Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing guidance on how to adapt school environments to support the needs of autistic students.

The department’s ambition is for all children and young people, no matter what their Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) are, to receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. The department aims for children to achieve well throughout their education, to find employment, to lead happy and fulfilled lives and to experience choice and control.

Under the Equality Act 2010, schools must make reasonable adjustments to prevent them being put at a substantial disadvantage. Additionally, under the Children and Families Act 2014, mainstream schools must use their best endeavours to make sure a child or young person who has Special Educational Needs, including those who are autistic, gets the special educational provision they need. The SEND Code of Practice is clear that teachers are expected to monitor the progress of all pupils and put support in place where needed.

In the SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan, the department sets out its vision to improve mainstream education through setting standards for the early and accurate identification of need, and timely access to support to meet those needs. The standards will clarify the types of support that should be ordinarily available in mainstream settings and who is responsible for securing the support. This will give parents confidence and clarity on how their child’s needs will be met.

As part of this, the department has committed to developing practitioner standards, which were known as practice guides in the Improvement Plan, to provide advice to education professionals. These will set out evidence-based best practice in identifying and meeting individual needs. The department will publish three practitioner standards by the end of 2025, one of which will be focused on autism. The department will begin building on existing best practice and will include guidance on how an education environment may be adapted to better support the needs of autistic pupils.

Additionally, the department’s Universal Services contract brings together SEND-specific continuous professional development and support for the school and further education workforce to improve outcomes for children and young people, including those who are autistic, through one programme, which aims to reach 70% of schools and colleges in England per year.

The contract offers autism awareness training and resources. Over 100,000 professionals have undertaken autism awareness training since the Universal Services programme commenced in May 2022.

There is no specific guidance for adapting physical school environments to support autistic students. However, the department does publish a range of guidance documents, including Building Bulletins, which support the provision of inclusive learning environments. These are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/employers-requirements-part-b-generic-design-brief.

The Building Bulletins which have particular relevance to designing inclusive environments for children and young people with SEND, including those who are autistic, are the following:

• BB93, ‘Building Bulletin 93: Acoustic Design of Schools - Performance Standards’, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bb93-acoustic-design-of-schools-performance-standards.
• BB101, ‘Building Bulletin 101: Ventilation of School Buildings’, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-bulletin-101-ventilation-for-school-buildings.
• BB104, ‘Area guidelines for SEND and alternative provision’, which defines area standards by setting out non-statutory area guidelines for buildings and can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f23ec4e8fa8f57ac968fb11/BB104.pdf.