unbarrier.me
Goodnotes in your school

Goodnotes works when it's embedded — not just installed.

Everything you need is on this page. Find your starting point below — whether you're setting up devices, planning your first unit, or leading a whole-school rollout.

Book a conversation
An iPad showing a Goodnotes lesson on plant cell structure: a labelled diagram annotated in green Apple Pencil handwriting, with a row of named pupil thumbnails along the bottom so the teacher can see every child's work live.
This is embedded. One shared lesson, every pupil's page visible to the teacher in real time — not thirty separate files nobody sees until marking.
Step one

Get set up

Five set-ups, five audiences. Do them in this order and nothing gets missed.

You

Your account, your device, your first notebook. 15 minutes, tops.

Setup guide →

Your team

Invite teachers to the admin console and get everyone signed in.

Team guide →

Your devices

MDM deployment, licence keys, and what your IT lead needs to know.

Device guide →

Your students

Class folders, QR-code joining, and getting a class in within one lesson.

Student guide →

Your parents

Answering the screen-time question — why handwriting on iPad is active learning.

Ask me for the parent letter →
The Goodnotes Education Admin Console open on a MacBook, on the User Management screen: 1,000 users broken down into owners, admins, 100 teachers and 895 students, each row showing name, status and role.
One console, every school. A multi-academy trust can run each school as its own organisation under one central admin account — separate domains, one place to manage them.

Keep the app updated

Goodnotes ships updates weekly, and smaller ones don't install automatically. Build a habit: open the App Store, tap update, once a week. Most "it's not working" moments are just an old version.

Step two

Learn the tool

Four short videos take you from first open to teaching live. All of them — plus activity cards and quick-start PDFs — live on the resource board.

A Goodnotes weekly planner page open on an iPad, handwritten and colour-coded.

Getting started

Sign in, find your space, open your first notebook.
A Goodnotes class folder with the class navigator open, showing every pupil in the class as a named tile.

Your class folder

Set up a class, add content, invite students.
A Goodnotes lesson being taught live: a labelled plant-cell diagram annotated in real time with pupil thumbnails visible.

Teach live

Prepare, teach, and see every student's thinking in real time.
Goodnotes smart clustering grouping pupils' answers together so a teacher can mark by pattern rather than one by one.

Feedback that lands

Answer zones, smart clustering, and marking without the pile.

Open the full resource board →

The real work

From installed to embedded

An app on a device changes nothing. Embedding it in strategy, pedagogy and workflow changes everything. The NDTE cycle is how we get there. I wrote about the difference here →

Notice
→
Design
→
Try
→
Embed
↺

Your first six steps towards confidence

1

Notice one moment in your week where paper or workflow slows learning down.Notice

2

Pick one existing unit — don't build anything new yet.Notice

3

Design one activity in that unit for Goodnotes: one page, one answer zone.Design

4

Try it with one class. Watch what students do, not what the app does.Try

5

Keep what worked, drop what didn't, and run it again next week.Try

6

Make it routine — the same touchpoint, every week, until it's just how you teach.Embed

Read next · notes from Nici Goodnotes in schools: installed, or embedded? "We have Goodnotes" doesn't mean teachers know when it improves learning, or that learners can use it independently. The longer argument, with what embedding actually looks like. Read the post →
Ready-made

Playful learning — download these

Low-stakes, high-engagement starters. Drop them into a class folder and go.

First-week icebreakers

  • About-me page
  • Birthday board
  • Tool explorer challenge cards

Thinking routines

  • See, Think, Wonder template
  • Sketch-noting starter pages
  • Retrieval grids

Subject sparks

  • SDG discussion pack
  • Future of learning pack
  • Revision layouts
For teachers

Teacher workflow — start here

One simple rhythm that fits what you already do: prepare, teach, feed back. Goodnotes slots into each stage — it doesn't replace your core tools.

Goodnotes in prep mode on a MacBook: an algebra worksheet with empty answer boxes being drawn onto the page, ready to hand out to a class.
Prep is where it lives or dies. A worksheet you already have becomes a set of answer zones in a couple of minutes — that's the bit that decides whether staff are still using it in week six.

