About Me

Hi, I’m Amy and I describe myself as a primary maths specialist/CPD provider/maths resource writer/all-round maths cheerleader! Welcome to my little corner of the internet and I am so glad you have found your way here. I am a primary teacher by trade but am now self-employed so my business is just me, doing my bit to help teachers and children enjoy learning and teaching maths.

I loved Maths when I was in school and then I discovered I loved teaching Maths. My career has taken a few twists and turns over the years to lead me to this moment but I have never lost the love of Maths.

I have, however, fallen in and out of love (a few times) with what it means to be a primary teacher. I will argue to the death that it is one of the hardest jobs you can do and it seems to demand more and more of you with every year that passes.

The truth is I have not been a full-time teacher for over 12 years. When I was teaching, if the person offering me teaching advice would say that I would give the eye roll of the century but please hear me out!

For me, the sad thing is that I had to leave the classroom to learn everything I needed to know about how to teach Maths. There is so much I know now that I wish I had known when I had a class of kids in front of me but I just didn't have the time and energy.

I have chosen to work as a primary maths specialist because I know there are so many teachers who feel the way I used to. The feeling that there are just not enough hours in the day to learn how to confidently teach every concept, to find or make the right resources and always worrying that you are failing your kids.

Now the privilege of what I do is that I can spend my time so focused on one thing and then create, collate and communicate it with teachers who are as overworked and overwhelmed as I once was.

Here is a quick summary of the things I have achieved up to this point that qualify me to be able to help you.

Teaching all stages through primary schools including NCCT cover teaching problem solving and mental maths as a whole school focus.
Authority Curriculum Support for Maths 5 - 14 in Aberdeen City running a CPD programme and supporting many schools to develop Maths.
Numeracy Development Officer with Learning & Teaching Scotland (now Education Scotland) during the early days of Curriculum for Excellence so involved in teacher CPD, developing good practice projects and working on the first drafts of the Experiences and Outcomes.
Written, developed and reviewed several major resources for publication and presented at events and conferences to support teachers. This has included Heinemann Active Maths for Pearson, Hope Education, Propellor Education, BEAM, Children in Scotland and more.

This list adds up to many years of not being in the thick of it in front of a class however I really try hard not to lose touch with the reality of teaching. I speak to as many teachers as I can and get my resources and ideas in front of them and take all feedback on the chin.

It is usually not too hard to find teachers who are willing to let me borrow their class to use as guinea pigs when needed and I have a great list of testers who will try things out for me.

If I hear it is a lovely idea but would only work with a perfect class that has small numbers, endless resources and lots of adults in the room, it doesn’t make the cut.

I pride myself on being a practical support for teachers. One of my favourite comments I received on an evaluation form was, “Finally, CPD from someone who knows what a real classroom with real children is really like”. That tells me what I am doing is really working.

So that is my outlook in a nutshell. I am in awe of what teachers do, even more so after the chaos of the pandemic. I hope I will have the opportunity to make your teaching life a little easier in some way, whether that is a free resource on this website, online CPD to give you some inspiration or maybe we will meet someday in person at a CPD course somewhere.

Amy 😊