There are parts of teaching life that never quite 'fit' into anything.
They don’t become a conversation in the staffroom, or, turn into something you write up.
They’re not the kind of thing you’d share in a meeting either.
But they stay with you nonetheless and over time.
Sometimes it’s something small that didn’t sit right for you that went well but you can’t quite explain why. Often, it can be just a feeling you carry into the next lesson or all the way home with you, without really stopping to work out what it might be about.
Over time, those moments add up. Not in a way that’s visible, just in the background of your days like a movie soundtrack that's so immersive you may not even consciously hear it.
Blippit Boards has always been about capturing and sharing what matters and that part hasn’t changed. But the more we spoke to teachers, the more it became clear that not everything that matters fits into something you want to share.
Some things are just for you to think about properly, without turning them into anything else.
That’s where 'Reflect' came from.
It isn’t a new system or a new way of working. It’s just a space inside of the app that you’re already using where you we encourage you to stop for a moment and get something down in your own words, if you want to.
There’s no format to follow and nothing you need to produce at the end of it. You don’t need to turn it into a next step or a piece of evidence. You don’t even need to come back to it but the point is simply that you had the chance to notice it for better or worse.
We’ve been very deliberate about what Reflect isn’t, because that matters as much as what it is. It isn’t something your school can see, and it isn’t something that sits behind the scenes waiting to be reviewed. When you’re finished, it’s finished.
That might sound like a small thing, but it fundamentally changes how you use it. You’re not writing for anyone else. You’re not shaping what you say so it fits somewhere. You’re just getting it out of your head and into words.
Some people will use it a lot. Some will use it occasionally. Some might try it once and leave it there. That’s all fine.
The only thing we want to offer teachers and school leaders is a bit of space that doesn’t ask anything from you in return. If this all sounds a bit mad then you're welcome to try Reflect out anytime, because if you’ve ever had a moment in the day that stayed with you longer than you expected, that’s probably enough of a reason to give it a try.
