Find your local school
Search the Queensland school directory by suburb or postcode and filter for state schools or special schools.
Support in a mainstream class
Ask the principal what reasonable adjustments are recorded for your child. The Reasonable Adjustment Resourcing (RAR) model allocates additional resources to schools to support students with disability. These resources go to the school, not to individual students, and the adjustment level recorded in the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data informs the resourcing rather than the diagnosis label alone.
Support classes and special schools
Search the directory for special schools, then contact your regional office about your child's options. To enrol in a Queensland state special school, your child must have an intellectual disability which, alone or with other disabilities, severely affects their learning.
Autism-specific help
Use the department's Autism Hub for information and advice for families and schools.
Who to contact
Start with your school. Call 13 74 68 (general government line) if you need help reaching the right Queensland service.
13 74 68Specialist and autism-specific schools in QLD
No school or department publishes a standard processing time, so contact the school as soon as you are considering it, even a year or more ahead, and ask to join the waiting list while you are still deciding. This is general guidance from families rather than a published timeline.
Assessment requirements are set by each school, not by a national rule. Aspect, for example, asks NSW families for a diagnosis plus a psychometric assessment no more than two years old, and South Australian families for a second report confirming the diagnosis, so check what the specific school requires.
Fees, year levels and eligibility change, so every school below links to its own page for current details.
Standalone specialist schools
A dedicated campus where every student has a disability or is autistic. Your child goes to that school, not to a mainstream school. Some are run by state governments, some are independent or faith-based, and a few are autism-specific.
Independent autism-specific school
Autism Queensland's registered school, with teaching and therapy staff working together. AQ School runs across six campuses statewide, including Sunnybank Hills and Brighton in Brisbane, plus distance education.
Independent Christian autism-specific school
A small autism-specific school for students who can access the Australian curriculum with a minimal level of classroom support.
Support units and support classes run by the education department
A small class attached to a mainstream government school and staffed by that department, not by an autism provider. Names differ by state, and access usually runs through your department's own placement or access request process rather than the school itself.
Queensland Department of Education placements
Queensland runs standalone state special schools as well as special education programs inside mainstream state schools. Enrolment in a state special school has extra requirements set out in the department's procedure.
Applying in QLD
Contact the school principal. Queensland state schools enrol students under the department's enrolment procedure and must make reasonable adjustments for students with disability.
Queensland does not run a separate parent application. Extra resourcing reaches state schools through Investing for Success and is informed by the level of adjustment recorded for your child in the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data, so ask the principal what adjustments are recorded.
Queensland state special schools have additional enrolment requirements set out in the department's procedure, and students with intellectual disability that severely affects learning are the primary eligibility group. Contact the Department of Education regional office.
Contact Autism Queensland directly via their head office line or the enquiry form on their website, which also lists direct numbers for each school campus. An expression of interest is the first step in their enrolment process.
13 74 68 is 13 QGOV, the whole of Queensland Government contact line rather than an education specific number, so ask to be put through to the Department of Education.
