Georgia Harper

In theory, both SEND and Equality Act disability protections are based on need rather than label - so it doesn't matter what you call it, or even if there's a formal diagnosis.

In practice, anything to disbelieve people and cut costs, I guess. 🙃

Also, as someone who got an Asperger's diagnosis in childhood then became a young woman whose main challenges were (and are) hypersensitivity and anxiety, I'd be fascinated to hear which of the two boxes I'd be put in. That new-fangled "growing up" thing might create some challenges for the dataset.

An illustrative piece in that it says the quiet part out loud: When you ask *who* is "wrongly" included in the autism spectrum, the response is almost always "women".

In other fields, this phenomenon of women being immediately dismissed, overlooked and underdiagnosed is called medical misogyny.

It’s so weird that not so long ago, like, less than 20 years, the progressive feminist position was gender de-segregation in sport and other male dominated spaces. Then the terfs came along and convinced the mainstream that the most progressive feminist position is that women are weak and feeble.

image shows fingers places letters spelling out “make it easy” colourised in green

NEW POST: When “Easy Read” isn’t easy: @sharonlsmith.bsky.social asks why a consultation impacting disabled children and young people is set up to risk excluding them… www.specialneedsjungle.com/e...

A concerned looking cat on an office-style chair at a desk

Hacker is concerned that you're taking "lack of instant hot takes on 250+ pages of schools policy, including a huge number of changes that would otherwise each get widespread attention in their own right, only published partway through the one day it was in the news" to mean "it must all be fine"

Happy 30th birthday to all Pokemons who like dancing to Enya

Fake Telegraph headline from the Allister Heath Headline Generator reads: "Allister Heath: Britain's obsession with the Allister Heath Headline Generator has turned us into an international laughing stock." The generator can be found at tinyurl.com/tnw-heath

A Class 465 train in Network Southeast livery at London Bridge train station with the Shard in the background

Definitely a photo I'm proud of, the Shard is silly tall though!

465908 "Chris Green" in NSE Livery is seen calling at London Bridge with 2H48: 1726 Charing Cross to Tunbridge Wells service during the evening peak

Getting a photo from P5 during the peak is always risky with frequent Thameslinks!

don't think you're getting away with this btw

cc @ftw.bsky.social

I, whose literal job has been to understand the Schools White Paper for the past 3 days, have just found where the Specialist Provision Packages are set out in the supplementaries to the SEND reform consultation doc in the supplementaries to the White Paper

it's like it's deliberately inscrutable

I'm writing this at 7.54am, so the Government does have an opportunity to do something extremely funny

Reminder as you read the morning papers and watch the breakfast news: The Schools White Paper isn't actually out yet. Until it's published - hopefully not too much longer now - and we've had a chance to actually read it, the Government sets the agenda and we're all just reacting to a press release.

Just watched Battlefield, which means I have now seen every surviving episode of Doctor Who.

My hot take remains "I enjoy Doctor Who".

people just assume disability and chronic illness mean you are the same kind of disabled every day. that couldn't be further from the truth. and we have an employment system designed with very little flexibility in that regard

something abled people don't get is you can have just one day a week where you are too sick to work, and that's enough to disqualify you from nearly all full-time jobs. it doesn't take a lot

I think (I hope) this is the Times' framing rather than the Government's, but "who have had autism and ADHD *diagnosed*" only makes sense as a phrase if the next part is "but we don't believe them"

Because the transition to secondary school is famously a really easy time for everyone involved 🙃

Major 'leaks' of huge changes for schools - not fleshed out enough to provide any certainty or enable practical thought - during half term is really, really poor.

Dear DfE, don't marginalise special schools and AP! In their quest for inclusion, ministers must not push specialist settings to the margins

'Mainstream school appears 13 times in the new DfE estates strategy. Special school doesn’t appear once'

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dear-dfe-dont-marginalise-special-schools-and-ap/

Families face a bitter fight for SEND support: 'It nearly killed us'

Big Issue has spoken to seven families about their fights for educational support for their disabled children, as the government prepares to announce plans to overhaul the system.

do you know what would help!!!!!!!! living in a society that lets people experiment with their gender without treating it like the most important thing in the world!!!!!!! letting people get it right or wrong without politicising their decisions!!!!!!! just being chilled about gender!!!!!! aaahhhhhh

Roses are red,
Violets are blue
Can I make it anymore obvious?

Spare a thought for @ftw.bsky.social, who had to try and flirt with me through Literally This Level Of Obliviousness

Just a stone's throw away from @ftw.bsky.social, despite the fact he isn't actually on the map

I don't believe that all mental health challenges are downstream of politics but I've been finding it increasingly rough, watching autism & ADHD turned into a new theatre of the culture wars. The hit pieces on SEN kids, the endless badly-researched columns on 'overdiagnosis' - I feel really crushed.

Snowy owl perched on a barbed wire fence watching the sun go down.

Happy #SuperbOwl Sunday! 🪶

The War Between the Land and Sea – Reviewed! The shape of homo aqua… Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Salt, accompanied by two Sea Devils (Image: BBC) Adam Kendrick provides his thoughts on the latest Doctor Who spinoff, The War Between the Land and the Se…

We're back! Adam Kendrick reviews The War Between the Land and the Sea for Tides of Time. 'Admirable dedication' 'Weird limbo' 'sweetness and sense of empathy' - but why and where, and what else? #doctorwho #thewarbetween oxforddoctorwho-tidesoftime.blog/2026/02/07/t...

Oof, this hits hard

Autistic girls much less likely to be diagnosed, study says By age 20 diagnosis rates for men and women almost equal, research finds, challenging assumptions of gender discrepancy

Important study in Sweden found that females may be just as likely to be autistic as males but boys are up to four times more likely to be diagnosed in childhood. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...