I was 25 when I first witnessed the positive effects that games can have on a child’s learning experience. I’m now 38 and in all those years I’ll never forget that moment. And you’ll understand why shortly.

It was my first day at the Glade Primary School as a trainee teacher. I was training to become a secondary school physics teacher. My first observational week was to be spent at my local primary school work shadowing experienced teachers. It had to be done. It was a compulsory part of my training year. Glad for it too.

I observed children that would then enrol into secondary schools the following year. They were so positive and full of energy. The first lesson was Numeracy. The classroom teacher gathered the pupils to the comfy carpet corner of the classroom embellished with colour and cushions. She created a wonderful atmosphere for learning.  She then proceeded to put her hand into her pocket and pull something out that transformed a relatively happy, quiet bunch of kids into an even more enthusiastic, excitable group ready to learn together. Their faces will forever be etched in my mind as they lit up the room. My heart reacted with a pang of jealousy. The nice sort – the sort that wanted to replicate that wonderful enthusiasm in my own science classroom. So what did she pull out? It was a card game – a maths loop game to be precise.

And the kids responded so positively that the idea stayed with me to replicate this in science – somehow. My intention went as far as cutting up a piece of paper into small rectangular pieces. Blank card-like pieces. And there they stayed for the full year of my training. They stared at me through my transparent pencil case reminding me of their potential magic if I only had the time to create something with them.

It was only during my maternity leave a couple of years later that I began research on how to create card games. Then one night I had had enough the idea was screaming to come to life that, at 1 am, I got up and created my first ever card game, proudly laminated too. My first every science loop game. I could finally get some guilt-free sleep that night.

It would be a few months later when I would be holding the published version. I was a publisher of games now! Well not really…plural wouldn’t be applied to me until much later. For the time I had a science loop game to play with kids and share it with other teachers. And share I did. The feedback on such a simple concept was overwhelmingly positive. Here is the original version. As crude as it might be, I’m still secretly proud of this….

And this…

It wasn’t long before I realised a qualified illustrator was needed to inject the professionalism the games required to meet the standards that children were used to.

And so began a partnership with my artist and co-games designer, Josh, to create games for the UK market. And game after game after game…we did…

 

 

This was the first edition of Top Careers in Science trump-style card game.

 

 

 

This is a picture taken in the Science Museum where Top Careers in Science, Top Careers in Engineering and Top Careers in Maths games were being stocked. A very proud moment.

 

After this was developed we published Ros Walker’s STEM resource to complement the career cards that she loved.

 

A special moment for both Ros and myself when we finally received the funding to create this. Well done Ros!

 

 

Then we got a little carried away with the next ambitious project. For the first time we entered the toy and games industry and that is certainly an experience and a half! It wasn’t as easy getting a game out in that industry as I thought. But it was the only way we could create games that would be chosen by children themselves. This was a market that we were completely out of our depths in. But that didn’t deter us to ‘give it a go’. And so for the first a science game aimed directly at children to bring the periodic table to life was born.

An app was created and now a series of books is under way.

It turned out the toy & games market churned a lot of content and new technology had to be adopted. But most of all I realised quickly, after launching in 2013 and failing to achieve the desired effect,  that it was time (again) for a new team member to bring in the talent and skills I just didn’t have in this industry and so Marianna with her experience in Disney and children’s TV joined the growing determined team.

This is now a family of people who love creating games for children. And all fuelled by that moment back in my training year to replicate the exciting energy that the children had when they lit up that classroom with their sheer enthusiasm and excitement over not just learning but having fun and playing together as friends at the Glade Primary school.

No doubt the question of how all of this was funded will come up. I’ll leave that answered for another day. Needless to say none of it can be funded without the passion required to want to make it happen in the first place.