Its been a while. I know! I know! I know! … I don’t know if you noticed but life has been a bit different recently but I won’t bore you with the details at the minute as I’d be here all night and this is meant to be just a quick post.

Back in September I wrote about how the idea of a revision guide / workbook  collaboration with the Kangaroo boys came about and this week we took delivery of our proof copies … all very exciting but tinged with a little bit of irony as we had all sorts of plans about opening them at the pub where we first agreed in principle to do something together. It turns out that we couldn’t find a time that suited us all and then Seager only has to go and self-quarantine! When we set out on our journey 3 years ago to create the GCSE Maths Crossover revision guide, we didn’t anticipate the launch to be in the middle of a global pandemic!

The idea was always to produce something that:

a) We would be extremely proud of – little did we know how many pedagogical discussions would take place along the way and sometimes compromises were made and we had to remind ourselves that its a revision guide and not a text book where space is a premium!

b) Would be suitable for all GCSE maths students that covers the material that is in the crossover of the foundation and the higher tiers … it is this focus that has helped with the success we’ve had in the schools we’ve worked in especially in our borderline groups but also the students destined for the higher tier route need to be confident and competent in this content too – in a normal year it might just mean that they would cover these topics in year 9 or 10.

c) Would be genuinely useful and not just something we suggest parents buy to abdicate responsibility when faced with the “I don’t know how to help my child revise” – we want this to be used!

So … below you will find a video tour of the proof copies … more information including pre-order information can be found at www.justaroo.co.uk 

I’m genuinely a little nervous about this book as I know there are a small number of people that will just slag off anything they weren’t involved in and whilst people generally can be kind there are a small number of people that can be downright rude and nasty – if you don’t like it and think you could do better, do it! No one is forcing you to buy it! What people need to realise is that this has taken 3 years to get “just right” as we were not prepared to compromise in terms of the content or the finished item – I think we could have produced something that was “ok” in much less time but that wasnt what we set out to do. The time particularly, has meant that other things have had to be sacrificed and it is probably time with family and friends that suffered the most. Once the “print” button was pressed a couple of weeks ago, not having zoom meetings most nights and weekends was a little like losing a limb and despite me constantly saying “never again” I have a feeling that I could be persuaded to do a “Higher” tier version but shhhhh don’t tell the others!

Reading that back sounds like I’m being a martyr over it … I’m not! The process has been amazing professionally and personally too and maybe I just need to grow a thick skin. Could it be that I’ve become a little bit sensitive during lockdown … I don’t know … maybe I need to get back to dumping my thoughts and emotions onto blog posts more often!

PS: We are planning on having a virtual book launch shortly after the 2nd September and I’ll post more details as they are confirmed.