A few things have happened recently that I want to shout about, but as I’m such a shy retiring person (!!!) I thought I’d fly it in under the radar and do it whilst most of you are throwing out some “zzzz’s”.

(1) A while ago I asked Tom Riley @riley_ed if he’d like to review JustMaths Online and a trial log in was duly set up. I immediately started having second thoughts: What if he thought it was rubbish? What if he hates it? How will it compare to the big boys that he’s reviewed on his site before? It’ll be public humiliation! Well!! I particularly love the final paragraph “The best review of JustMaths is the one which says ‘what makes them so effective, is that they are designed and used by people who are actually doing the job every day’. If only that were true about more educational products.” The rest of the review is pretty good too … read it in full here: newtechtimeline

(2) On an almost daily basis we get emails at JustMaths Towers (there really is no such thing, but its the truth about the emails and comments!) saying how much they love what we do and every one of these puts a massive smile on my face. My first sentence to Seager in the morning usually starts “got an email last night” and that’s before I’ve even said g’morning! To receive an email from a teacher saying the following is quite a buzz and so very rewarding, and I quote: “Thank you, thank you, thank you. After feeling totally demoralised for the last few years (I’ve been teaching for 15 years) I can honestly say that your resources have gotten me looking forward to teaching every day – I now genuinely look forward to trying new ideas and am enjoying work so much more. So can I thank you on behalf of myself and my students”.

Most of these emails and comments have made some mention about “sharing” and it is slowly dawning on me, that what we are doing is quite unique in terms of JustMaths Online – its not so much the actual product (even though that is pretty cool and the site is about to get a facelift so will look even better soon!)  – the fact that we are practicing teachers, and know what does and doesn’t work. We do what YOU do … day in, day out!. We are not some big corporate body where YOUR school’s budget pays for a company to employ a team of sales people … yes! those sales people will probably have been teachers but its just not the same thing as someone who has the same crap days or  the same ecstatic days or even the same “so-so” days that you do. We work in the ever-changing world of teaching, and it sometimes feel that we are working in a field of moving goalposts and quicksand and don’t we know it.

JustMaths is developing into something that we didn’t quite envisage when Seager and I decided to create something in a passing conversation in the corridor, and so I would like to say a very public thank you to everyone that reads the blog, uses the stuff we put together, follows on twitter or we come into contact with and I’m hoping it has the same impact **cue big smile** when I say: Thank you, thank you, thank you!