Teaching experts from around the world came together at the University of Worcester to explore innovative ways to re-imagine education.
The Global Perspectives education conference was organised by the University’s School of Education, in association with the British Educational Research Association (BERA).
It featured more than 30 presentations by academics and education experts from universities all over the UK, as well as experts from Canada, the United States of America, Australia, India, South Africa and Belgium.
They presented on a wide range of innovative approaches to and new ways of thinking about education. This included blending play and technology literacy in early years, maths and citizenship, online international teaching, involving teachers in policy making, developing education in an emergency context and teaching and learning in a global context. The two-day conference also incorporated the opportunity for teachers to discuss and debate these issues themselves.
It also featured a keynote address from Matthew Raggett, a former PGCE student at the University of Worcester in the 1990s, and now Headmaster at The Doon School, one of India’s top schools. He spoke of the importance of international cooperation on teaching and sharing practice, and the imaginative approaches to teaching that he and his teachers had been exploring around the world.
He said: “None of us is complete. We can all improve what we’re doing and it’s events like this that allow us to come together and think about the things that we worry about and share.”
He added: “I just encourage everyone to take the opportunity that we have got of connecting for the next two days to try and contribute and share, and challenge each other, to question and of course re-imagine what it is we’re doing. It’s only the future of our students in the world that depend on it.”
Dr Pinky Jain, International Development Lead within the University’s School of Education, said: “The conference gives an opportunity to explore and develop new ideas which will help improve educational outcomes for all children around the world. It also allows us to share the differences in education from all round the world, but with one common value. This is developing children and young people in society and learning together how to do this better, which is a crucial outcome of this conference.”