i call them the 60% in the middle. the system wasn’t built for them, so i’m building it differently.
39% of teachers don’t know whether the assistive technology they have is fit for purpose.
we help schools, trusts and edtech make sure the tools they have already bought actually reach the learners they were bought for.
led by nici foote —
apple professional learning specialist · 26 years in classrooms · send specialist · dyslexic, dyscalculic and adhd educator
buying a device for a send learner without a strategy isn’t inclusion. it’s a tick-box.
the spend is real. the intent is real. but nobody checks whether it landed with the learner it was meant for. that is the gap we work in.
what the national picture shows
22%
of school leaders have a formal plan to evaluate whether their technology spend makes any difference. broadly unchanged since 2023. only 35% of school leaders have any mechanism to monitor it at all, down from 41%.
39%
of teachers don’t know whether their assistive technology is fit for purpose.
not even counted
the survey covered mainstream primary and secondary only. special schools, alternative provision, prus and independent schools were explicitly out of scope. the settings where this matters most were not in the national picture at all.
source for all three: dfe, technology in schools survey 2024 to 2025, published november 2025.
for schools with inclusive mainstream funding
your inclusion strategy has to be published by 31 december.
we help schools write it — guided, not done for you.
how we help schools write it →where to start
tell us what you are. we’ll tell you where to start.
- i’m a teacher or sencoyou can see what isn’t working, and you’re not the person who holds the budget. the free readiness check, in a form you can forward upwards.
- i’m a schoolone setting, and you want to know whether what you bought is reaching the learners it was bought for. a discovery day.
- i’m a trust or a groupseveral settings, one picture across all of them, and something a board will accept as evidence. a trust-level baseline.
- i’m an international school or groupdifferent constraints, different procurement, and it isn’t a uk offer with the names changed. a conversation.
- i’m an edtech companyyou have a product, and you need to know whether it works for the learners you say it serves. unbarrier for edtech.
how the work runs — the ndte cycle
notice → design → try → embed.
however you come in, it runs the same way. four words, and you can hold a whole year against them.
and it is why the offers are one pathway rather than three products: a discovery day is notice, done properly. unbarrier.voice is what makes notice and embed measurable instead of felt. a partnership year is all four, three terms running.
what we believe
- belonging and psychological safety come before any tool, curriculum or strategy. you can’t learn until you feel safe and seen.
- the barrier is never the learner. the system needs to flex around them, not the other way round.
- learner voice is the anchor. forget what looks good for the adults. what are we solving for the learner?
- behaviour is communication. the right question is “what is this telling us?”, not “how do we stop it?”
- if you design well for the learners who struggle most, you make things better for everyone.
tell us what you’re working with. if we can help, we’ll say how. if we can’t, we’ll point you to someone who can.
notice
sunday, 8am. two minutes. something i noticed in a classroom, the number underneath it, and one line you can use in monday’s slt meeting. written for people who don’t have time to read it twice.