A note from Bernie: Opening New Horizons

A note from Bernie: Opening New Horizons

Dear HPE Teachers,

October 20-22 was a landmark period in which ACHPER Victoria’s rich history in delivering quality Health and Physical Education (HPE) professional learning entered a new phase. Prior to “lockdown” we had talked about online learning and had started building an online platform within the ACHPER Victoria website. This platform now houses some online courses and learning modules, but not even in our wildest dreams did we envisage delivering a fully virtual conference just a few months later.

Thank you to the 400+ Health and Physical Education Professionals who joined us in our inaugural Teachers In Action Online Conference. The 43 sessions across a range of F-10 topics provided plenty of content to educate, reinforce, stimulate, challenge, engage… you choose the word that suits you! The beauty of the online platform is the availability of recording of all sessions for our delegates post-conference. Rather than me tell you about the conference, I’ll let some of the presenters, delegates and of course our wonderful MC Andy Hair tell you what they thought.

Why the need for an MC? When the Conference has a virtual trade display, a hub where delegates can interact and virtual chat rooms you need an energised and passionate host to direct you around the virtual event! What’s more we wanted you to know you weren’t sitting alone in your house or school engaging in something aloof and distant. Our MC ensured you always felt like you had someone by your side, sharing this experience with you. Just like you would at a face to face event.

“Thank you to everyone who was so supportive in allowing me to present – so much back end work that was timely shared for practice, and problem solving. Thank you for being so flexible. Loved having a variety of practitioners and researchers together. Thank you for all your efforts ACHPER in pivoting to create a conference that was both informative and easy to navigate. I liked the way you could still watch sessions even if you couldn’t make the live version. Thank you to everyone for the time and effort it has taken to deliver a meaningful conference in tricky times. There are many enthusiastic PE teachers in Victoria and collaborating is important to be the best educator I can be.”

“What an amazing group of presenters and how this type of learning for teachers was just as effective. I loved the ease of the online sessions. Being regional, it is a huge trip to head to Melbourne, and school are very unlikely to let us attend for four days. The idea of online sessions around school hours is great. Recorded sessions has also been an amazing way to catch up.” – MC, Andy Hair

“The Victorian ACHPER Teachers In Action Virtual Conference was an amazing experience of emersion and celebration of Health and Physical Education. I have been involved in dozens of Virtual conferences over many years but this one stands out as the best experience I have had. The ease of moving through sessions as well as the networking experiences means that I now have so many more excellent educators to lean on for professional learning.”

We are not sure what next year’s Virtual Conference will look like – but it will be back! However, we will take what we learned from this year and present an even more in depth, stimulating and accessible event – perhaps with VCE included.

For 2020, we deliberately decided the Teachers In Action conference would focus on F-10 HPE only. Numerous VCE teachers contacted us in the lead-in to the Conference enquiring about VCE sessions, but with so many demands on VCE teachers preparing their students for exams and subsequent exam marking we decided to keep the conference focus on F-10. We are thrilled however, to be presenting a VCE Conference on 19 February 2021 at the brand new La Trobe University Sports Centre. Thank you to the 75+ VCE teachers who have already responded to the expression of interest in last Friday’s announcement of the VCE Conference.

Your trust and belief in our capacity to deliver a quality program, across ALL areas of VCE – Health and Human Development, VET Sport and Recreation, Outdoor and Environmental Science and Physical Education, is one we do not take lightly or for granted. We look forward to having many of you join us for this event!

All the best,
Bernie Holland

If you or your team require further information or support to deliver a quality HPE program, please contact our Professional Learning Manager Dr Bernie Holland on (03) 9274 8906 or click here to email Bernie.