The Educator Magazine U.K. Sept-Dec 2022 - Magazine - Page 10
Turn teaching stories
into classroom tech
Since 2017, global education technology
company, Promethean, has ran an annual
competition that gives schools from
across the UK and Ireland the chance to
win the latest ActivPanel. With this year’s
‘Classroom Stories’ competition open
for entries – and 20 of the company’s
market-leading interactive displays
available to win – we’ve spoken to
Dave Shaw, Headteacher at Spire Junior
School, to find out more about their
experience of entering… and winning!
Why we entered
There is a large education community
on Twitter, and we regularly use the
platform to share our innovative ideas at
the school with like-minded educators.
We found out about Classroom Stories
on Twitter following one of our tweets
gaining a lot of traction and someone
suggesting we should enter. Upon
watching several of the other entries,
we decided to give it a go and see if
we could win ourselves an ActivPanel
for one of our classrooms. We have two
ActivPanels at the school and have seen
how they can transform the learning
environment, so we thought this would
be a great opportunity to upskill one of
our classrooms whilst sharing one of our
recent innovations.
Our Classroom Story
In our school we have been working hard
to come up with exciting ways to engage
students in reading and inspire a culture
of reading for pleasure. We came up
with an idea to install a reading vending
machine as an effort to encourage
children to read more independently
and enjoy reading. We bought the
vending machine on eBay and
transformed it into a reward for students
who read three times a week with an
adult at home. Students who achieve this
are entered into a draw for a token that
can be inserted into the machine and
they will then receive a book to keep, a
hot chocolate and a chance to enjoy the
new book on a Friday afternoon.
Our Classroom Story saw students take
a trip through time and find out what
impact Spire’s reading vending machine
has had on independent learning at the
school.
Promethean’s Classroom Stories
Everything you need to know:
Open for entries until Friday 24th June 2022, the
Classroom Stories competition aims to give schools,
teachers, and ICT managers the opportunity to share
their most inspiring education stories.
This year’s guest judging panel are looking for entries
that demonstrate:
• Passion • Innovation • Imagination
Valued at around £3,000 each, there are 20 ActivPanel
packages available in this year’s competition.
These packages not only provide access to the latest
ActivPanel interactive display, Promethean also offers
training and support to help schools make the most out
of the technology prizes.
To enter, simply record a short video that is a maximum
of two minutes and submit using the online nomination
form.
Learn more about Promethean’s Classroom Stories
competition and how to enter by visiting:
www.prometheanworld.com/gb/microsites/
classroom-stories/
What winning meant to us
Almost every child that comes to school
in this day and age has had some sort of
technological experience at home and
as teachers, it is important to replicate
what they will see in modern life and
ensure that they are prepared. Children
are incredibly versatile and pick things
up quickly, but it is important to keep
students engaged and interested in
curricular lessons and that has proven
to be possible with the use of the
ActivPanel, which we have seen in
our other classes.
Teacher Alex Bramley and his students
came up with the idea of the video and
he is incredibly excited about creating
a learning space that is more interactive
and engaging and can involve the entire
class. The Classroom Story competition
has been an amazing opportunity to
learn more about the education
community and what they think of our
ideas, but also to help us to get another
ActivPanel into our classrooms without
the budgetary barriers!