Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation state conference will take place at the University of Tasmania’s Newnham campus on Friday, with teachers from schools across the state set to attend.

ACHPER Tasmania president and UTAS health and physical education course coordinator Vaughan Cruickshank said alongside teacher wellbeing, this year’s conference would focus on engagement, inclusion, integration and leadership, and time savers.

“We want teachers to find some useful practical stuff that they can actually take back to their schools and use straight away,” he said.

“We don’t want to just feed them a heap of boring theory that they never really use.

“We try and make it nice and practical. There’s a variety of practical sessions in the gym, and then some classroom based sessions as well.

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“We’ve got a pretty good mix this year of Tasmanian teachers, but we always try and get some interstate presenters as well.”

The sessions at the conference would be split up into primary, secondary, senior secondary, and generic sessions to ensure teachers would get the most out of their day with relevant knowledge.

Dr Cruickshank said the keynote address by Dale Sidebottom of Energetic Education was titled ‘Bring the happiness’, and would focus on personal wellbeing and perspective and appreciation, and was designed to help busy teachers in their journey as lifelong learners.

The theme was chosen based on feedback from the 2017 conference.

“Last year we had a focus on student wellbeing … but obviously teachers are flat out and busy, so we wondered how teachers could look after themselves,” he said.

About 180 people were expected to attend the ACHPER conference on Friday.