Difficulty in meeting the educational needs of students with disability

Many students with disability will struggle to learn in typical mainstream classrooms, and the gap in achievement between students with disability and other students has been ascribed to a lack of quality instruction from appropriately qualified teachers (Kennedy & Aceves, Reference Kennedy, Aceves, Aceves and Kennedy2024). One reason why the educational needs of students with disability are not being met may be a shortage of teachers with additional specialist qualifications in special/inclusive education. Australian researchers have noted that the support needs of students with disability, which may include learning difficulties, intellectual disability, communication disorders, autism spectrum, and behaviour difficulties, are often beyond the capacity of classroom teachers (Dally et al., Reference Dally, Ralston, Strnadová, Dempsey, Chambers, Foggett, Paterson, Sharma and Duncan2019). At the same time, schools are obliged by the Disability Standards for Education 2005 (Australian Government, 2005) to make appropriate adjustments to support students to access education on the same basis as their peers. These adjustments to meet student learning needs should be developed by school staff in collaboration with families/caregivers and, where possible, the student.

There are data to show that many mainstream schools and teachers do not have the knowledge, skills, resources or time to plan and provide appropriate individual adjustments (Carter et al., Reference Carter, Webster, Stephenson, Waddy, Stevens, Clements and Morris2022; Page et al., Reference Page, Barr, Rendoth, Roche, Foggett, Leonard and Duncan2024; Smith et al., Reference Smith, Dickinson and Faulkner2023; Windle et al., Reference Windle, Morrison, Sellar, Squires, Kennedy and Murray2022). Carter et al. (Reference Carter, Webster, Stephenson, Waddy, Stevens, Clements and Morris2022), who interviewed stakeholders from mainstream schools providing adjustments for a student requiring substantial or extensive adjustments, found that in around a third of the schools the adjustments related to general care and management rather than an educational program and that the descriptions of goals tended to be non-specific or unclear. Smith et al. (Reference Smith, Dickinson and Faulkner2023), who surveyed students with disability, reported that the students believed the teachers and support staff did not have the training needed to address student needs and preferences. Windle et al. (Reference Windle, Morrison, Sellar, Squires, Kennedy and Murray2022), who surveyed and interviewed teachers in South Australia (SA), found that teachers struggled with the adjustments to teaching required by students with more complex needs and wanted more support and time for planning and interaction with families. In a scoping review of 25 studies on adjustments in Australian schools, Page et al. (Reference Page, Barr, Rendoth, Roche, Foggett, Leonard and Duncan2024) identified a lack of teacher preparedness and competency in teaching students with disability and a need for professional development in making appropriate adjustments. Page et al. also noted the complexity of both immediate and distant contextual factors such as legislation and school leadership in providing adjustments. Teacher shortages in Australia (Australian Government, 2023a) and the increasing number of students with disability accessing mainstream classes (OECD, 2025) are likely to add to the pressure on teachers who are tasked to provide for the full range of children in their classrooms.

Qualifications, knowledge and skills required of teachers in special/inclusive education roles

All Australian states have teaching positions in schools that are related to the education of students with disability or learning difficulties. A continuum of placements is available in all states, and these positions may be in specialist settings such as special schools and units within mainstream schools or may be support positions in mainstream schools (Dally et al., Reference Dally, Ralston, Strnadová, Dempsey, Chambers, Foggett, Paterson, Sharma and Duncan2019). Teachers in specialist settings are usually responsible for the education of a class of students with disability, while those in mainstream settings provide support to both classroom teachers who are responsible for a student with disability and to students with disability who are included in mainstream classes.

The qualifications required for these positions are loose and vary across states. Kemp (Reference Kemp2024) has overviewed the qualification requirements for state schools. In New South Wales (NSW), no qualification is required, but scholarships are offered to registered teachers to complete a special/inclusive education course. In Victoria, some level of qualification is required for teachers with an ongoing appointment in a specialist school, but unqualified teachers may also be appointed. Like NSW, Victoria offers scholarships. Queensland, SA, Western Australia, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory appear to have no requirements for additional qualifications for teachers working as special/inclusive educators. It appears there has been no progress towards employing qualified special educators since 1985 when Victoria was the only state with a specific registration system for special educators (Pickering, Reference Pickering1985).

