Breaking: NDIS To Scrap Impairment Categories, Introduce Hogwarts House Sorting Model in New Plan Reform Pilot.
Introducing a Bold New Framework for the NDIS: Scrapping Impairment Categories To Sort Participants by Hogwarts House Instead.
⚠️ Editor’s Note: This article is a work of satire. The Sorting Hat is not yet a registered NDIS delegate.
In light of persistent confusion around impairment categories, functional domains, and whether a diagnosis counts as “relevant”, staffers at Common Ground Disability Consulting have proposed a bold new framework: scrapping impairment categories altogether and implementing participant classification under the NDIS using the Hogwarts House Model.
In line with Section 24 of the NDIS Act 2013 — which currently requires that an impairment cause permanent and substantially reduced functional capacity in one or more life domains — they have suggested replacing this dry diagnostic framework with a far more intuitive system: magical archetypes.
Experts have called this a “quantum leap forward in logic,” and praised the reduction in risk of exposure to Muggles and Dementors with the revised model being vastly more intuitive and 97% less bureaucratically soul-crushing.
The proposed NDIS Sorting Ceremony, will use the Hogwarts Sorting Hat to review a participants file and functional capacity assessment, and assign their magical destiny.
This model removes the need for arbitrary impairment labels such as “neurological” or “cognitive” and instead sorts participants based on key magical traits, lived experience, resilience, and ability to navigate current disability systems with their dignity intact.
Examples of this revised classification framework include:
Autistic? Ravenclaw — not because of stereotypes, but because deep focus, fierce logic, and unstoppable momentum that means once you're in the zone, you’re in the zone. Key life domains include deep curiosity, pattern recognition, an ability to notice what others miss bordering on cognitive alchemy.
Neurological disabilities (like cerebral palsy)? That’s pure Hufflepuff energy: determined to quietly master complex environments with more grace and patience than the entire Ministry of Magic. It’s giving perseverance, teamwork, and a quiet refusal to be underestimated.
Intellectual disability? Slytherin, with honours. Just like Snape, you’re misunderstood by people who only read the summary notes. Strategy, creative problem-solving, and operating at a level most people don’t even see is the whole vibe.
Developmental delay? Gryffindor — because showing up every day in a world obsessed with milestones takes guts, and the tiniest wins are basically acts of rebellion. Not forgetting their parents and carers who have developed the ability to spot a dodgy invoice faster than you can say ‘why is a block of cheese now $14?’
This new model eliminates confusion around impairment overlaps, makes eligibility determination approximately 80% more whimsical, and is arguably more reliable than current frameworks which critics state focuses too much on check boxes and not enough on the environment, attitudes, and policies that actually disable people — which, according to the Sorting Hat, is very unmagical behaviour.
Participants will also no longer require a Pensieve to to align their expenditure with pre-approved quarterly funding releases.
Box Ticking Reimagined
A spokesperson for the Sorting Hat, who asked not to be named due to appeal proceedings was quoted as saying;
“this framework does away with the outdated obsession with labels no one can define consistently and embraces a system that actually reflects each individuals’ lived experience, functional strengths, and ability to survive eternal therapy waitlists and three month funding periods without setting fire to a service agreement."
The Sorting Hat Pilot will commence at plan reassessment from Q3 2025, using an evidence base of two letters of recommendation from magical beings, and a self-reported Functional Wizardry Checklist signed in disappearing ink. Outcomes will be delivered by owl which is predicted to be a more timely and participant-centred solution than current methods.
While the NDIS continues its quest to categorise humans in a filing system, the Sorting Hat knows that people are more than a checkbox. And for everyone surviving all this scheme reform with any sense of humour remaining, you’re already a bit magical.
In solidarity and satire,
x Anna