The education system in England isn’t working for autistic children and young people.

Every school should be able to look after the needs of every child and give them opportunities to learn and grow. Yet, hundreds of thousands of autistic children in England are being denied these opportunities.  

We’ve heard over and over again about how overwhelming classrooms, a lack of proper autism training for teachers and a lack of understanding from other students mean that autistic children are facing huge barriers at school. Often, they are mislabelled as ‘disruptive’ and can even be excluded from school. 

The Government should provide schools and teachers with the tools to support autistic students. But more often than not, schools don’t have adequate services and it is left to parents to fight to get the support their child needs. 

It’s not fair that autistic children are missing out because their school can’t meet their needs. It’s not fair that parents are left exhausted from fighting a broken system. It’s time for the Government to step in and make sure all autistic children receive a quality education.  

What we found: 

Through surveying over 4000 autistic young people, parents and carers in 2021, we found that: 

• A quarter (26%) of parents waited over three years to receive support for their child  
• Three quarters (74%) said their child’s school place did not fully meet their needs – this has almost doubled since 2017  
• Only one in four parents are satisfied with the special educational needs support their child is receiving 
• One in five parents had experienced their child being informally excluded in the last two years. 
• Less than half of autistic children are happy in school  
• Seven in ten autistic children and young people said school would be better if more teachers understood autism. Yet in 2023, we found only 39% of teachers in mainstream schools have received more than half a day’s autism training. This falls to just 14% for secondary school teachers. 

Our top recommendations: 

The National Autistic Society is calling on the Government to: 

• Set up a taskforce to ensure all autistic children are in a school which meets their support needs. 
• Make sure all school staff receive autism training. 
• Provide more Cullum Centres, which help autistic students to succeed in mainstream schools 
• Co-produce strategies at local and national level with autistic people and their families.