Despite the existence of support positions in mainstream schools and roles for teachers in specialist settings, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) does not have standards for specialist teachers. The ABS recognises a broad category of specialist education teachers as those who ‘teach academic and living skills to children and adults with learning difficulties, who are blind or have low vision, or are deaf or hard of hearing, and promote students’ social, emotional, intellectual and physical development’ (ABS, 2024a, para. 1). These roles are described as requiring a bachelor’s degree, higher qualification or at least 5 years of relevant experience. Within this broad occupational category, special education teachers (other than those teaching students with vision or hearing impairment) are described as having the skills to assess student abilities and limitations, develop and implement individualised learning plans, prepare and maintain student data and to work with parents and other teachers (ABS, 2024b).

The role descriptions of the ABS (2024b) are supported by Australian work on standards for special educators. The skills, knowledge and competencies of special educators, over and above those of regular mainstream teachers, have been delineated and standards developed for the knowledge, skills and competencies of special educators and for the courses that prepare them. In 2019, the Institute of Special Educators (InSpEd) developed broad standards based on earlier Australian work (Dally & Dempsey, Reference Dally and Dempsey2015; Dempsey & Dally, Reference Dempsey and Dally2014; Keeffe & De George-Walker, Reference Keeffe and De George-Walker2010) and on sources such as the Council for Exceptional Children (2015) standards and McLeskey et al. (Reference McLeskey, Barringer, Billingsley, Brownell, Jackson, Kennedy, Lewis, Maheady, Rodriguez, Scheeler, Winn and Ziegler2017). These standards establish a set of skills, knowledge, competencies and theoretical understanding, additional to and beyond that of regular mainstream classroom teachers (Dally et al., Reference Dally, Ralston, Strnadová, Dempsey, Chambers, Foggett, Paterson, Sharma and Duncan2019), possessed by qualified special educators.

Qualified special educators have expertise in individualised assessment of academic and other difficulties, individual intervention and adjustment planning, as well as monitoring and evaluation. They can provide interventions and adjustments for academic, social, communicative and behavioural difficulties. They can make data-based decisions and use explicit, systematic, evidence-based instruction. They have the skills to collaborate with families in educational planning and with other teachers and professionals in the support of students with additional needs (InSpEd, 2019). Much of their practice is informed by a knowledge of the principles of applied behaviour analysis that underpin and are consistent with research-based practice (Barnett et al., Reference Barnett, Zucker and More2020; Trump et al., Reference Trump, Pennington, Travers, Ringdahl, Whiteside and Ayres2018). Although applied behaviour analysis has sometimes been subject to criticism, these criticisms may be based on outdated accounts or misuse of applied behaviour analysis principles. Importantly, the field continues to address criticisms and to evolve (Mathur et al., Reference Mathur, Renz and Tarbox2024). In summary, special educators have content knowledge (e.g., early communication development, social skill development, functional assessment of problem behaviour) and in-depth knowledge of pedagogies, especially those based on applied behaviour analysis (e.g., prompting implementation and withdrawal, task analysis, modelling, direct and explicit instruction), that are not part of the knowledge and skills of regular teachers.

The limited data that are available suggest that many special/inclusive education positions are filled by teachers who do not hold a specialist qualification. As AITSL does not recognise specialist roles, its reports on the teaching workforce do not include separate statistics on teachers in specialist positions, and its data on OOF only relate to teachers teaching outside their subject discipline area (AITSL, 2025). Recent figures from Victoria suggest that just over a third of teachers in Victorian specialist schools had a qualification in special education (Peverett & Stephenson, Reference Peverett and Stephenson2023), and this is a decline since 2007 when two thirds of teachers in specialist schools were reported to hold a special education qualification (Thomas, Reference Thomas2007, Reference Thomas2009). A survey of teachers who were working with students on the autism spectrum in specialist settings in NSW found that only 37% held a special education qualification (Ho et al., Reference Ho, Stephenson and Carter2017). Rendoth et al. (Reference Rendoth, Foggett, Duncan and Colyvas2025) reported that, of their sample of teachers in specialist settings from four Australian states who had responsibility for planning curriculum for students with severe or profound and multiple learning difficulties, almost half did not have a special education qualification. These data indicate clearly that many teachers in specialist settings across Australia do not hold a special education qualification. In addition, Cooc (Reference Cooc2019) stated, based on data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), that just over 40% of principals in mainstream schools in Australia reported that a shortage of teachers with special education competency hindered effective instruction.

