Primary teaching is a generalist job. Neurodivergent trainees may be brilliant at it. The training route, though, can make it much harder than it needs to be.
The numbers first
• 9: the neurodivergent student teachers in a qualitative study of primary teacher education in Scotland. Participants described a range of challenges, including a risk of withdrawal, especially around placements (Jack et al., 2025).
• 3: the primary trainees with dyslexia in the one English PGCE study that compared primary and secondary trainees (Jacobs et al., 2021).
• 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.
A word of honesty about the evidence
The research on neurodivergent primary trainees is very small. Most of it is qualitative (based on people’s own accounts rather than large-scale statistics). Two points matter:
• The strongest primary-focused work I found is from Scotland, where primary teachers qualify through degree programmes, not PGCEs (Jack et al., 2025). The experiences are likely to overlap with a PGCE. They are not identical.
• The English evidence mostly concerns dyslexia (Glazzard, 2017; Jacobs et al., 2021). I found almost nothing peer-reviewed on primary PGCE trainees with ADHD, dyspraxia or dyscalculia.
So treat what follows as a well-grounded picture, not a final one.
What is different about primary?
Primary trainees usually plan and teach across the whole curriculum. Jacobs et al. (2021) note that primary teachers cover multiple subjects. That has knock-on effects for a neurodivergent trainee.
Challenge 1: Teaching early literacy
This is the clearest finding in the English evidence. Glazzard (2017) held focus groups with dyslexic trainees and their mentors in the north of England. Trainees described difficulties with teaching literacy, particularly phonics (teaching the link between sounds and letters). They also described difficulties with memory and with the administrative demands of placement.
In primary, early reading and spelling sit at the centre of the job. A trainee who finds spelling or sound-letter links hard may feel exposed in front of a class of five-year-olds. Just imagine modelling a spelling on the whiteboard while your own working memory (the mental notepad you hold information on for a few seconds) is under strain.
The studies do not say how often this happens across all dyslexic trainees. They do say it was a recurring theme for those in the study.
Challenge 2: Being the generalist
One trainee, many subjects, one class, all day. The research I found does not isolate this as a separate finding. From what we know about how primary placements work, it is reasonable to suspect that it adds to cognitive load (the total mental effort a person is carrying). That is my reading, not a result. It deserves proper study.
Challenge 3: Placement is the pressure point
The Scottish study of nine neurodivergent student teachers found that the risk of withdrawing, or of serious difficulty, was most often tied to placements (Jack et al., 2025). The same study notes that neurodivergent students are more likely than peers to leave or divert from their original course.
A related chapter by Jack (2026) draws on the author’s own experience as a late-diagnosed neurodivergent former primary teacher, plus quotes from current autistic and ADHD student primary teachers. It states that autistic and/or ADHD student primary teachers face greater barriers to completing professional qualification programmes than their neurotypical peers. It raises questions about how placement processes work and about advocacy and representation.
Challenge 4: Admin and workload
Planning, marking, assessment records, evidence files, emails. Glazzard’s (2017) trainees named administrative demands as a difficulty. In general terms, this maps onto executive function (the mental skills for planning, organising and switching between tasks). Differences in executive function are common across neurodivergent profiles.
Disclosure, fitness to teach and the mentor relationship
Challenge 5: The disclosure dilemma
Should you tell your placement school you are neurodivergent? There is no easy answer.
In England, ITE (initial teacher education) providers must check that entrants meet the physical and mental fitness requirements set by the Secretary of State. The stated aim is to protect children and young people (University of Warwick Centre for Teacher Education, n.d.a). At one provider, trainees sign a statement before placement confirming they can carry out the activities a teacher must perform. The statement refers to reasonable adjustments (changes that remove unfair disadvantage) under the Equality Act 2010.
The same provider asks trainees to disclose any condition so adjustments can be arranged. It warns that failing to disclose may have implications for placement if the need appears later (University of Warwick Centre for Teacher Education, n.d.b).
Other providers make a vital point. Fitness and child-protection requirements must not be used to justify discrimination against a disabled student (Bath Spa University, n.d.).
So the law and the policies are, on paper, on your side. Practice is more complicated.
