The School Can't Experience

Dr Shelley Moore is one of the most widely cited voices in inclusive education, working with schools, organisations, and jurisdictions around the world on how to make education genuinely accessible for all students. She also hated school herself, was bullied badly enough to lose hearing in one ear, and has spent her career asking why the system keeps trying to fix the kids rather than the conditions.
In this conversation with Leisa, Shelley starts with the history of autism and disability classes: why the research is clear that segregated programs don't provide equal access to education, why that doesn't mean autistic community and identity should be dismantled, and how schools can offer congregation without segregation.There are no easy answers here, and that families sometimes make the right call for their child even when it conflicts with the research.
The bigger argument running through the episode is that schools are still designed for the Industrial Revolution workforce: rows of seats, bells, standardisation, compliance. That design is failing an increasing proportion of students, and the solution isn't to produce more IEPs or more specialist programs. It's planning for goals rather than activities, and designing for what students are rather than what they're not.
Shelley introduces the Five Dimensions framework (Identities, Interests, Strengths, Stretches, and Needs) as a practical starting point for getting to know a class before designing for it. She also shares what she calls educational guerrilla tactics for parents: rather than fighting for what your child needs, advocate for what the teacher needs: training, resources, collaboration time, because that way the whole community ends up supporting your child, not just you.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Dr Shelley Moore: website: https://www.drshelleymoore.com/
Outside Pin collective: https://www.outsidepinconsulting.com/
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If this podcast or the School Can’t Australia community has helped you, please consider making a donation or volunteering to help. Find out more here: https://www.schoolcantaustralia.com.au/get-involved#donate

If this episode helped you please take a moment to subscribe, rate, or review the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other School Can't families find us.
If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you
You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com
Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...

Content warning: This episode contains discussion of physical and verbal aggression directed at parents and caregivers by young people in acute distress, including descriptions of property damage, physical assault, and extreme verbal behaviour. Please take care of yourself as you listen. Hit pause whenever you need to, and come back when you're ready.
If you or your family are in immediate danger, please call Triple Zero (000) for assistance. 
If you are feeling overwhelmed or distressed, please reach out to Lifeline. 
Call 13 11 14, text 0477 13 11 14, or chat online at lifeline.org.au.
This episode is a collaboration between School Can't Australia and Yellow Ladybugs made possible through funding from the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building Grant.
This is the first of two special episodes with Yellow Ladybugs, who are dedicated to the happiness, success, and celebration of autistic girls, women, and gender diverse folk. Leisa is joined by founder Katie Koullas and Natasha Staheli for a conversation about something far more common in our communities than is ever openly discussed: what happens when a young person's distress is expressed outwardly in ways that are frightening and isolating for families.
This episode talks plainly about young people throwing objects, punching holes in walls, physically hitting parents, and using extreme verbal language. It names clearly from the outset that all of this behaviour comes from a place of acute distress, from a nervous system in full fight response, from a child who has often been trying to communicate unmet needs for a very long time.
Katie, Natasha, and Leisa explore why this happens, why it so often lands on mums, and why instinctive parenting responses like sending kids to their room can actively make things worse. They cover the PACE framework (Playful, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy), safety planning, the realities of involving police or child protection, the impact on partnerships, and what repair after an incident can actually look like.
This is a conversation wrapped in shame for too many families. You are not alone. 
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Yellow Ladybugs Safety Plan Template:https://yellowladybugs.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/YellowLadybugs/IQBakAfYPN5_Sa7vDqFR6b8ZAUayZhsJcXpemWtLhY-_52s?e=Fveiii
PACE Strategy, Yellow Ladybugs Podcast Ep 4 with Dr Alberto Veloso:https://open.spotify.com/episode/5XoCkUD6qPus0GHHkGQZVv?si=UVXSM-ojTbyStOsKBMuyjA
Dialectics and DBT panel with Sonny Jane Wise and Sarah Hens:https://vimeo.com/1215986538/b08abd3258?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci
Yellow Ladybugs: yellowladybugs.com.au
Dr Alberto Veloso, Relational Minds: relationalminds.com.au
A list of support resources for families experiencing adolescent or child violence in the home: https://ap1.hubs.ly/H01m7TB0
Send us Fan Mail
Support the show
School Can’t Australia Facebook Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolphobiaschoolrefusalaustralia
If this podcast or the School Can’t Australia community has helped you, please consider making a donation or volunteering to help. Find out more here: https://www.schoolcantaustralia.com.au/get-involved#donate

If this episode helped you please take a moment to subscribe, rate, or review the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other School Can't families find us.
If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you
You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com
Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...