The need for special educators is in part recognised by the efforts of some states to train more teachers by offering scholarships to complete postgraduate special/inclusive education courses (Kemp, Reference Kemp2024). For example, in NSW, the NSW Department of Education, which is committed to placing a support teacher in every school (Rawsthorne et al., Reference Rawsthorne, Evans, Young and Andriana2015), launched an Inclusive Practice in Education Scholarship program in 2019 and had awarded just over 350 scholarships up to 2023 (NSW Department of Education, 2022). In SA, an autism inclusion teacher has been appointed to every primary school, and a similar program is being trialled in secondary schools. From the available information, it appears these are not qualified special educators but have received limited professional learning (Department for Education SA, 2025). Although these efforts are promising, they are unlikely to fully meet the need for qualified special/inclusive educators. In NSW alone, an additional 260 support classes were established in government schools in 2025 (NSW Department of Education, 2025).

Out-of-Field teaching in special/inclusive education roles

We have argued that teachers of students with disability in specialist schools and classes and teachers supporting students with disability in mainstream settings require a specialist skill set with content and pedagogical knowledge that is beyond that of a typical classroom teacher. We have also argued that the need for specialist skills is at least in part demonstrated by the establishment of positions in schools dedicated to the education of students with disability and that many teachers in those positions do not have a special/inclusive education qualification. It would seem that those teachers are teaching in a specialisation where they lack both content and pedagogical knowledge and thus would meet the definition of teaching OOF. Although there has been some debate about definitions in general terms, OOF teaching refers to a ‘mismatch between a teacher’s disciplinary background and the subject, year level or specialist role that they teach’ (Hobbs, Campbell, et al., Reference Hobbs, Campbell, Delaney, Speldewinde, Lai, Hobbs and Porsch2022, p. 23). As Ingersoll (Reference Ingersoll1998) noted, disciplinary background encompasses both discipline content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge relating to teaching that content.

There has been little attention paid to the use of teachers without a special education qualification in special education and support positions as an aspect of OOF teaching, although Ingersoll (Reference Ingersoll1998), one of the early researchers in the field, referred to his personal experience of teaching OOF in special education. More recently, Hobbs, Du Plessis, et al. (Reference Hobbs, Du Plessis, Oates, Caldis, McKnight, Vale, O’Connor, Rochette, Watt, Weldon, Richardson and Bateup2022), in their report on the Australian National Summit on Teaching Out-of-Field, used teaching students with special needs as an example of a specialist area that may not align with a teacher’s qualification, but no attention was paid to this issue in the report. Similarly, Wyatt and Hobbs (Reference Wyatt and Hobbs2024) provided little discussion of OOF teaching in special education positions, but one of their classifications of the ways first-year graduates were teaching OOF included assignment to teach students with special needs or to teach secondary special education. Du Plessis (Reference Du Plessis2019) included a teacher described as an ‘in field special teacher special education’ (p. 140) in her study of teachers’ ability to manage diverse classrooms, but she does not provide a definition or details of the teacher’s qualifications.

Following a review of the literature, Hobbs, Campbell, et al. (Reference Hobbs, Campbell, Delaney, Speldewinde, Lai, Hobbs and Porsch2022) developed a detailed definition of OOF teaching that has been applied to the Australian context, but primarily for maths and science teaching (see, for e.g., Albrecht et al., Reference Albrecht, O’Keeffe, Morrison, Reid-O’Connor, Prieto-Rodriguez, Holmes and Hughes2023). This definition, developed in the context of informing policy for the Victorian Department of Education (Hobbs et al., Reference Hobbs, Campbell, Delaney, Speldewinde and Lai2020) regarding teachers in secondary schools, has a focus on discipline areas and levels of schooling but does not consider students with disability as a group of learners requiring specialist teaching. Their definition takes into account a university qualification in the content or discipline or subdiscipline area and a teaching qualification related to a particular school or year level; the nature of teacher workload and the degree to which their workload is OOF in terms of proportion and stability of OOF; and capability or a teacher’s actual or perceived competence in a field through personal interest, experience, and professional learning.

