomed; not merely present but participating; not merely coping but thriving.
To achieve this, we need relational consistency, sensory‑responsive environments, participatory structures and leaders willing to interrogate and dismantle neurotypical norms that marginalise autistic ways of being. When autistic young people say, ‘Actually listen to us,’ they are naming a systemic issue that their perspectives are too often dismissed or doubted. Listening is not passive— it is action. It is the foundation of a school culture where autistic pupils can belong, contribute and flourish.
- Convention on the rights of the child (1989) Treaty no. 27531. United Nations Treaty Series, 1577, pp. 3-178.
- Department for Education and Department of Health (2015) Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years.
- Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50 (4), 370-96.
- Shaw, R. (2025). ‘Actually Listen to Us’: Autistic Young People’s Experiences and Perspectives of the English Education System. University of the West of England.