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Join Sue Fletcher-Watson as she considers the evidence that existing attempts at understanding and including a range of learners in our schools, are failing. Existing support is too often diagnosis-centred rather than child centred, resulting in unequal access to support. In addition, even when a diagnosis is provided, support models too often focus on identifying something “wrong” with an individual and correcting it to be more “normal”. This approach is neither evidence based nor rights-respecting. She will propose a Neurodiversity-affirmative model as a viable alternative to existing practice, and examine what that would look like in a mainstream school. This will include a description of the fundamental tenets of the neurodiversity paradigm, and a child-friendly metaphor for talking about neurodiversity. She will finish by describing two novel projects in her own team, which aim to provide schools with the resources they need to deliver this model. One is a curriculum for Learning About Neurodiversity at School (LEANS). This programme provides teachers in primary schools with everything they need to explicitly teach children what neurodiversity is, what it means for them, and what positive actions and attitudes look like in class. A second approach is the Neurodiversity Alliance, a peer support model for secondary school pupils inspired by existing best practice for supporting LGBTQ+ youth. Sue Fletcher-Watson holds a Personal Chair in Developmental Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, and is Director of the Salvesen Mindroom Research Centre.