Neurodivergence Task and Finish Group: report

Recommendation One: Provide educational professionals with evidence-based valid and accurate holistic educational assessment, along with effective support tools We must separate assessment of educational need from clinical diagnosis. Early Years settings, schools and colleges, should be provided with holistic, accurate educational assessment tools, and their application should be independent from any clinical diagnostic process or screening for specific conditions. This assessment should be scalable, free to access, validated, developmentally appropriate throughout a child’s development (recognising the dynamic nature of development), strengths as well as needs based, sensitive to common barriers to learning and participation, and map onto deliverable education plans to inform effective support [19, 20]. This assessment process needs to incorporate the voice of the neurodivergent young person and parent/carers by design. The assessment should fold in relevant community, environmental or contextual factors so that it reflects the place where the neurodivergent 8 young person lives. Crucially, this process must be easily implemented and interpreted by educational staff and decrease pressure on teaching staff without increasing workload.

Recommendation Two: Introduce a ‘commitment to listen’ to parents/carers and neurodivergent young people and recognise where schools do this well Whilst schools and teachers are responsible for and have expertise in educational needs and support strategies, parents/carers should be valued partners in the education of their children [6]. Parents are not expected to be experts in educational support strategies, but they know and understand their child. Dialogue between teachers and parents should include clear expectations about evidence-informed support and adaptations in the education and home setting, together with regular communication in a format that is inclusive of parents with learning needs. This ‘commitment to listen’ must include mechanisms for receiving and acting on feedback from neurodivergent children and young people and families.

Recommendation Three: Develop clear partnerships for supporting neurodivergent needs between education, health, and social care DfE and DHSC must act at pace to co-ordinate activity for improving service integration. Health, social care and education should be better integrated with clear local partnership arrangements. Educational Psychology services should be enabled to play an important role in these partnerships through collaborating with professionals, supporting schools in identifying strengths and needs, delivering professional development, engaging with parents and carers, and providing advice on creating positive learning environments. Partnerships should enable information sharing across education, health, social care, and other relevant departments through connected data systems [21]. Children, young people, and their families should be central to this partnership, with clear signposting for navigating information on support and assessment. This will provide a co-ordinated approach that ensures support is evidence-based, holistic, consistent, place-based, and tailored to an individual's strengths and needs.

Recommendation Four: Provide high quality professional development on strengths, needs, and support strategies for neurodivergent children and young people Professional development for the workforce needs to include knowledge and understanding of different forms of neurodivergence, and best practice on how to respond to those differences [10]. Consistent evidence from neurodivergent children and young 9 people highlights that having teachers who understand them makes the biggest difference to their ability to achieve and thrive in education [16]. Our work highlights the desire of teachers to support neurodivergent learners, but their training often bears little resemblance to their subsequent experience in class. Coherent and consistent professional development needs to run from initial teacher training and early career framework (ITTECF), through to professional post-qualifying development. This professional development should include reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010. Practical classroom toolkits, online resources, neuro-affirmative strategies, and placements for trainees in specialist provisions can enhance inclusive practice without increasing workload.

Recommendation Five: Allow more flexible forms of assessment and curriculum It is essential that the curriculum and assessment system goes further in offering flexibility to neurodivergent children and young people where necessary. Not just in what is taught, but in how it is delivered [19, 22]. Topics should reflect children and young peoples’ interests while still developing their essential skillset. Adaptive teaching and individual holistic educational assessment of strengths/needs must be positioned as the default model for mainstream education [36]. New research should be commissioned on how adaptive teaching can support the strengths of neurodivergent children and young people. The research evidence needs to be built into guidance as we transition to evidence-based education. Research into diverse and adapted assessment methods should be explored to reduce reliance on formal academic routes, which can negatively impact on mental health for some young people [23, 24]. It is possible to balance flexibility with high academic standards through thoughtful planning.

Recommendation Six: Adapt learning environments and ensure behaviour policies are rooted in an inclusive school culture that values understanding, acceptance and curiosity Inflexible learning environments, teaching styles, physical spaces, and rigid school policies, often create barriers for neurodivergent children and young people, as well as some of their neurotypical peers [16]. These barriers may constrain who can access, benefit from, and function within that learning environment. Clear and robust guidance is 10 vital to ensure policies are designed to reflect and accommodate the diverse needs of all children and young people, and that reasonable adjustments can be made. It is better for these diverse needs to be included by design, rather than via a patchwork of often impractical accommodations for school staff to juggle. Rooted in a well-developed understanding of neurodivergence, schools should continually seek to understand the root causes of behaviour and distress and invest in preventative solutions, underpinned by an inclusive school culture. All school behaviour policies should include the reasonable adjustments that can be made to ensure inclusion for all children. Policies need to reflect a change of emphasis towards understanding and supporting schools to invest in preventative solutions rather than reactive strategies.

Recommendation Seven: Develop a model to support strategic commissioning and planning for local authorities and health bodies A robust model needs to be developed to support strategic commissioning and planning for councils, educational settings, and health bodies. This model should incorporate the best data on prevalence rates and predicted co-occurring needs [21]. It should incorporate local population data from multiple services (including education, health, and social care). These data must record ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic position, and other relevant demographic characteristics. This necessitates better data collection and linkage at a local level, capturing long-term outcomes across public services, and the implementation of an accountability framework. The model must support targeted provision of additional funding when required and where specialist input is needed. The model should enable scientific evaluation of what works best and for which groups.

Recommendation Eight: Increase funding levels to schools to reflect the level of need within their population so they can support more neurodivergent children and young people within their core offer We welcome the additional funding secured in the 2025 Spending Review, and the commitment that this funding will be used to transform the SEND system. The existing funding formula for schools should be reformed to more accurately reflect the varying levels of need within their populations and increase the funds available to respond to additional needs, including those that are the result of neurodivergence. This means weighting funding as a function of the number of children with additional needs within the local population and factors such as socioeconomic disadvantage, English as an additional language, and the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences [25]. Schools would be better equipped to provide early assistance, specialist support, and pastoral care 11 as part of their core offer if these factors were more explicitly factored within the core national funding model [26]. This would allow schools and other service commissioners to flexibly allocate funds according to local intelligence rather than relying on national aggregate data and temporary grants.

Recommendation Nine: Develop clear and effective local routes to resolution when challenges occur Parents need to have a clear and effective local route to seek a resolution when complaints and challenges to accessing support occur, without incurring cost. Local Authorities and schools need to act on concerns without the need for parents to appeal to Tribunals. 12 Full Report Background The Neurodivergence Task and Finish Group (NDTFG) was commissioned by the Department for Education (DfE) in November 2024 to provide an expert view and make recommendations on the best ways to support and meet the needs of neurodivergent children and young people in mainstream education settings, including consideration of the types of learning support that need not, and should not, depend on clinical diagnosis. The Terms of Reference and the membership of the group are listed at the end of this report (see Annex A). This document is a joint report to which all members of the group have provided input. The recommendations of this report reflect the consensus we found for a needs-led system in which all neurodivergent children and young people can learn, participate and achieve. In making these recommendations, the NDTFG has engaged and consulted with a wide range of partners and groups, including neurodivergent children, young people, and parents. The NDTFG has also consulted with:

• the DfE Expert Advisory Group for Inclusion
• Christine Lenehan, DfE SEND Advisor
• the independent ADHD Taskforce, commissioned by NHS England
• the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Academic Panel
• the DfE Change Programme
• several DfE policy teams
• the Scientific Advisory Council (SAC) A full list of those we have engaged with can be found in Annex C.