Practical Pedagogies - Post 3 - Day 1 of the conference

We were up early on the first morning as the free bus out to Colomiers and the IST was setting off at 7am. I had breakfast with Claire, at her hotel, and we then caught the first coach. Busy, but quiet as everyone was still half asleep. The weather was a little overcast, which wasn't ideal.
The alternative was a taxi ride at €50 (or €30 with Uber)
The rush hour traffic started to build, but we were heading against the greatest flow, so made good time, and arrived earlier than planned, giving us time to explore, and settle in with a cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits.
One of the first things that I noticed with respect to the International School of Toulouse (our near the Airbus plant) was the quality of the display material that was everywhere – more on that in later posts.

We went in for the first keynote and heard Ewan McIntosh talk about his work with companies large and small.
There was an introduction to design thinking.
I also had a chance to  chat to quite a few friends who I’d known for a while via social media, but never met face to face. 
These were across the key stage and subject spectrum, which was good to do now and again.
The morning involved a session with Russel Tarr on Edu-preneurship, and one on Global Learning with Maree Whiteley, who had travelled all the way from Australia.
We had lunch with 2 History / Politics colleagues, and exchanged notes with my colleague Claire about the sessions we had both seen.
The afternoon saw further sessions and networking, and a light doze in the staffroom, before we got the bus back to the city.
Back to the hotel to relax and change and then walked into the town for the conference meal, which was included in the delegate fees.

The day ended at Le Florida. This was a restaurant off the main Capitole square, and a very swish one for me – I don’t get out much. I was sat on a table with my geography chums, and we enjoyed a good evening of sea bass and lots of wine. I didn't end up carrying on to the bars as others did, but headed back out along the main road, and wandered along new sections of the city, and met a number of ladies as the previous night...
Image by Leah Sharp - David Rogers, Matt Podbury, myself and Richard Allaway - Team Geography….

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