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).
Small numbers. Big messages.
If you are neurodivergent and thinking about a secondary PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education, the one-year route into teaching, usually with Qualified Teacher Status, or QTS), this article 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. Most of the research I could find focuses on dyslexia and autism. I found far less peer-reviewed work on trainees with ADHD, dyspraxia or dyscalculia. So what follows is strongest for dyslexic and autistic trainees. It is likely, though not proven, that other neurodivergent trainees meet similar barriers.
Challenge 1: Placement is the pressure point
A PGCE is two courses in one. There is the university or provider side. Then there are the school placements, where you teach real classes while being assessed against the Teachers’ Standards.
The 2025 qualitative study of neurodivergent student teachers found that the risk of withdrawing, or of serious difficulty, was most often tied to placements (“There’s only so much the school can change about itself…”, 2025). The same study notes that neurodivergent students are more likely than their peers to leave or divert from their original course.
Why might placement be so hard? Because it stacks demands on top of each other. New school. New staff. New routines. New pupils. All while you are being observed.
The research on secondary training is thin. Jacobs et al. (2021) found similarities between primary and secondary trainees with dyslexia. They also found challenges specific to secondary level, though the abstract does not list them. From what we know about how secondary schools work, it is reasonable to suspect that the number of classes, rooms and colleagues plays a part. That is my reading, not a finding. It deserves proper study.
Challenge 2: 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). Before placement, trainees at one provider sign a statement confirming they are fit to carry out the activities a teacher must perform. That statement explicitly 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 becomes apparent later (University of Warwick Centre for Teacher Education, n.d.b).
Other providers make an important 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. The practice is more complicated.
Wood and Happé (2023) surveyed 149 autistic teachers and education staff. 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). It links this to fear of discrimination (Bishop Grosseteste University repository, n.d.).
Masking is exhausting. Just imagine carrying it through a full day of lessons, behaviour management, mentor meetings and marking.
The University of Southampton’s guidance for dyslexic trainees makes a balanced point. 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 3: Mentors who feel like gatekeepers
Your school-based mentor holds a lot of influence over how your placement goes.
Glazzard (2017) ran focus groups with dyslexic trainees and their mentors in the north of England. Trainees described difficulties with teaching literacy (particularly phonics, which means teaching the link between sounds and letters), with memory, and with the administrative demands of placement. Mentors tended to emphasise the 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 a mentor sees themselves mainly as a gatekeeper, the conversation drifts towards deficits. Strengths get less airtime.
Challenge 4: Sensory load and social demands
Secondary schools are loud, bright and busy. Corridors at changeover. Bells. Canteens. Open-plan staffrooms.
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 study compared experiences during Covid-19 lockdown with those outside it, and revealed significant everyday difficulties autistic staff typically face.
Lawrence, Reynolds and Rimmer (2025) went deeper into one story. They worked with an autistic trainee maths teacher on PGCE placement, co-creating images and metaphors to express the experience. It is a single case, but a powerful one. It shows how much of the autistic trainee’s experience can be missed in standard placement feedback.
Challenge 5: Admin, memory and workload
Teaching is not only teaching. It is planning, marking, data entry, emails, evidence files and portfolio tasks.
The dyslexic trainees in Glazzard’s (2017) study named administrative demands and memory as areas of difficulty. In general terms, these map onto what psychologists call executive function (the mental skills for planning, organising, remembering and switching between tasks). Executive function differences are common across neurodivergent profiles.
Workload hits every trainee. A Bishop Grosseteste University research guide notes that well-being and workload are the factors most commonly cited for leaving teaching. It also notes how little research exists on trainee well-being specifically (Bishop Grosseteste University, n.d.). For a neurodivergent trainee, an already heavy load can be amplified by the extra effort of managing difficulties no one has acknowledged.
Challenge 6: Courses that teach inclusion but do not include you
Here is an irony. Participants in the 2025 qualitative study noticed a disconnect between the inclusion content on their course and what they actually experienced. Neurodivergent adults working as educators were often sidelined or missing altogether (“There’s only so much the school can change about itself…”, 2025).
There is a related concern about how neurodivergence is taught. A chapter on neuroinclusion in schools points out that clinical classification systems such as the DSM-5 and ICD-11 (manuals that define diagnoses) often feature in trainee teacher curricula. If other approaches are left out, understanding may lack nuance. The authors recommend co-designing neurodiversity-affirming modules with neurodivergent people (All Means All, 2025).
Challenge 7: 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, setting out strengths, barriers and how to overcome them.
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 dyslexic trainees bring. Wood and Happé (2023) found positive experiences too, and discuss the potential for autistic staff to act as role models and to support the inclusion of autistic pupils.
The Lawrence et al. (2025) paper cites reports that autistic teachers value connecting with autistic pupils and sharing expert knowledge of autism with colleagues.
Every classroom has neurodivergent pupils. A teacher who has lived that experience may spot things others miss.
What seems to help
The studies do not offer a single formula. But several practical themes recur across them.
1. Make adjustments specific and early. Providers describe agreeing adjustments between the university, the school and the trainee before placement starts (University of Warwick Centre for Teacher Education, n.d.a).
2. Give disclosure a safe route. Davey (n.d.) describes structured guidance helping trainees to explain their needs to mentors.
3. Train mentors to look for strengths as well as gaps. This responds directly to the gatekeeper pattern in Glazzard (2017).
4. Consider the sensory environment. Wood et al. (2024) identify the working environment as a recurring theme for autistic staff.
5. Involve neurodivergent people in designing the course. The 2025 qualitative study calls for greater advocacy, support and inclusion of neurodivergent participation, and the neuroinclusion chapter recommends co-design (All Means All, 2025).
6. Measure what happens next. The 2025 authors recommend longitudinal research (following people over time) from training into early career.
What we still do not know
• How secondary-specific demands affect different neurodivergent groups.
• What happens to trainees with ADHD, dyspraxia and other profiles.
• Which adjustments actually improve completion and retention.
• How outcomes change over the first years of teaching.
The studies cited here are small and mostly qualitative (based on people’s own accounts rather than large-scale statistics). That is valuable for understanding lived experience. It limits how far we can generalise.
In summary
Neurodivergent trainees face real barriers on the secondary PGCE. Placements, disclosure, mentor expectations, sensory load, admin and identity all matter. The evidence also shows strengths that the profession needs.
The encouraging part? Most of the 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 (n.d.) Teacher trainee well-being research: at a glance project guide. Available at: https://www.lincolnbishop.ac.uk/download-document/118722
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/
Education (Health Standards) (England) Regulations 2003. SI 2003/3139.
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
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.
“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 (2025). PubMed ID 40933689. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12417847/ [author and journal details to be confirmed before publication]
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.
Link to the article on neurodivergent primary PGCE Trainees.