This year’s Conference took place on June 21st 2024 We had 52 school staff attend and 15 young leaders from Colchester County High School for Girls.
The conferences are an annual opportunity for primary, secondary and SEN PE subject leads, teaching staff and Head teachers from schools across Essex, to come together to network, share ideas and benefit from expert delivery in a wide range of workshops.
This year, the overarching themes were to further examine the relationship between physical activity and improved mental health and emotional wellbeing, in children and young people. Discussions took place around the importance of youth engagement through co-design and youth voice. For the first time, we had a group of young leaders attend on the day who participated in our very own Move with Us Leaders training.
We heard from keynote speaker Rachael Mackenzie and attendees took part in the following workshops:
Primary School Workshops:
- Teach Active CPD with Jon Smedley (Founder) – Teach Active are proud to deliver active learning workshops for their network of partners and schools. The purpose of the high quality CPD is to bring teachers together and to up-skill them in understanding the benefits and impact of physically active learning – in particular, in raising standards in Maths and English. Delegates will also be introduced to the Teach Active resource and be able to sample the website and some their lesson plans and resources.
- Physical Literacy – an engaging and interactive task and discussion-based workshop exploring the consensus statement on Physical Literacy and how this applies and impacts on educators in schools.
- Practical session – a workshop designed to provide primary teachers with ideas and skills to plan and deliver a multi skills/ fundamental movement-based festival in school, to meet the needs of their students. This could include end of unit festivals, become part of sports and health weeks, or as stand-alone INTRA events. Content and organisational tips will be shared as well.
Secondary School Workshops:
- Active In Mind CPD session – Active in Mind is designed to improve and prevent mental health issues in adolescence. It uses the evidence of what works to address stress and anxiety in young people, helps them build personal strategies for resilience, and uses the power of peer mentoring through a trauma-informed approach. This interactive workshop will introduce secondary practitioners to the concepts and resources which support the delivery in schools.
- Re-imagining your school PE curriculum – An interactive workshop with tutor-led discussions, which will help you to evaluate the needs of young people at your school, and review the effectiveness of your PE curriculum to meet their needs.
- Practical Volleyball CPD – Be guided through a series of technical, tactical, and game-based teaching ideas to support high quality delivery in school.
