Michelle Carson examines how early inequality and missed support for children with special educational needs shape access to learning, opportunity and progression. Drawing on findings from the Sutton Trust and Support SEND Kids, and her own experience, she explores why today’s educational gaps become tomorrow’s workforce barriers, unless we act
The findings of the Double Disadvantage report has drawn national attention to a familiar but deeply troubling truth: children with special educational needs (SEN) from socially deprived backgrounds are being left behind. It is not simply an educational failure; it is a moral and societal one that writes off potential. For learning and development professionals, it is crucial to understand that these early inequalities do not end in childhood; they directly shape the workforce, influencing talent pipelines, opportunity and progression throughout adult life.
“With the right training, mentoring and inclusive recruitment, we can prevent early inequality from becoming lifelong disadvantage”
For me, this story is personal. I was born in 1974 in Kingstanding, a working-class district of Birmingham. My grandparents knew education was the route to opportunity for their children. My grandmother left school at 14, and wrote in her diary, “Today my childhood is over.” Like so many of her generation, circumstance rather than ability decided the boundaries of her education. Determined her own children would have the opportunities she never had; she made education a family priority. All seven of her children, including my mother, attended grammar school.
The weight of early inequality
When my parents separated, my mother could not afford our home, and we moved back in with my grandparents. When I was six months old, my mother was offered a full-time job and a council flat on the Castle Vale estate, one of Birmingham’s large post-war housing developments. I attended a council-run nursery from 8am to 6pm while she worked and went to night school to study for a degree. Balancing all this with a young child required extraordinary resilience – a quality that has shaped my own approach to leadership.
We lived on the ninth floor of one of the estate’s tower blocks. Built with post-war optimism, it had become a symbol of urban decline by the late 1970s, with high unemployment and social isolation. My mother’s determination saw us move from that tower block to a home she bought through the Right to Buy scheme and, years later, after successive promotions, to a better area. Her progression was a testament to her perseverance.
I was autistic and had ADHD, though undiagnosed at the time. My story is not an inspirational tale of resilience, but a case study of systemic failure. Resilience often fills the space where systems fail. What should have been safety nets became tests of endurance for families like ours, where survival stood in for state support – like the week my mother used a £5 commemorative coin, meant to be saved, to buy food. No parent or child should have to rely on luck, and no parent should have to go through so much hardship to secure their child’s future.
Cracks in the system
Secondary school was where the cracks really showed. During puberty, I began to struggle. When my mother reached out for help, she was met with misunderstanding and I was misdiagnosed – a common story for girls. Academically, I struggled, not because I was incapable, but because I learnt differently. The school system did not understand or accommodate those differences. My reports were a familiar refrain: “needs to try harder,” “easily distracted,” “Michelle must apply herself.” By my GCSE mock year, I felt like a failure and had disengaged from school altogether.
I was at a crossroads, but I had always enjoyed working. Through a friend, I found a role in research, and from the moment I started, something changed. It was not the first time I had been good at something, but it felt like the first time it truly mattered. I later returned to college to gain additional GCSEs, proving to myself that I could achieve when learning made sense. Traditional schooling had never suited the way I thought, but at work I found clarity, purpose and confidence.
The long shadow of inequality
I was also fortunate to have role models during my formative years who showed me that aspiration was not something reserved for others. That combination of inspiration, education and expectation gave me the foundation to build my career. I went on to found Holmes Noble, an executive search and leadership advisory firm. I am autistic and have ADHD, but my later-life diagnosis only confirmed what I had long known: my differences were not obstacles; they were strengths.
But I was fortunate. Research by the Sutton Trust and Support SEND Kids has confirmed that children with SEND from low-income families face a “double disadvantage”. Wealthier parents can afford assessments and advocacy, while those from poorer households often cannot.
The Department for Education’s own data shows that more than one in five pupils in England have special educational needs, yet the National Audit Office has concluded that the system still fails to deliver better results for children or families. For those without means, waiting lists for diagnosis can stretch beyond two years, and even when a plan is secured, support varies drastically by postcode. These disparities have lifelong consequences. The Education Policy Institute found that pupils with SEN are twice as likely to be persistently absent and three times more likely to be excluded. Only 23% achieve a grade 4 or above in English and Maths GCSEs, compared with 70% of their peers.
This pattern of exclusion carries into adulthood. The Buckland Review (2024) found that only 30% of autistic adults in the UK are in paid employment, compared with 77% of their neurotypical peers. That gap does not begin in the workplace; it begins in the classroom. Each missed diagnosis, under-supported teacher or unfulfilled Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) is another closed door in a young person’s future.
This is not only an inclusion issue. It is also an economic one. When children are held back, the country loses talent and potential. Britain cannot afford a system that treats difference as deficiency. Inclusion is about equity and access, so that every child has the chance to learn and progress.
From classroom to workplace
The L&D functions in our organisations are receiving the output of this unequal system. To address barriers in adult development, we must first understand this context. Employers and training providers must recognise that talent does not emerge evenly. The transition from school to work is where many young people with SEN fall through the cracks. With the right training, mentoring and inclusive recruitment, we can prevent early inequality from becoming lifelong disadvantage.
To change the outcome for these children, we must confront both social and structural barriers. That means early identification, equitable funding across local authorities, and proper support for teachers who deliver complex provision with inadequate resources. It also requires a cultural shift, to see neurodivergent and disabled children not as problems to manage, but as individuals with distinct strengths to develop.
My own life is a product of opportunity meeting determination, but it could easily have gone another way. The children highlighted in the Sutton Trust report are not failing; the system is failing them. No child’s future should rely on exceptional effort to overcome ordinary barriers.
Every child deserves the same chance my mother created for me: to be seen, supported and believed in. We owe them more than sympathy. We owe them the means to succeed. Brilliance is evenly distributed; opportunity is not. Until we design systems that reflect that truth, too many children will continue to be left behind, not once but twice: first by poverty, and then by the structures meant to protect them.
Michelle Carson is the Chairwoman and Founder of Holmes Noble
