This is a companion to our learning space. It reads one external framework against ours and reports what it finds. A framework can share our destination without sharing our route. EcoNiches shares both.
In June 2026, the British Educational Research Association published EcoNiches of Learning, by Carla Finesilver and Jonathan Berliner — three linked case studies from a small alternative-provision unit in London, trialling classroom adaptations in GCSE science and maths with Autistic and otherwise neurodivergent teenagers. The report names a method: educational niche analysis (ENA), defined as a framework for “co-constructing better-fitting learning environments with and for learners.” Its third underpinning proposition is collaborative niche construction stated in a single line:
Students should be actively involved in the co-construction of their own fitting niches.
EcoNiches of Learning, p.5
This is not a parallel arrival at a similar place. Finesilver and Berliner build ENA on the same two sources our framework draws from: Chapman (2021) for the ecological reading of the neurodiversity paradigm, and Armstrong (2012) for positive niche construction. It is the same lineage, worked into a classroom method.
Where it converges
The environment is the unit of change, and they say so without flinching. Neuroinclusive practice means:
treating classroom and school environments as the thing to be ‘fixed’ (or at least flexed)
EcoNiches of Learning, p.6
They name the deficit default with the same precision we do. Under current SEND practice, “the support plans are generally written about students rather than with them” (p.6). That is broken-systems-not-broken-people and nothing-about-us-without-us, reached independently and stated cleanly.
The structure carries the convergence further. ENA is a grid of comfort, capability and connection across five socioecological levels — autosystem, microsystem, mesosystem, macrosystem, ecosystem (after Bronfenbrenner, 2005). Read it beside ARLES — Attention, Relational, Lived Experience, Environment, Systems — and the through-line is the same: zoom from the bodymind outward to the systemic.
Here is what that grid looks like in practice. Each cell pairs an adaptation with the reason it fits, and tags whether it is already embedded, being trialled, or recommended for the future. Note: this is a simplified version of the tables in the report, formatted for easier display on phones.
| Level | Comfort | Capability | Connection |
|---|---|---|---|
| Autosystem the learner’s inner world | Ear defenders and a dimmable lamp within reach — sensory load can overwhelm before learning starts. (E) | Protect single-task blocks of deep focus — flow is a strength, not a behaviour to interrupt. (T) | Check in by note, not a surprise verbal question — being put on the spot reads as threat. (R) |
| Microsystem the classroom | A predictable seat and the lesson plan posted in advance — uncertainty drains energy needed for the work. (E) | Hands-on models and visuals alongside text — multiple modes make abstract ideas graspable. (T) | Group work the learner opts into rather than is assigned — sociability varies day to day. (T) |
| Mesosystem school, family, community | A named, dependable adult and a quiet space available without asking each time — safety is a precondition, not a reward. (R) | Adaptations kept in a living document the learner can see and edit — agency over one’s own support. (R) | Route the learner’s special interest into the curriculum where it fits — interest is the bridge to relevance. (T) |
| Macrosystem curriculum and culture | Reassurance that gaps in knowledge are normal — fear of gaps blocks asking. (E) | Teach technical vocabulary only as needed — terminology load is a barrier, not the content. (T) | Make explicit how today connects to past learning and the wider world — relevance sustains effort. (T) |
| Ecosystem the more-than-human world | — | — | Welcome the learner’s questions about the ethics and impact of what is studied — they care about the world they are inheriting. (R) |
The student cases are monotropism and special-interest leverage without the vocabulary. Alexa designs the raked theatre stage whose trigonometry she then solves; the teacher “did not pick the numbers, but asked Alexa to decide.” Ziva’s circle-area problem is rebuilt as a Taylor Swift concert — “it makes everything easier.” And one set of brightly coloured plasticine balls serves three students differently in a single chemistry lesson, providing “a fitting educational niche for all” — a clean curb-cut.
Where it diverges
Two asymmetries, not a flat shortfall.
ENA reaches further out than ARLES at the far end. Its ecosystem level is planetary and socioscientific; Ziva’s profile records ecosystemic discomfort about “responsible energy usage… e.g. using AI.” That is a layer we can learn from.
ARLES reaches deeper at the epistemic end. We name Lived Experience as its own structural layer. EcoNiches folds lived experience into method — students as “active critical participants and experts on their own experiences, lives and learning” (p.6) — strong practice, but not a named layer.
Then the seam, in their own words. Macrosystemic change — “addressing inaccessibilities in the national curriculum or examination system” —
might be outside the scope of the people actually conducting ENAs on students-within-environments
EcoNiches of Learning, p.18
The systemic layer is present in the architecture and bracketed in the practice. The convergence runs deep through the environmental layer. The retreat is at systemic action, not systemic awareness. Our learning space does not bracket it. The system is the work.
Where the register splits
The dignity is real. Students leave able to name what they need.
now … I know what I need, and so I can tell them [teachers]
Ziva, in EcoNiches of Learning, p.17
I wish I had this before my EHCP review!
Alexa, in EcoNiches of Learning, p.17
But the value is also argued through manageability: “classroom management was easier” (p.17), and ENA “could somewhat mitigate the current burdens on SENCOs and other staff” (p.18). A fitting niche is justified, in part, because it makes students more governable and staff less burdened.
This is where the registers part. We hold that a fitting niche is owed — not because it settles the room, but because belonging and access are not contingent on good behaviour.
Source: Finesilver, C., & Berliner, J. (2026). EcoNiches of learning: Secondary science and maths classrooms as neuroinclusive environments. British Educational Research Association. Published under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/econiches-of-learning
