24 November 2025
The first HUPE Osijek branch meeting in the school year 2025-2026 was held on 22 November 2025 at the Faculty of Education in Osijek. Eighteen HUPE members decided to spend their Saturday morning attending a 4-hour mini conference rerun with our branch members repeating their successful workshops from the 33rd HUPE conference.
The agenda included:
1) 33rd HUPE Conference & AGM report
2) Nikolina Jelečević: From Yawns to Yay! ‒ Fun Activities to Spark Your Classroom
3) Tihana Svoren Kolarec: Beyond the Book: Strategies for SEN Success
4) HUPE news
At the beginning of the meeting, the HUPE Osijek branch president informed the participants about the 33rd Annual International HUPE Conference, which took place in Valamar, Poreč from 24 to 26 October 2025. She reported on the conference venue, partners and sponsors, student helpers, conference app and programme, plenary speakers and special guests, workshops, social events, raffle, the results of the survey about the time and location of the 35th HUPE Conference, as well as on the overall positive feedback the HUPE Organizing Committee has received. She also presented an overview of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) that took place on 25 October where all the HUPE activities from the past year were presented, including the financial report and the list of members chosen for the HUPE Hall of Fame. The participants were also informed that the certificates of attendance and speaker certificates for both 32nd and 33rd conferences are available in their members’ profiles on our new website.
The first workshop, titled From Yawns to Yay! ‒ Fun Activities to Spark Your Classroom, was held by Nikolina Jelečević from the Primary School Markušica. Participants greatly enjoyed this interactive workshop, actively engaging in a range of movement-based energizers, warm-ups, and cooperative games designed to boost focus, motivation, and learning. They explored practical activities that they can easily incorporate into their own classrooms and picked up new ideas for creating a more dynamic learning environment. Nikolina also generously provided printed copies of her booklet with interactive energizers, giving attendees ready-to-use resources to take home.
After the coffee break and catching up with colleagues, the second workshop, titled Beyond the Book: Strategies for SEN Success, was held by Tihana Svoren Kolarec from Primary School Tordinci. The workshop offered a valuable look into the everyday realities of supporting students with special educational needs, with the speaker sharing practical, low-resource strategies drawn from her own hands-on classroom experience. Participants were presented a variety of useful tools, including games, didactic toys, and worksheets that Tihana regularly uses with her students. The session sparked a lengthy and passionate discussion, as teachers openly exchanged concerns and reflected on the many challenges they face daily when working with SEN learners, making the workshop both insightful and deeply relevant.
After the sessions, participants were informed about the new HUPE website design and new and improved features such as online payment with various payment methods, member profiles, visible duration of the membership, and certificates uploaded in the user profiles. The branch president also demonstrated in detail a new way of membership renewal through the website, including how to request a quote for the institutional membership. HUPE is also offering a special Black Friday deal of only 29.90 EUR on annual individual membership from 28 November to 4 December.
The participants were also presented with other HUPE news including the upcoming events such as the 6th Creative Writing Competition HUPE in Storyland taking place from 1 December 2025 to 15 January 2026, HUPE Day planned for 21 March 2026 via Zoom, as well as the 34th HUPE Conference that is taking place in Zagreb from 20 to 21 November 2026, and the 35th HUPE Conference planned for spring 2027 at the seaside. The last teacher training courses in New York and Bath were mentioned briefly as they will be reported on by our branch members at the next branch meeting. A future teacher training course is scheduled to take place in Devon, the UK in September 2026 and it will be organized with our partners from SOL – Sharing One Language. All members were also invited to send their ELT articles and examples of good practices to our HUPE editor Ivana Kasunić via hupe.newsletter@gmail.com by December 10 to be published in the next edition of HUPEzine.
At the end of the meeting, the branch president organized a short Kahoot quiz to test the members’ knowledge of the 33rd HUPE Conference in order to give away three conference goody bags filled with useful teaching resources and materials, as well as three conference tote bags designed and sponsored by Profil Klett.
HUPE Osijek is extremely thankful to the speakers and all the members who were able to attend the meeting on a cold, snowy Saturday morning and make the meeting a productive and enjoyable experience. Hopefully, we will see you at our next branch meeting in February or March.
Adrijana Roždijevac
HUPE Osijek Branch President