This definition should be extended to include unqualified teachers in special education positions. Such teachers do not have a university qualification in special/inclusive education that covers the content and pedagogy required for students with disability. Usually, teachers in specialist schools or units will have all their teaching with students with disability; therefore, teachers without a special education qualification are teaching fully OOF. Support teachers in mainstream schools may spend all their time in that role or share it with other responsibilities; therefore, consideration of a lesser OOF load likely applies only in mainstream schools. It should also be acknowledged, in accordance with this definition, that some teachers, through self-directed study or broad and intensive professional learning combined with experience and quality in-school mentoring, may be capable teachers of students with disability. Teachers in specialist settings may have access to executives or colleagues who are qualified and able to provide mentoring and support. For teachers in mainstream schools, however, it is unlikely that there will be executive staff or colleagues who can guide and mentor them to develop sufficient knowledge equivalent to that of a teacher holding a special education qualification. It may also be that staff in special education consultancy roles or managerial roles in state departments of education, who are called on for support, lack qualifications in special/inclusive education (Kemp, Reference Kemp2024; O’Neill & Stephenson, Reference O’Neill and Stephenson2010). Considering these points, we believe the considerations pertaining to the definition put forward by Hobbs, Campbell, et al. (Reference Hobbs, Campbell, Delaney, Speldewinde, Lai, Hobbs and Porsch2022) also apply to teachers without a special education qualification who are teaching students with disability. Some may have access to mentoring and support from qualified special educators, and some may undertake additional professional learning to acquire relevant skills.

Impact on students and teachers of OOF teaching

It seems likely that students with disability who are taught by an OOF teacher may suffer detrimental effects similar to those of regular students taught by an OOF teacher. In very general terms, the use of teachers who are OOF means students may miss opportunities for relevant learning. Teachers who are OOF may use less than ideal teaching practices and are likely unaware of research-based practices (Du Plessis, Reference Du Plessis2015; Hobbs, Du Plessis, et al., Reference Hobbs, Du Plessis, Oates, Caldis, McKnight, Vale, O’Connor, Rochette, Watt, Weldon, Richardson and Bateup2022). In her foreword to the report on the global status of teachers in 2024 (Arnold & Rahini, Reference Arnold and Rahini2024), Linda Darling-Hammond drew attention to the shortage of special educators and the importance of the field of special education today. A study of 22 mainstream NSW schools enrolling students with a need for extensive or substantial adjustments, schools that included interviews with 107 participants (caregivers, teachers, principals and executives, support teachers, school counsellors, teaching assistants and a student), found that in more than half the schools at least one interviewee considered that student needs were not being met. Where unmet needs were identified, they were often in the areas of communication and social skills. These are areas in which qualified special educators have expertise in appropriate interventions (Carter et al., Reference Carter, Webster, Stephenson, Waddy, Stevens, Clements and Morris2022). The over-representation of students with disability in exclusionary school discipline suggests that schools and teachers have difficulty managing challenging behaviour in positive and proactive ways (Rudolph et al., Reference Rudolph, Isbester, Payne and Delany2025) and, again, qualified special educators have the skills and knowledge to assess the functions of challenging behaviour and develop appropriate interventions.

There is more detailed evidence to suggest that teachers teaching in special/inclusive education positions OOF are likely to produce poorer student outcomes. In a paper addressing the inclusive education debate, Fuchs et al. (Reference Fuchs, Gilmour and Wanzek2025) pointed to the robust body of research on the benefits of intensive instruction for students with disability and noted that such instruction was more likely to be delivered in specialist settings. We would add that it is also the case that this instruction requires specialist teachers. There is longstanding evidence that qualified special educators have greater knowledge of evidence-based instruction for students with disability than do other educators (Stormont et al., Reference Stormont, Reinke and Herman2011) and are more likely to use effective practices (Crispel & Kasperski, Reference Crispel and Kasperski2021; Nougaret et al., Reference Nougaret, Scruggs and Mastropieri2005; Sindelar et al., Reference Sindelar, Daunic and Rennells2004). Gilmour and Wehby (Reference Gilmour and Wehby2020) found that teachers with a special education qualification were also less likely to leave their teaching position when their classes included students with disability than teachers without a special education qualification. There is also research to suggest that students with disability taught by a teacher with a qualification in special education do better in both reading and/or mathematics than students taught by a teacher without these qualifications (Feng & Sass, Reference Feng and Sass2012, Reference Feng and Sass2013; Gilmour, Reference Gilmour2020; Kirksey & Lloydhauser, Reference Kirksey and Lloydhauser2022).