Wood and Happé (2023) surveyed 149 autistic teachers and education staff in the UK. They described a lack of understanding, sensory impacts, mental health difficulties and the complexity of revealing an autism diagnosis. A related poster from the Bishop Grosseteste University repository notes that many autistic adults in schools “mask” (hide their autistic traits and try to appear neurotypical), linked to fear of discrimination (Bishop Grosseteste University repository, n.d.). That research is not specific to primary teaching.
Masking is exhausting. Imagine doing it through a full primary day, with no break from the class.
The University of Southampton’s guidance for dyslexic trainees strikes a balance. Disclosure is not compulsory by law, but it is probably wise to consider it, because support cannot be offered unless people know (University of Southampton, n.d.).
Challenge 6: Mentors who feel like gatekeepers
Your class teacher or school mentor has a lot of influence over how placement goes.
Glazzard (2017) found that mentors tended to emphasise dyslexic trainees’ weaknesses. Some wanted to recognise strengths, but felt responsible as gatekeepers to the profession.
That is a human response. It is also a risk. When mentoring is mostly about gatekeeping, the conversation drifts towards deficits. Strengths get less airtime.
Sensory load, identity and strengths
Challenge 7: Sensory and social demands
Primary classrooms are busy places. Noise, movement, displays, shared spaces, constant interaction.
Wood et al. (2024) interviewed 21 autistic school staff in the UK. Their themes included sensory issues and the working environment, and communication and social barriers. The participants held a range of roles in schools, so the study describes autistic school staff in general. It is reasonable to expect a busy primary room to raise similar issues, but the studies do not test that directly.
Lawrence, Reynolds and Rimmer (2025) worked with an autistic trainee maths teacher on PGCE placement, using images and metaphors to express the experience. It is a single case. It shows how much can be missed in standard placement feedback.
Challenge 8: Courses that teach inclusion but do not include you
Participants in the Scottish study noticed a disconnect between the inclusion content on their course and what they experienced. Neurodivergent adults working as educators were often sidelined or missing altogether (Jack et al., 2025).
There is a wider training gap too. A 2026 survey of 177 UK school staff found nearly a quarter had received no training on supporting neurodivergent pupils (York St John University, 2026). A chapter on neuroinclusion also warns that clinical classification systems such as the DSM-5 and ICD-11 (manuals that define diagnoses) often dominate trainee curricula. The authors recommend co-designing neurodiversity-affirming modules with neurodivergent people (All Means All, 2025).
Challenge 9: Building a professional identity
Becoming a teacher is partly about becoming a certain kind of person. Davey (n.d.) draws on research suggesting that neurodiversity influences a trainee’s developing professional identity. She argues that dyslexia should be treated as part of the trainee’s journey, so they can feel authentic, confident and supported. Her institution built disclosure guidance for trainees and mentors into its resources.
The question underneath is simple. Can I be a teacher as I am, or only if I hide who I am?
The strengths are real
This is not only a story about barriers.
Jacobs et al. (2021) captured the strengths trainees with dyslexia bring to the profession. Wood and Happé (2023) found positive experiences among autistic staff, and discuss their potential as role models who can support the inclusion of autistic pupils.
Jack (2026) argues that accepting neurodivergent student primary teachers and recognising their strengths is necessary to reduce barriers to entering the profession and to improve retention before and after qualification.
Every primary classroom has neurodivergent children in it. A teacher who has lived that experience may notice what others miss.
What seems to help
The studies do not offer one formula. Several practical themes recur.
1. Agree adjustments early and make them specific. Providers describe agreeing adjustments between the university, the school and the trainee before placement begins (University of Warwick Centre for Teacher Education, n.d.a).
2. Give disclosure a safe route. Davey (n.d.) describes structured guidance that helps trainees explain their needs to mentors.
3. Train mentors to look for strengths as well as gaps. This answers the gatekeeper pattern in Glazzard (2017).
4. Support literacy teaching directly. Glazzard’s (2017) trainees found phonics difficult, so targeted support before and during placement looks sensible. The study does not test specific interventions.
5. Involve neurodivergent people in designing the course. The Scottish study calls for greater advocacy, support and inclusion of neurodivergent participation (Jack et al., 2025), and the neuroinclusion chapter recommends co-design (All Means All, 2025).
6. Follow people over time. The Scottish authors recommend longitudinal research (following the same people over years) from training into early career.