Prepare

  • Build in your private space first
  • Add one answer zone with the question written in
  • Move it to the class folder when you're ready

Teach

  • Use Follow Me to guide the pace
  • View by question to see every learner live
  • Hide and show what students see

Feed back

  • Write directly onto individual student layers
  • Pick a model answer, let clustering group the rest
  • You stay in the loop — always
For learners

Students — be inspired, start here

Handwriting isn't old-fashioned. It's how thinking becomes visible. Start with these.

A Goodnotes group project page: several pupils working on the same shared document, each contributing handwritten notes and diagrams.
Thinking made visible. Pupils working the same page together — you can see who understood it, and who is quietly stuck.

Make your notes yours

  • Sketch-note one lesson this week
  • Build a revision notebook that looks like you

Show your thinking

  • Annotate, don't just highlight
  • Use layers to plan, draft, improve

Own your learning

  • Keep everything in one place, synced
  • Your notebooks travel with you — school to home
Before you ask

Questions I get asked most

The honest answers. If yours isn't here, email me and I'll answer it properly.

Is the training actually free?
Yes. Goodnotes funds it, so there's no cost and no invoice to your school. You're not buying anything and I'm not selling you a licence — Goodnotes Education is free for schools.
We're a trust with a lot of schools. Do we need a separate admin console for each one?
No. Each school can be set up as its own organisation inside one Goodnotes Education account, keeping its own email domain, while your central trust account manages and switches between them from a single Admin Console. You can start with a handful of schools and add the rest later.
Do we need iPads? What about Chromebooks and Windows?
Goodnotes is at its best on iPad with an Apple Pencil, because handwriting is the point. It also runs on Mac, Windows, Android and the web — so mixed estates work, they just work differently. Tell me what your estate looks like and I'll tell you straight what you'll get out of it.
We're a Google school. Does that matter?
Not really. Goodnotes sits alongside Google Workspace rather than replacing it — Docs and Classroom keep doing what they do, and Goodnotes handles the handwritten, visual, work-it-out-on-the-page thinking that a text box can't. Sign-in works with your Google accounts.
How long until staff are actually using it — not just logged in?
The set-up is quick; the habit is the slow bit. Realistically: one session to get everyone in and confident with a first workflow, then a few weeks of one small routine repeated. Schools that stall are almost always the ones that installed it and told staff to explore. That's the whole reason this page exists.
What about pupils with SEND, dyslexia, or slow processing?
This is my actual specialism — I'm dyslexic, ADHD and dyscalculic, and I spent 26 years in classrooms as a SEND specialist. Handwriting, colour, layout and the freedom to draw a thought rather than type it are exactly what a lot of neurodivergent learners need. But a tool doesn't do inclusion on its own; how you use it does. That's the conversation.
What happens after the free session — do you then try to sell me something?
Only if you want it. The free conversation and the Goodnotes-funded training stand on their own. If you decide you want deeper inclusion work afterwards — an accessibility audit, ongoing advisory, classroom modelling — that's separate paid consultancy, and I'll say so plainly rather than sliding it in.
Who are you, exactly?
Nici Foote. Apple Professional Learning Specialist, Google Innovator, certified Goodnotes trainer, 26 years in classrooms across international and UK state schools, now running unbarrier education ltd. Shortlisted for the Edufuturists Uprising Awards 2026.
Nici Foote smiling and holding her Edufuturists Uprising 2026 award plaque, which reads Highly Commended Accessibility Champion, Nici Foote.

Who's actually turning up

Nici Foote

26 years in classrooms before this — SEND specialist, international and UK state. I've been the person at the back of the room being told a new tool will fix everything, so I don't open with features.

I'm dyslexic, ADHD and dyscalculic. That isn't a disclosure at the bottom of an email — it's why I notice what I notice when I watch a lesson.

  • Apple Professional Learning Specialist
  • Google Innovator
  • Certified Goodnotes trainer
  • Highly Commended, Accessibility Champion · Edufuturists Uprising 2026

Not sure where to start?

Tell me where your school is with Goodnotes — even in two lines — and I'll point you at the right first step. No pitch, no pressure, no cost.

Email me: nici@unbarrier.me Or book 45 minutes →

Training is funded by Goodnotes, so there's nothing to pay and nothing to sign. I take a limited number of these each term.