Content warning: Tammie briefly mentions suicidal ideation in this episode. We also discuss instances of violent behaviour stemming from dysregulation and overwhelm.
Tammie is a School Can't mum raising an autistic son in rural Victoria. When mainstream school stopped working for her son, there were no alternative schools, no specialist programs, no hybrid options within reach. The choice was mainstream or nothing, and for years, she kept choosing mainstream because no one ever told her she didn't have to.
This episode is her account of those years: the Groundhog Day mornings with no sleep behind them, the evacuated classrooms, the Child Protection call she received because her son wasn't attending school, the moment she turned up after an hour and a half of trying to get him there and found his aide wasn't in that day. And the realisation that eventually came: "I thought I was failing him by not sending him to school. I realised I was failing him by sending him."
Eighteen months after pulling him out, Tammie describes a completely different kid. He sleeps. He's regulated. He's happy. He recently told her he'd like "some friends I can touch." Eight months of gaming and sleeping and complete decompression came first. And she now sees that as the best thing she could have done for both of them.
Tammie is also honest about what's still hard: the social piece is genuinely unsolved, and rural isolation makes it harder. But she's clear on her priorities. Mental health first. Everything else after.
Her message to parents still in the thick of it is direct: take them out for a term, six months, a year — you can always go back. Almost certainly, you'll see a change. And ask yourself honestly whether your child is actually learning anything in the state they're in.

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Support the show
School Can’t Australia Facebook Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolphobiaschoolrefusalaustralia
If this podcast or the School Can’t Australia community has helped you, please consider making a donation or volunteering to help. Find out more here: https://www.schoolcantaustralia.com.au/get-involved#donate

If this episode helped you please take a moment to subscribe, rate, or review the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other School Can't families find us.
If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you
You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com
Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...

Kristy Forbes is a neurodiversity advocate, former classroom teacher, PDAer herself, and parent of four PDAers. She's also a School Can't kid — she left school at 15 — who has since built an internationally recognised body of work supporting PDA families. She brings all of that to this conversation.
In this episode Kristy answers questions asked by the School Can’t Australia community in their peer support Facebook group. 
The questions cover a lot of ground. How do you figure out if your child is PDA when professionals don't know much about it? Does the label even matter, or is the more useful question just: what is their nervous system protecting them from? How do you handle sleep, eating, and basic life tasks without everything turning into conflict? What does a healthy parent-PDA child relationship actually look like? And is "maintaining authority" even the right frame? What about goals and aspirations when the act of wanting something can trigger the very resistance that stops it happening?
Kristy shares experience from her own lived experience as a PDAer herself and as a PDA parent. She talks about how we do the best we can, but still get things wrong, and the importance of the repair that follows. And why she thinks modeling being human is more useful than modeling perfect regulation. And she ends the conversation with something this topic doesn't always make room for: what she genuinely loves about being a PDAer.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Kristy’s website with with free resources including self-care guide for adults in crisis and free PDA masterclass: https://www.kristyforbes.com.au/
Kristy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_kristyforbes/
Kristy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inTunePathways
Send us Fan Mail
Support the show
School Can’t Australia Facebook Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolphobiaschoolrefusalaustralia
If this podcast or the School Can’t Australia community has helped you, please consider making a donation or volunteering to help. Find out more here: https://www.schoolcantaustralia.com.au/get-involved#donate

If this episode helped you please take a moment to subscribe, rate, or review the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other School Can't families find us.
If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you
You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com
Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...

Pete Wharmby is a neurodiversity advocate, autistic adult, and former English teacher in the UK. He brings a perspective that's genuinely rare in this space: he's been on both sides of the classroom, as a student who masked his way through school while quietly drowning in anxiety, and as a teacher who,without quite knowing why,  instinctively ran his classroom in a way that felt calm, fair, and safe for the autistic students in it.
His new book, Different Minds, makes the case that schools don't fail autistic young people out of malice. They fail them because the system was designed long before autism was understood, and has been stubbornly slow to change since. 
In this conversation with Leisa, Pete works through what that looks like in practice: the monotropic brain that's just getting into the zone when the bell rings and forces a subject change; the sensory assault of that same bell; the collars and ties; the disconnected curriculum that gives neurodivergent brains nothing to hook onto; and the attendance obsession that pushes kids into burnout and then punishes them for being burned out.
Pete also discusses research showing that non-autistic people often have an immediate, unconscious negative response to autistic people,including teachers, and argues that awareness of this bias, not blame, is where change has to start.
His message to teachers is simple and delivered with characteristic patience: when an autistic child or their parent tells you something is difficult, just believe them. Don't make them prove it. That default of belief, he says, would change everything.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Different Minds by Pete Wharmby: https://www.amazon.com.au/Different-Minds-Autistic-School-Children/dp/1785046225/
Pete’s website: https://petewharmby.com/
Pete on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pete_wharmby_books/
Pete on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Petewharmbyauthor/
Send us Fan Mail
Support the show
School Can’t Australia Facebook Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolphobiaschoolrefusalaustralia
If this podcast or the School Can’t Australia community has helped you, please consider making a donation or volunteering to help. Find out more here: https://www.schoolcantaustralia.com.au/get-involved#donate

If this episode helped you please take a moment to subscribe, rate, or review the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It genuinely helps other School Can't families find us.
If you are a parent of carer in Australia and experiencing distress, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Parent Help Line. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/parents/issues/how-parentline-can-help-you
You can contact us to volunteer to share your School Can't story or some feedback via email on schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com
Disclaimer
The content of this podcast is based on personal lived experiences and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. It should not be treated as medical, psychological, or professional advice under any circumstances. If you have concerns about your health or well-being, please seek guidance from a doctor, therapist,...