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Port Lincoln Primary recognised for student filmmaking achievement

DreamBIG Children's Festival is South Australia's iconic biennial arts festival for schools and families. Through DreamBIG Schools Participation Stories, the South Australian Department for Education captures how the state’s schools utilise festival resources, bring DreamBIG to life in their sites and engage with festival offerings. The ACTF is thrilled to have played a part in this year’s winning story.

At the 2023 DreamBIG Children’s Festival, the ACTF delivered a series of virtual filmmaking workshops for schools South Australia-wide, ran onsite workshops for students, and delivered one-on-one filmmaking mentoring for a number of schools. These student films responded to the DreamBIG theme – Our World – and were screened during the festival on the large outdoor media screens which wrap around the Adelaide Festival Centre building.

After documenting his school’s involvement with our filmmaking project, Port Lincoln Primary School teacher Todd Coleman went on to win the 2023 DreamBIG School Participation Story. The school received $500 towards Arts education as recognition of their learning.

Todd coordinated over 100 Year 6 students to participate in the ACTF’s Our World on Screen initiative. Students used phones, cameras and a range of iPad apps to create short films about life in Port Lincoln throughout the changing seasons. These programs were new to the majority of students, but they managed to create engaging moving artworks which looked fantastic on Adelaide Festival Centre’s large media screens.

Todd said: "Allowing regional South Australian students to work with the company responsible for some classic Australian kids' TV programs was a great opportunity. It gave the students a real buzz, and inspired and motivated them throughout the creation of their own stories for the screen."

From over 30 student applications, 11 Year 6 students at Port Lincoln then formed an Arts Team. Their fundraising enabled them to experience two days at the festival. Upon their return, they created a student-led video summarising their experiences.

ACTF First Nations Learning Designer April Phillips facilitated live virtual workshops for Port Lincoln students throughout the project to build their confidence and skills as content creators. She reflected that students were actively engaged and challenged in the process of film creation: “The way students placed themselves into the story resulted in the work being authentic and fun. It became clear the motivation was all about representing what it is to live, learn and play in Port Lincoln.”

Congratulations to Port Lincoln Primary School on both their Media Arts learning and this achievement. The ACTF looks forward to being part of more DreamBIG learning stories in the future.