A TEACHER at Alcester Academy has recently achieved one million views on his ‘Mr B’ YouTube channel and has been included on the YouTube website representing Midland’s creators.
Geography and PE teacher James Bowater started his channel back in 2016 when he realised thee was a massive gap for Btec PE resources.
“As Btec PE was a fairly new course our pupils didn’t have access to any online resources that would help them with their studies and revision,” he said.
“I also wanted to show them some of the training methods and fitness tests that we couldn’t complete in school.”
And as he became more involved in teaching geography, and with plenty of encouragement from his previous head of humanities and the school, he turned his attention to producing GCSE Geography resources for the AQA specification.
Bitten by the bug, he invested time, effort and money to improve production quality, upgrading his camera and microphone equipment as well as learning new editing techniques, plus drone videography by completing his PfCO drone pilot qualification.
This has also led to many additional opportunities, such as working with the educational video platform Clickview and fitness brand Gymbeing.
“By creating a brand through YouTube and social media you get noticed,” he said.
“I love how by using YouTube, I have been able to reach and support thousands of children across the UK with their studies.
“I have been able to transfer my teaching from the classroom to an online presence where students can revisit again and again.”
The United Kingdom of YouTube was a project that shared inspirational creators from different parts of the UK and James was recently asked to be included to represent the Midlands.
“It was amazing. The website highlights a variety of YouTubers and demonstrates that the platform can be accessed by anyone in the UK.
“I would hope that this could inspire young people to believe that they can really go for what they want to achieve.”
Looking to the future, James is making ambitious plans moving forward into 2022 and will be continuing to develop his influence in the educational YouTube space.
For more information, visit: https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBowater.
