Blog
Tips, tools & straight talk
October 5, 2026
What changes when you graduate?
At university, support often comes through a formal route. Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA, funding for study support such as mentoring and study skills) is for your studies, so it stops when your course does. At work, the responsibility moves to your employer.
That is a big shift. You may have had a named mentor or study skills tutor who knew your needs. Now you have a line manager (the person who directs your day-to-day work), who may know very little.
October 5, 2026
Nearly 25%: the share of UK teachers and support staff who reported no training at all on supporting neurodivergent pupils, in a 2026 survey of 177 school staff (York St John University, 2026).
Small numbers. Real people.
This is the sister article to our piece on secondary PGCE trainees. If you are neurodivergent and thinking about a primary PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education, the one-year route into teaching, usually leading to Qualified Teacher Status, or QTS), it is for you. It is also for the mentors, tutors and course leaders who support you.
What does “neurodivergent” mean here?
Neurodivergent (having a brain that works differently from what society treats as typical) covers autism, ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, Tourette’s and more. Many people have more than one.
October 5, 2026
Many neurodivergent people make excellent teachers. The research suggests the training route, not the person, is often where things go wrong.
The numbers first
• 149: the number of autistic teachers and school staff in the largest UK survey of its kind (Wood and Happé, 2023).
• 9: the number of neurodivergent student teachers in a recent qualitative study, who reported a risk of withdrawing from their programme, especially around placements (“There’s only so much the school can change about itself…”, 2025).
• 4: the number of secondary trainees with dyslexia in the one English study that looked closely at secondary training (Jacobs et al., 2021).
July 19, 2026
Lateral Thinking and Neurodivergent Students: What the Research Actually Says In short: Lateral thinking means solving problems by an indirect route. Edward de Bono coined the term in 1967. His version was never rigorously tested, but a closely related idea, divergent thinking, has a real research literature. The evidence on neurodivergence and creative thinking is […]
June 20, 2026
Read your needs assessment report carefully. It will outline exactly what support has been recommended and why. If anything is unclear, your DSA assessor or disability services advisor can explain it.
June 19, 2026
Many students with ADHD arrive at university carrying a history of being told — explicitly or implicitly — that they’re not trying hard enough, not organised enough, not focused enough. By the time you reach higher education, it can be hard to believe that you actually deserve to be there.
June 18, 2026
One aspect of ADHD that doesn’t get talked about enough is emotional intensity. Many people with ADHD experience emotions more strongly and more quickly than others — frustration, excitement, disappointment, and enthusiasm can all feel amplified and fast-moving.
June 17, 2026
ADHD affects executive function — the set of brain processes that govern planning, starting tasks, self-monitoring, and regulating behaviour. When these functions are less reliable, habits and systems do some of the work your brain would otherwise need to do consciously.
June 16, 2026
When students with ADHD first start mentoring, they sometimes expect it to feel like a tutoring session — working through subject content, getting help with specific assignments. While we can support you around academic tasks, specialist mentoring goes deeper than that.
June 15, 2026
Self-advocacy is the ability to understand your own needs and communicate them effectively to others. It is one of the most valuable skills you can develop at university. It doesn’t come naturally to everyone, and it takes practice. But it’s something your mentoring sessions can actively help you build.
