Building subject knowledge in primary schools

I challenge anyone to find one educator within the primary sector who has sat through a whole staff meeting and not once thought that their time could have been better spent doing something else.

I have been through many such meetings during my career, but one particularly memorable one was when an external provider demonstrated the benefits of engaging, using all five senses, with a raisin.

We were to draw our attention to the feel of the raisin in our hand; listen to the sound of the raisin by bringing it close to our ear; put the raisin close to our nostrils in steady intervals to notice the different ways our nose interprets its presence; observe it closely with the naked eye; and finally, place the raisin on our tongue and hold it there for 30 seconds so we could taste and feel the changes to the raisin the longer it sat in our mouths.