My name is Philly and I am the owner of FlipsCo Cards. I founded the business in 2018 after 12 years working as an English teacher across a number of schools in the South West.
The cards themselves were conceived while I was still teaching, as I wanted to produce a revision resource which brought together material from a wide range of sources into one affordable, comprehensive, and accessible aid. Working around marking and planning lessons, I spent evenings and weekends drafting the content. The first set was produced in 2017 using stock images. These were road-tested with schools in and around Bristol and received overwhelmingly positive feedback.
At this point I was at a crossroads. I loved working with the students and my colleagues, but found the admin burdensome and was increasingly frustrated at the elements of being a teacher that took me away from the very thing that made me want to teach in the first place. So, I made the difficult (and pretty risky) decision to leave the profession and focus full-time on the cards.
I engaged former colleagues to help revise the content and ensure that it catered for all attainment levels, and was lucky enough to find a wonderful illustrator – Imogen Foxell – to help bring the characters and themes to life. FlipsCo (‘Philippa’s company’) Cards was born.
After a slow start, a stellar 2019, and some challenging years since then – not least thanks to the pandemic – FlipsCo Cards is still going strong and remains a one-woman band. I collate the cards and pick, pack and dispatch all the orders from my home office in Gloucestershire. I’m as passionate now about the potential of our kids as I was when I first embarked on my teacher training in 2005.
Thank you for supporting an independent business and keeping this teacher happily engaged in her profession, albeit from further away than before.