Robinwood Residential

I was very fortunate to go on our Year 6 residential last week. We went to Robinwood's Dobroyd Castle complex in Todmorden.

We left on Wednesday and returned on Friday afternoon. We had an amazing time! I cannot recommend Robinwood enough. From the moment we arrived, the organisation, enthusiasm and effort from the staff was first class. The pupils had an amazing experience, as did the staff. The range of activities available to the children was great - click here to see.

I decided to use the trip as another great example of how social media can be utilised to share what we were doing with parents. There are so many reasons why I encourage schools to utilise social media and giving parents an insight into what their children were doing on residential is another. Our school has a blog, twitter, facebook and youtube channel. We find Facebook to be the best channel to engage our parents and we regularly update and share what we are doing through it. I particularly love the live feature on Facebook and we have used this recently to share our sports day to parents who couldn't join us:

While we were away in Robinwood, we used the Facebook live tool to share some of the activities:

It really helps when other staff embrace it too and so more can be shared. This is why I feel it is important that whole school training is provided for a more consistent approach. Each night, I would collate everyone's pictures and videos and then put it together into a Quik video. 

Quik is a free app I have used previously and is now one of my favourite apps for creating slideshow videos. I really like the live photo integration. Live photo is a feature for new iPads and iPhones. Live Photos records what happens 1.5 seconds before and after you take a picture. What you get is more than a great photo — but a moment captured with movement and sound. You take a Live Photo just like you do a traditional photo. When you select a template within the app Quik, there are a few which utilises the live photo feature which adds more movement and animation to the slideshow. It couldn't be easier to use. Select your photos/videos, choose your template and music and voila... an amazing slideshow for you to share! Here are our examples from our residential:

Day One

Day Two

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