ENGAGING BOYS IN THE CLASSROOM
Amidst a warm and friendly atmosphere, the Thomas Arnold Hall was the venue for the first ‘TeachMeet’ held at Warminster School on Tuesday 22 November 2016 and organised by Catherine Wilson. Teachers from both state and independent schools met to share best teaching practice and hear from speakers on developing engagement.
The theme for the TeachMeet was ‘Engaging Boys in the Classroom’ and was introduced by sixth former Xander Veitch, who welcomed guests with an excellent talk and spoke about his experiences on ITV's 'School Swap' and his insight into engaging boys. The evening also featured a range of speakers delivering a wealth of ideas, including the keynote speaker, James Simms, Director of ‘The Ever Learner Ltd.’, creator of ‘myPEexam.org’ and the author for the BBC PE Bitesize website. Other speakers were Alex Battison (Wells Cathedral School), David McGrath (Oakfield Academy), Tim Douglas (Travel Places), Zoe Jenkins (Pobble), Matthew Harris, Matthew Fothergill, Sara Griffiths, Tom Morison and Harry Phillips (Warminster School). Harry not only spoke, but hosted as MC for the evening.
Thanks goes to our all our sponsors and staff, who supported our TeachMeet with generous donations for our spot prize raffle, which took place throughout the evening, with the fabulous top prize of an iPad Mini 16GB, kindly donated Simon Whitehead, from GMB Digital Technologies Ltd.. This was presented at the end of the TeachMeet by Tom Crump (GMB Digital Technologies Ltd.).
Travel Places, Pobble, Connecting Classrooms and British Council were also on hand to speak to teachers on a range of resources available both in and out of the classroom.
The event was supported by a team of sixth form volunteers who assisted with setting up and helped to make the evening such a success. A key role was filled by Christian Folkesson who ran the IT support for the evening, including managing the presentations and the live Twitter feed, which kept the event 'live online'! To round the evening off, Lukas Mickevicius and Lilly Neugebauer played wonderful music during the event, creating a truly memorable occasion.
We look forward to hosting our next TeachMeet at Warminster School.