TeachMeetChester
#TeachMeetEP
On Thursday 13th October 2016, 35 people attended the TeachMeet at St Bernard's RC Primary School in Ellesmere Port. We had a varied list of presenters lined up to share ideas for enhancing and transforming teaching and learning. Resources from their presentations are below. The #teachmeetchester team thank all who participated in the TeachMeet. Comments and feedback about the presentations and the TeachMeet as a whole can be found on Twitter - search using the #teachmeetep hashtag.
The TeachMeet began with a presentation by Anna Turnbull from the Wirral Minority Ethnic Achievement Service (MEAS) on 'Meeting the needs of children learning EAL'. It included her top tips for new arrivals and some recommended web resources.
Next up was John Duffty, from the University of Chester, who focused on 'Resourcing Primary Mathematics'. He shared some of the resources available on his mathsticks website and engaged the audience with some quick, participatory activities.
Stuart Rathe - a TeachMeet stalwart now working for Shakespeare Schools Festival - involved the audience in activities which provided visualisation techniques for unlocking imagery in texts. Although devised to help children to unlock and explore the language in Shakespeare's plays, the techniques could be used to bring any text with heightened language to life.
Clair Bailey and Billy Pretsell from Enabling Enterprise presented on the theme of 'Enterprise Skills: Every Child a Success'. They made cogent arguments for teaching skills, such as teamwork, which are sometimes taken-for granted, but are essential for learning and employability.
Steve Westgarth from Footsqueek Ltd focused on coding in the Computing curriculum and the key question of what might follow on from children's work with the ubiquitous Scratch program. He introduced the Swift programming language and Swift Playgrounds, developed by Apple, and the learning materials available for coding iPad apps.
Emily Hankey from Millgate House Publishing spoke briefly about the iexciting children's non-fiction books she had brought along to the TeachMeet. They combine traditional text-based information with the use of virtual and augmented reality.
Finally, Viv Spencer, from Edsential, introduced the Heart Math monitor and learning programme, which provides an innovative approach to improving children's behaviour and wellbeing.
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Raffle prizes for the TeachMeet were generously provided by EdTechTeamUK, Reflective Thinking, Twinkl and Connex Education.
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All photos on this page by Barbara Pickford.
Here is an extra presentation on YouTube from #TeachMeetEP provided by Kate Jones (@87History). Kate can no longer present in person at our TeachMeets because she is teaching in Dubai. Instead she has packed more of her innovative and original ideas for enhancing learning into this short video. Thanks, Kate!
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