OOF teachers themselves may experience reduced wellbeing and additional stress as they may be expected to teach content they are not familiar with (e.g., use of augmentative and alternative communication systems, social skills) and may not have the skills to implement explicit instruction with ongoing monitoring of student learning. Although explicit instruction is now recognised as an evidence-based practice for all students (Australian Education Research Organisation, 2022), this approach has not usually been included in mainstream teacher preparation courses (Australian Government, 2023b). Research has shown that OOF teachers in other fields are more likely to be new graduates or on casual or short-term appointments (Hobbs, Du Plessis, et al., Reference Hobbs, Du Plessis, Oates, Caldis, McKnight, Vale, O’Connor, Rochette, Watt, Weldon, Richardson and Bateup2022). Given the recommendations of the Strong Beginnings report (Australian Government, 2023b), future new graduates may have more skills in explicit instruction, classroom management and teaching students with disability. However, we believe they would still be ill-equipped to be effective in a special educator role.

Unqualified staff in special/inclusive education positions

There are likely several reasons for the frequent use of unqualified teachers in specialist and mainstream settings and many of these have been canvassed in the research on teaching OOF in discipline areas. It is clear that one of the reasons for the use of staff without special education qualifications in special/inclusive education roles is the shortage of teachers with special education qualifications, and that this is an international issue (Arnold & Rahini, Reference Arnold and Rahini2024; Cooc, Reference Cooc2019). We have already noted some of the steps individual states have taken to address this shortage. The shortage of special educators in Australia is more longstanding than the current teacher shortage (see, e.g., Blackmore et al., Reference Blackmore, Hobbs and Rowlands2024), having been noted by Thomas (Reference Thomas2009) almost 20 years ago.

The reasons for the shortage of special educators are also likely to have some commonalities with the reasons for the shortage of regular teachers. These include the status of the profession and workload, increases in the number of students enrolled, low pay, poor career progression, poor occupational health and safety, and limited opportunities for remuneration for additional expertise in school-based positions (Arnold & Rahini, Reference Arnold and Rahini2024; Australian Government, 2022). The Australian Government Issues Paper released in 2022 addressed teacher shortages generally and noted special/inclusive educators as an area of particular need; however, the focus of the paper is primarily on addressing initial teacher education and not on attracting teachers to gain an additional specialist qualification to increase the supply of qualified special educators.

A special education qualification requires the equivalent of at least 1 year of full-time postgraduate study, with no additional remuneration. In addition, employment in a special education position does not generally require a qualification (Kemp, Reference Kemp2024). Weldon (Reference Weldon2016) noted that there was little incentive for high school teachers working OOF to gain additional qualifications and that there are few data on the extent to which teachers undertake additional training. Blackmore et al. (Reference Blackmore, Hobbs and Rowlands2024) recognised special schools as among those that are seen as ‘hard to staff’ and also noted ‘deficit discourses’ about teaching in special schools (p. 234). It would also seem from the findings of Blackmore et al. that special schools were hard to staff regardless of location.

Report from the national OOF summit

Concern about OOF teaching led to a national summit (Hobbs, Du Plessis, et al., Reference Hobbs, Du Plessis, Oates, Caldis, McKnight, Vale, O’Connor, Rochette, Watt, Weldon, Richardson and Bateup2022) that explored the issue and articulated future directions to address the problem. The report from the summit recognised the threat to quality education posed by OOF teaching, with 40% of maths teachers teaching OOF and 30% for science and English teaching OOF. As noted above, the frequency of OOF teachers in special education or support positions is comparable, and likely higher. Although the summit recognised that teachers without a special/inclusive education qualification teaching in special schools, classes or in support positions are OOF, it did not address this area of OOF. The authors of the report called for better data on OOF teaching, and it is clear that more accurate statistics need to be collected regarding the qualifications of teachers in special/inclusive education positions. The lack of data about teacher qualifications and roles highlights the need for clear, agreed definitions of OOF teaching and the need to clearly delineate the specific skills needed for teachers in different disciplines, specialist areas (including special/inclusive education) and levels of education. The report also addressed the role of school leaders in employing and assigning teachers, and it may be that many school leaders do not understand or value the specific skills of qualified special/inclusive educators. There is also the issue that within mainstream schools students with disability may be more likely to have a teacher who is less experienced, given that more senior and/or qualified teachers are more likely to be assigned to senior classes and/or higher ability classes (Du Plessis, Reference Du Plessis2015; Ingersoll, Reference Ingersoll1998; Porsch & Hobbs, Reference Porsch and Hobbs2024) and early career teachers may be more likely to teach OOF (Weldon, Reference Weldon2016). In addition, the report called for clear standards for teacher accreditation and registration.

