Notes from Nici

The unbarrier blog.
Said out loud, then typed down.

Short thoughts, honest ones, full-length arguments, and stories from other people in this world. Writing is hard when you’re dyslexic. I still do it — with voice notes, AI, and a lot of rereading.

Out loud

Short. Said out loud first, typed second.

Reality check

A belief about SEND or inclusion, examined properly.

Honestly

The slower, truer ones. Allowed to be emotional.

Stories

Lived experience from people who get it.

Invitations

A door, gently opened. You’re welcome inside.

The letters A-D-H-D in bold orange on a black background, with each letter filled with a different childhood photograph of the author at various ages — from a small child waving at the camera, to a girl with a fringe poking her tongue out, to a teenager standing beside her grandmother in a coat.
Reality check

I'm one of the 694%: why I keep saying I have ADHD out loud

11 May 2026· 5 min read

Recorded ADHD events among adult women aged 31–49 in the UK have risen by 694% over five years. The number is being used as proof of overdiagnosis. It's actually proof of something else. Here's why I keep saying I have ADHD out loud.

Read →
A primary classroom mid-lesson. Children sit cross-legged on a blue carpet with hands raised, while at the back of the room a teacher and another adult work with a smaller group around a screen. Two layers of teaching happening in the same room.
Out loud

England's classrooms are not Norway's. Yet.

20 May 2026· 5 min read

This week the Education Secretary pointed to Norway as the model for SEND reform. The ambition is right. The starting line is not. Here's what Norway actually built — and where England's two-tier workforce is holding the gap together.

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A figure with bright pink hair and an orange t-shirt floats freely through dark space, arms thrown back, surrounded by stars and a small ringed planet.
Honestly

The system wasn't built for the 60% in the middle. I'm building it differently.

3 May 2026· 6 min read

Inclusion specialist Nici Foote on why the system fails the 60% in the middle — and how she works with schools, families and EdTech to fix it.

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An open EHCP document on a kitchen table, marked up with a highlighter — every vague word circled. The reality of what most SEND parents discover when they read the small print: a plan full of 'should' instead of 'must'.
Out loud

The word "should" is doing a lot of heavy lifting

2 May 2026· 6 min read

There's a single word doing more damage in SEND meetings than any other. Not budget. Not threshold. Should. The difference between a child getting support and not getting it often comes down to one word, and most parents don't know to fight for the right one.

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The Ten Largest, No. 3, Youth by Hilma af Klint, 1907 — a swirling abstract painting in soft pinks, oranges, yellows and teal. Hilma af Klint held her radical work back from the world for decades, leaving instructions for it to remain unseen until twenty years after her death. The image a neurodivergent woman might recognise as work that's ready, held quietly until its time.
Invitations

Why you never launch (and what to do about it)

2 May 2026· 5 min read

You've had the idea for two years. You've tweaked it, parked it, explained it to three friends. That's the loop — and it isn't a character flaw. It's an ADHD brain doing exactly what it's wired to do. Here's what actually shifts it.

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Nici Foote, founder of Unbarrier Education, sat in her car after a wet morning dog walk. Wet hair, no makeup, sunglasses pushed up on her head, wearing a green-and-yellow camo dryrobe. The honest face of an ADHD mum holding it all — tired, real, mid-reset.
Honestly

The mum holding it all: ADHD, perimenopause, and the year nothing fitted anymore

2 May 2026· 6 min read

If you're an ADHD mum in your forties wondering why everything suddenly feels harder — your patch fell off, your brain went sideways, your business needs you — you're not failing. You're a woman holding too much in a body that just changed the rules.

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A bright outdoor selfie of Nici taken from a low downward angle. She's smiling broadly, wearing white-framed mirrored sunglasses and a chunky grey wool jumper. Sunlight catches her face. To one side, a small ginger-brown dog walks along the leaf-strewn path beside her. The path is bordered by a tangle of green hedge. The reflection in her sunglasses shows the lane ahead.
Stories

I built Loop Breakers because I needed it

2 May 2026· 5 min read

I had this idea for six months. I kept getting stuck on the same thing — what if no one turns up? Here's why I built Loop Breakers anyway, and the room I'm trying to make.

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It's not just the workload — it's the constant switching, interruption, and responsibility. The real pressure is the mental load that builds throughout the day. The biggest shift comes from reducing that load and creating space to think.
Invitations

It isn't the workload. It's the mental load.

1 May 2026· 2 min read

The School Business Leader Wellbeing Index 2026 is out. Page 48 is mine — and the real story isn't what most people think it is.

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