In advancing educational inclusion efforts this critical position paper makes explicit the relevance of new materialism as a pedagogy to counter the dominant special education models in Canadian and Australian school contexts. This paper argues the implementation of special education policies and programs do not adequately address the complexity of children and young people with disabilities experiences. New materialism as a form of pedagogy however can prioritize learners with disabilities embodied, relational connections to school and destabilize highly medicalized functional pedagogical approaches. The material turn in schools is a welcoming pedagogical framework that places the material body and the emergent learner at the center of our practice.