What makes school easier for autistic pupils?

 What if making school easier for an autistic student wasn't about teaching them how to cope better, but was about reducing some of the things they had to cope with?  

A recent study looked at the experience of autistic pupils, their parents and staff across seven mainstream schools in England. The researchers were trying to work out what made school easier or harder for young people with autism by comparing mainstream schools with and without special autism units, which are sometimes called specialist resource centers.  

So what did they find out?

They discovered that these specialist units provided a kind of protective space within schools. They offered quieter environments, more predictable routines, and adults who really understood about autism. And this reduced some of the sensory and social demands on pupils throughout the school day and it also provided somewhere where pupils could go if they were feeling overwhelmed.

But the research also found that some young people continue to experience very high levels of anxiety and some felt they needed to hide their autistic traits in order to fit in. And this was true both in schools with and without these specialist autism units.

So what can parents take from this? Well, here's one thing I'd encourage you to try. Try asking, "What's one thing that might make school easier?" It might be knowing what's going to happen next. It might be having a safe space to go to during break time or lunchtime or it might be not feeling as if they have to change themselves to fit in.

Once you've got something specific, you've got a much better starting point that you can go and talk to the school about

Often the most helpful thing isn't another strategy to manage anxiety, it's changing something about the school day that's contributing to it.  

If you're struggling to work out what's making school difficult for your young person, you can download my free school anxiety checklist that will help you think through what might be going on. You can download it here. 

Boddy, A., & Cook, A. (2026). Specialist Resource Centres as Protective Microsystems: A Qualitative Comparative Case Study of Autistic Pupils’ Experiences in Mainstream Secondary Schools. Autism, 30(8), 2079-2094. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613261457949