ACTF News

OUR TEAM

Australian children’s television stories have educational, social and cultural value for children. ACTF Learning develops educational resources and events to support teachers using these visual texts in the classroom. Our team also works with state and territory education departments, subject associations, schools and individual teachers to help further engagement and student outcomes.

Meet our team here and contact us at: education@actf.com.au.

OUR RESOURCES

As a national organisation, our primary and secondary resources are mapped to the Australian Curriculum. Through curated clips, discussion starters and learning tasks, these resources develop students’ understanding of text construction and themes, to support teachers in meeting curriculum requirements.

Search ACTF Teacher Resources by year level, curriculum area and/or theme to find resources for Foundation-Year 10, encompassing a breadth of learning areas, general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities. You will also find cross-curricular resources to draw on for student inquiries into communities, safety, teamwork, leadership, consent and respectful relationships, and more. Alternatively, browse the entire range by program title through our Content section.

In 2023, we will release resources for the following children’s programs (and more!):

• Barrumbi Kids
• Built to Survive
• Crazy Fun Park
• The Deep
• First Day Series 2

OUR EVENTS

Virtual workshops

ACTF Learning delivers regular virtual learning events for students in partnership with ACMI Education, ABC Education and other respected media, cultural and educational organisations. These events provide access to industry professionals regardless of a school’s location, supporting students to learn through the media, about the media and to create their own media. In 2023, we will deliver virtual workshops exploring:

• World building inspired by screen stories (Term 1)
• Character design (Term 2)
• My Place (Term 3)
• Set design and visual effects (Term 4)

South Australia: WRITE NOW and DreamBIG

The ACTF Learning team will deliver a series of in-person workshops for South Australian students in May 2023.

Adelaide Festival Centre’s new WRITE NOW Festival aims to give aspiring writers insight into different pathways to becoming a writer. On Monday 15 May, we will present two workshops for secondary students titled ‘Visual Storytelling: The Art and Language of Scriptwriting’.

The ACTF is offering both in-school and on-site workshops for this year’s DreamBIG Festival. Over two virtual workshops for R-6 students, we will guide students in exploring and responding to screen stories, then support the creation and presentation of students’ own artwork about our world.

On 18 and 19 May at Adelaide Festival Centre, the team will introduce storyboards as a helpful planning tool for the stories we see on screen, including students’ own artworks. R-2 students will discuss narrative structure, then create and sequence a series of images to plan to their own artwork.

2023 My Place Competition

This popular creative writing competition for students will be held during Term 3, with submissions being accepted between 28 August – 29 September. Stay tuned for further details on this year’s theme, participating year levels and prizes. Winning entries from 2022 are available to read on the ACTF website.

Professional learning

Our virtual and in-person professional learning opportunities for teachers explore engaging ways to use Australian screen stories in the classroom.

In 2023, the team will deliver a virtual workshop which forefronts First Nations perspectives during Media Literacy Week. The team will present in-person workshops at the AATE / ALEA National Conference (1 – 4 July) and the ATOM National Conference (7 – 9 July).

OUR CONTENT

Teachers can purchase digital downloads of ACTF-supported children’s content through the ACTF Shop. These downloads are a one-off purchase, providing teachers with an Educational License to share the content on all teacher and student devices within the school for educational purposes.

ACTF-supported content can also be found on a range of streaming platforms, such as ABC iview, SBS On Demand, 10 Play and Kanopy.

Partnerships with state and territory education departments enable us to adapt resources and events for teachers for local contexts. In addition to browsing our resources and events on this website, government teachers in the following states and territories can source a range of ACTF-supported content and learning resources in their respective education portals:

Northern Territory – eLearn

Queensland – Student Views

Victoria – FUSE

Western Australia – Connect

To learn more about the above resources, events and content, sign up to our monthly ACTF Learning News and follow us on social media. Thank you for joining us in 2023 and best wishes for your school year!