What we still do not know
• How primary-specific demands affect different neurodivergent groups.
• What happens to primary PGCE trainees with ADHD, dyspraxia and other profiles.
• Which adjustments actually improve completion and retention.
• How outcomes change across the first years of teaching.
The studies cited here are small. That is valuable for understanding lived experience. It limits how far we can generalise.
In summary
Neurodivergent primary trainees meet real barriers: teaching early literacy, placement pressure, admin load, disclosure, mentor expectations, sensory demands and identity. The evidence also points to strengths that primary schools need.
The encouraging part? Most of these barriers sit in how training is designed, not in the trainees. That means they can be changed.
References
All Means All (2025) Neuroinclusion: a school community approach. Available at: https://book.all-means-all.education/ama-2025-en/chapter/neurodiversity-in-education-exploring-inclusive-practices-and-support-systems-for-learners-with-neurodevelopmental-differences/
Bath Spa University (n.d.) Fitness to train to teach policy and procedure. Available at: https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/media/bathspaacuk/about-us/policies/academic-and-student/Fitness-to-Train-to-Teach-Policy_Procedure.pdf
Bishop Grosseteste University repository (n.d.) As an autistic person, can I hope to become a successful teacher? (TEAN poster proposal). Available at: https://lbro.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/1014/
Davey, J. (n.d.) Supporting the professional identity of trainee teachers with dyslexia. Chartered College of Teaching. Available at: https://my.chartered.college/impact_article/supporting-the-professional-identity-of-trainee-teachers-with-dyslexia/
Equality Act 2010. c.15. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents
Glazzard, J. (2017) ‘Trainee teachers with dyslexia: results of a qualitative study of teachers and their mentors’, International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research, 16(12), pp. 87-107. doi: 10.26803/ijlter.16.12.6
Jack, C. (2026) ‘From the inside looking in?’, in Keates, N. and Waldock, K. (eds) Neurodivergent education and lifelong learning. Hershey, PA: IGI Global Scientific Publishing, pp. 313-338. doi: 10.4018/979-8-3693-8044-4.ch014
Jack, C. et al. (2025) ‘”There’s only so much the school can change about itself … before you need to change something about yourself”: a qualitative analysis of the experiences of neurodivergent student teachers’, Autism in Adulthood. doi: 10.1089/aut.2024.0047 [full author list, volume and pages to be confirmed before publication]
Jacobs, L., Collyer, E., Lawrence, C. and Glazzard, J. (2021) ‘”I’ve got something to tell you. I’m dyslexic”: the lived experiences of trainee teachers with dyslexia’, Teaching and Teacher Education, 104, article 103383. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2021.103383
Lawrence, C., Reynolds, O. and Rimmer, J. (2025) ‘”Watching the loo door swing slowly open”: using visual metaphors to explore autistic experience through the medium of PGCE school placement’, Journal of Inclusive Practice in Further and Higher Education, 17(1), pp. 87-102.
University of Southampton (n.d.) Supporting dyslexic trainees and teachers. Available at: https://cdn.southampton.ac.uk/assets/imported/transforms/content-block/UsefulDownloads_Download/689BD073F2034DE7BED0566DCC6EC063/Supporting%20Trainees%20and%20Teachers.pdf
University of Warwick Centre for Teacher Education (n.d.a) Fitness to teach. Available at: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/cte/pintra/essentialdocuments/primaryandeyessentialdocs/ftt
University of Warwick Centre for Teacher Education (n.d.b) Occupational health assessment form for PGCE trainees. Available at: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/cte/start-teaching/occupationalhealth
Wood, R. and Happé, F. (2023) ‘What are the views and experiences of autistic teachers? Findings from an online survey in the UK’, Disability and Society, 38(1), pp. 47-72. doi: 10.1080/09687599.2021.1916888
Wood, R., Crane, L., Happé, F. and Moyse, R. (2024) ‘Learning from autistic teachers: lessons about change in an era of Covid-19’, Educational Review, 76(5), pp. 1209-1231.
York St John University (2026) Teachers report limited or no training to support neurodivergent pupils, new study finds. News article, 4 March. Available at: https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/news/2026/neurodivergent-pupil-support/
October 5, 2026