Implications for OOF teaching in special/inclusive education

We would argue that AITSL needs to establish standards for specialist roles such as special/inclusive education teachers. We note that there has already been work to establish such standards and standards for the courses that prepare special educators (Dally & Dempsey, Reference Dally and Dempsey2015; InSpEd, 2019; Stephenson et al., Reference Stephenson, Ganguly, Kemp and Salisbury2022) and that in the absence of agreed standards, courses may not provide adequate preparation (Stephenson et al., Reference Stephenson, Ganguly, Kemp and Salisbury2022).

We call for more attention to be paid to OOF teaching related to students with disability. We have argued that this is a specialist area requiring knowledge and skills not possessed by mainstream classroom teachers. The work to be done regarding OOF teaching and the education of students with disability aligns with the key messages from the National Summit on Teaching Out-of-Field (Hobbs, Campbell, et al., Reference Hobbs, Campbell, Delaney, Speldewinde, Lai, Hobbs and Porsch2022; Ross & Hobbs, Reference Ross and Hobbs2024).

The first key message was a call for a nationally recognised definition of OOF teaching. This definition should be able to be adapted to various specialisation requirements (Hobbs, Campbell, et al., Reference Hobbs, Campbell, Delaney, Speldewinde, Lai, Hobbs and Porsch2022; Ross & Hobbs, Reference Ross and Hobbs2024). We have called for the work on establishing standards for special educators to be used to clarify roles and responsibilities and for AITSL to establish relevant standards for special/inclusive educators. This should flow through to standards for endorsing courses that provide a special/inclusive education qualification, in the same way that OOF researchers have called for standards for courses that upskill qualified teachers in discipline areas (Hobbs, Campbell, et al., Reference Hobbs, Campbell, Delaney, Speldewinde, Lai, Hobbs and Porsch2022).

The second key message was a call for more data collection on teacher qualifications, their experiences and the impacts on students (Hobbs, Campbell, et al., Reference Hobbs, Campbell, Delaney, Speldewinde, Lai, Hobbs and Porsch2022; Ross & Hobbs, Reference Ross and Hobbs2024). At present, there is a lack of information about the qualifications of teachers employed to teach or support students with disability, but what information is available points to a shortage comparable to the shortages of STEM teachers. More needs to be learned about how unqualified teachers in special/inclusive education positions can be supported and how they can be encouraged and supported to complete additional teacher education courses to gain the requisite skills and knowledge.

The implementation of strategies to address critical areas was the third key issue (Hobbs, Campbell, et al., Reference Hobbs, Campbell, Delaney, Speldewinde, Lai, Hobbs and Porsch2022; Ross & Hobbs, Reference Ross and Hobbs2024). Strategies to increase the supply of qualified special/inclusive educators need to be expanded beyond the current scholarship schemes. The role of specialist teachers also needs to be recognised by school principals and others who allocate teachers to OOF positions. The development of policies and practices to support OOF teachers was the fourth key issue (Hobbs, Campbell, et al., Reference Hobbs, Campbell, Delaney, Speldewinde, Lai, Hobbs and Porsch2022; Ross & Hobbs, Reference Ross and Hobbs2024). This may include formal recognition of teacher specialisation, which then affects the positions to which teachers can be assigned to reduce the appointment of unqualified teachers, particularly early-career and temporary teachers to special/inclusive education positions. It also relates to the need for incentives and supports for teachers to gain additional qualifications.

The final key issue was a call for collaboration in addressing OOF teaching that brings together schools, education authorities, educational associations, universities and other organisations (Hobbs, Campbell, et al., Reference Hobbs, Campbell, Delaney, Speldewinde, Lai, Hobbs and Porsch2022; Ross & Hobbs, Reference Ross and Hobbs2024). We call for special/inclusive educators, special/inclusive education academics and organisations advocating for the education of students with disability to be included in this collaboration.