I'm Nici Foote. Inclusion specialist, Apple Professional Learning Specialist, educator with dyslexia, ADHD, dyscalculia and an auditory processing disorder. I work with schools, families, and EdTech companies to remove the barriers that stop children from learning, belonging, and thriving — not just coping.
Everything I do asks one question: what are we solving for the student?
That sentence does a lot of work. It changes which problems count. It changes who gets to define them. And it changes what success looks like — because if the answer isn't in service of the child in the room, it isn't a real answer.
This is what I want you to know about how I think, what I do, and why it matters.
What I see, after 26 years in classrooms
Twenty-six years of classroom, SEND, and digital inclusion work tells me one thing: the system was built for an idealised middle that doesn't really exist.
The bottom 20% — children with formal diagnoses, EHCPs, complex needs — get attention. Imperfect, under-resourced, often too late, but attention. The top 20% — high attainers, articulate self-advocates, families with capacity — get attention too. Different attention, but attention.
The 60% in the middle? That's where the system fails quietly.
These are the children who won't get an EHCP because their needs don't quite cross a threshold. The children who can mask well enough on a Tuesday to look like they're fine, even when they're crashing out by Thursday. The children whose dyslexia goes unnoticed because they're polite and bright, so adults assume they're just not trying hard enough — or worse, that they're not bright enough. The autistic children whose interior worlds don't match the behaviour-management script. The children with auditory processing differences who hear every word but understand none of them.
These children don't show up in the data because the data wasn't designed to find them. We notice when they crash out. We rarely notice the friction that builds for years before they do.
I notice. Because I was one of them. And because I've taught, observed, scaffolded, and reported on hundreds of others.
What I actually do
Three strands of work. All of them ask the same question. None of them stand alone.
unbarrier.audit is for families and schools who need someone to write the report that changes what happens next for a child. EHCP, Section 7, needs-led — practical, evidence-based, grounded in the actual life of the student, not a generic checklist. I write reports that hold up legally, that are future focused and read like a real human wrote them. They also tell the absolute truth about what a child needs.
unbarrier.access is for schools and trusts who already own powerful accessibility tools — iPads, GoodNotes, Apple's built-in accessibility suite — and aren't using them well. Or at all. Most schools don't have an access problem because the tools are missing. They have it because no one has built the strategy and culture that makes the tools actually get used. I do that work. Apple Professional Learning, iPad rollouts that survive the second year, belonging-first frameworks for teaching practice.
unbarrier.voice is for EdTech companies. You build a product. You believe it's accessible. You can't be sure — because you've never watched a six-year-old with dysregulation try to use it on a bad morning, and you've never sat with a teacher who's terrified of getting it wrong in front of thirty kids. I do that work. Real student voice, structured observation, evidence that helps you build a product people actually use, understand, trust, and benefit from day one.
Plus Loop Breakers, my community offer for neurodivergent women who are stuck between planning and action. Not because they aren't capable — most of them are running businesses, leading teams, raising kids. But because the gap between knowing what to do and being able to do it is bigger than most productivity advice will admit. We meet there. We get unstuck together.
Each strand exists because someone asked me to build it. Real client, real problem, real money. None of it is theoretical.
What I believe
Belonging isn't a poster on a wall. It isn't a values statement. It isn't a policy.
Belonging is the day-to-day, decision-by-decision experience of being treated like you fit — even when you don't fit the average. It's whether the child who needs to wear noise-cancelling headphones gets to wear them without explaining themselves. It's whether the dyslexic teacher gets to send a message without spell-checking it three times first. It's whether the EdTech tool you bought lets a child have agency in their own learning, or makes them perform for a dashboard.
This is what I mean by designing well for neurodivergent people results in better design for everyone. It's not a kindness. It's not a compromise. The features that work for the 60% in the middle — clear instructions, predictable patterns, low-cognitive-load interfaces, multiple ways in — are the features that work for everyone. They're just usually only built when someone with lived experience refuses to ship without them.
I am that someone. Often the only one in the room.
How I work
Direct. Warm. No filler. Plain language unless we need a technical word, and then we use it properly.
I think out loud. I make decisions quickly when I have enough information, and I say "I don't know yet" without anxiety when I don't. I push back when something doesn't fit, and I fold quickly when someone shows me a better way.
I'm dyslexic. I have ADHD. I have dyscalculia. I have an auditory processing disorder. These aren't disclaimers — they're part of how I notice what other people miss. They're also part of why I work the way I work: in bursts, with structure, with clear chunking, with one clear thing at a time. The way I work is the way I'd want my products and systems to work for the people who use them.
If you've read this far, you probably already know whether we'd work well together. The next step is just a conversation.
If any of this lands — start here
unbarrier.audit — for families and schools needing reports that actually move things forward. EHCP, Section 7, needs-led.
unbarrier.access — for schools and trusts ready to make their existing tools genuinely useable. Apple PLS, iPad strategy, belonging-first culture.
unbarrier.voice — for EdTech companies building products that need to work for real children, not idealised users.
Loop Breakers — for neurodivergent women stuck between planning and action. We meet weekly. We get unstuck together.
Or just email me. I read every one. I reply to every one I can.
Nici Foote · Founder, Unbarrier Education Ltd