Changing funding models or looking for ways to 'filter out' more people through stricter rules is not the way to do it. Those students will still exist, still struggle, and we'll carry on failing them. A fundamental overhaul of the way we teach, assess and support students, at all levels, is needed

This is critical: we need to do far more to anticipate and implement standard adjustments at an institutional level to free services and academics up to put together bespoke packages for fewer individual students. That's what the law tells us to do, but we've not been doing (we've had 30 years)

What all this is saying is that the 'industry' of adjustments, whether at school level or university level, now involves such a large percentage of each population that something fundamental needs to shift. In my view, what's needed is a genuine shift to inclusive practice.

Academic colleagues are also telling us they are overwhelmed with the number of support plans and requests for adjustments coming through, especially as these are coming through well into teaching, because of backlogs in Disability Services.

This has massive implications for Disability Services as we struggle to keep up with demand, especially at a time when many professional services job have gone or are under threat, both in Disability Services, but also amongst student support staff in academic departments.

What a difference a day makes!

Looks nicer when the sun is shining and the little lodge is open for coffee and cake!

It's the only flat thing around here, what with it being an old train line (you have walked over this in nicer weather!)

I had a tour of my daughters' school when I started being a Governor there. At the very end, the Head said 'oh, hang on!' and showed me a room that had lots of old kit piled into it. 'That's the isolation room. We don't to use it - the school counsellor is more effective'. Sadly he's since retired

I'm hoping it's a 'computer-says-no' situation and I can get them to put me back on it when I speak on Weds! But all this chasing is in itself exhausting....

I think there's also a problem with blood test ranges. My old endocrinologist insisted on treating the symptoms, not just the blood results, but that's not how GPs operate, they just seem to go on the results, whether it's for thyroid, or ferritin or anything else.

The Australia thing is fascinating. My recent ferritin came back as 31, after 6 months of ferrous fumarate, and the 'normal range' is 30-300 so now they won't prescribe more of it as I'm 'in range' which will surely just put me right back where I started (can't face losing so much hair again!).

Yes I think there is growing awareness. I've always know about iron deficiency but only in terms of iron/haemoglobin - my levels are usually just about alright. Low ferritin was news to me when diagnosed in April, but the GP said my ferritin levels have 'never been good', which is frustrating!

Bahahahahahahahahahahaha! Indeed!

Recent and excellent article: Bridging Neurodiversity and Open Scholarship: How Shared Values Can Guide Best Practices for Research Integrity, Social Justice, and Principled Education - Phan - 2025 - Journal of Social Issues - Wiley Online Library spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

(The irony being that academia should be a place where neurodivergence can thrive, and where rates of neurodivergence amongst staff are probably higher than many other fields - only the data is poor, for lots of reasons connected to the exclusionary, competitive nature of academia)

All of this is also a big problem for autistic staff members, who often have an even worse time than students, since the structures for disabled staff are frequently wholly inadequate. Academia is so often exclusionary, the odds stacked against those who don't conform to socially constructed norms

The drop out rates amongst autistic students are absolutely shameful, as they are for disabled students as a whole. We should be horrified by their experience and it should spur us into immediate action. It won't though, will it, because HE can get away with it. wonkhe.com/blogs/why-is...

This, in a nutshell, is the Double Empathy Problem, and is central to what I've been doing for the last quarter of a century. Just to get Higher Education to take even a tiny modicum of responsibility and accountability for the barriers we create and then ignore whilst shouting 'BELONGING IS KEY'.