For schools and trusts.
Most schools already own the tools.
Few use them consistently.
I help schools and trusts turn the accessibility tools they've already paid for — iPads, GoodNotes, Apple's built-in suite — into everyday classroom practice. Not extra software. Not another rollout. Just the tools they already own, finally working for the children who need them.
Apple Professional Learning Specialist. 26 years in classrooms. Dyslexic and ADHD educator.
Five things I see in schools that have already invested.
The investment is in. The implementation isn't.
observation 01
The tools are already there. The strategy isn't.
Most primary schools have iPads. A couple in the corner that don't get used. Or a shared trolley. Or one to one. The kit is there. What's missing is the practice — teachers with iPads but no clear workflow for what to do with them, so the iPad becomes a demo tool, not a teaching one. Speak Selection, colour filters, live captions — they're all already on the device. They're just not being used.
observation 02
TAs are doing work that learners could do themselves.
Our TAs have been the missing part of our accessibility training for a long time. They're the ones reading the question aloud, spelling the word, holding the child up through the lesson — and they're exhausted by Friday. None of that work is necessary when the iPad is set up properly. Speak Selection reads the page. Live captions handle the teacher's voice. The TA gets to do the work only a human can do, instead of doing what the device should be doing.
observation 03
SEND-funded devices sit unused.
An EHCP names the iPad. The school buys it. The specialist apps get installed. And then the child uses it for ten minutes a week — not because the tool doesn't help, but because no one trained the adults around the child to make it part of the routine. The investment goes in. The accessibility benefit doesn't come out. The child carries on coping the way they were before, just now with an iPad sitting in their tray.
observation 04
The iPad gets put away in the year the child needs it most.
The iPad gets seen as a primary device. Children move up through the school and the device gets put away — replaced by a clamshell, a Chromebook, something more grown-up. But the child who needed live captions in Reception still needs them in Year 5. The child whose dyslexia got picked up in Year 2 doesn't grow out of dyslexia. We move them off the tool that was working, in the year they need it most.
observation 05
Inspection isn't asking yet, but it will.
The white paper this year names accessibility, ordinary available provision, and belonging as core. Inspection follows white papers. Trust governance follows inspection. The accountability question schools used to face was do you have the kit? The next one is are you using it for every child the white paper named? — and the answer can't be “we bought it.” Schools that get ahead of this don't buy more. They use what they already have, properly.
Where I'm at.
Accessibility tools for everybody — not just SEN kids. We've all been customising for ourselves for years. Now we make that visible to children.
I help schools turn what they own into what works.
The work happens in different shapes depending on what a school needs.
Sometimes it's a focused 90 minutes with the whole staff to activate the basics and shift the routines that are costing the most. Sometimes it's a full day, working with TAs and the SENCO together to redesign how a child's iPad is used. Sometimes it's a strategic conversation with digital leadership about what to prioritise across a trust, a phase, or a year group.
I come in with an accessibility lens, not the whole digital lens. The whole digital lens is being delivered everywhere. The accessibility lens is the bit that's missing — the bit that turns the device from a demo tool into a teaching tool, and the device from a teaching tool into a learning tool the child can actually use.
If you're a school or trust with iPads in classrooms and a sense that the accessibility return on that investment isn't where it should be — that's where this conversation starts.
Tell me what you're working with.
Email me.
Tell me about your setup, the children it's meant to support, and where it's stuck. I'll tell you what I think will move it. If a structured implementation makes sense, we'll talk about shape and cost. If it doesn't, I'll point you at someone better matched.
nici@unbarrier.meReal conversation, no forms, no automation. Replies usually within two working days.