Teachers and other school staff are going to learn more about autism in compulsory lessons.

It’s part of the government’s Continuum of Learning and Inclusion (COLI) initiative.

COLI helps staff to identify pupils who need more help.

All secondary schools will carry out training on autism to teachers before the end of the academic year.

Education Minister Graham Cregeen MHKsaid: ’Ensuring our island’s schools are supportive and inclusive to students of all needs is extremely important.

’Schools will be working closely with department officers over this academic year to deliver training on inclusivity, ensuring that we deliver high quality education and support to all of the island’s pupils.’

The Department of Education, Sport and Culture will be supporting this training through the schools’ in service Day on May 28, where the theme and focus will be ’inclusion’.

Ahead of this, a number of speakers from the UK will also be visiting the island on May 2 to talk about special needs education, behaviour, and ’learner engagement’.

Teaching staff have also been offered training based on helping autistic students in mainstream education, due to take place later this month.

This will be provided by Jim Taylor, former Director of Education for Scottish Autism, who is being brought to the island by Autism in Man.

This session, specifically for teachers, will examine the way autistic pupils learn and how they can be helped in mainstream education.