Education Today Education Today Magazine
Our Lady of the Rosary Primary School & Sandbach High School and Sixth Form College were announced as the winners of the fifth annual Childnet Film Competition at a private screening held at the BFI Southbank in London on 14th July.
Attending the screening along with industry guests such as Facebook, the BBC, Twitter and Disney, children’s Minister Edward Timpson congratulated all the shortlist on their digital creativity.
The Childnet Film Competition, which was founded in 2010 as a way of asking young people to focus on positive use of the internet, invited schools and youth organisations from across the UK to create short, inspiring films using this year’s Safer Internet Day theme ‘Let’s create a better internet together’.
Six schools were shortlisted to join the finalist’s event where there films were shown on the big screen and judged by a panel of experts from the BBFC, BFI, Trend Micro and the BBC. Commending the creativity and quality of the 6 finalist’s films Childnet Education Manager, Caroline Hurst said: “This year’s film competition was the biggest yet so all 6 finalists should be proud to have made it to the final. Choosing who should be awarded the top prize is always a challenge so I’d like to thank our judges for their time, expertise and dedication. It was a great celebration of the positive uses of the internet and we hope that the participating schools and others will continue to use these resources to help educate others about staying safe online”
Taking home the top prize of £500 was the Our Lady of the Rosary Primary School’s winning primary school entry ‘Making the internet a better place’and Sandbach High School and Sixth Form College winning secondary school entry‘what does a perfect online world mean to you’.
Stephen Moon from Our Lady of the Rosary Primary School said:
“When Our Lady of the Rosary first learnt about the Childnet e-safety competition, there were no shortage of children keen to be involved in what promised to be an exciting activity. Taking part gave the children a defined goal to aim for and the ability to better understand the needs for vigilance online. In addition, they picked up skills in planning, filming and editing the final entry which are not only valuable, but things they can take forward into other projects at home and school.
Winning the competition has been such a boost for the school and the children involved…This has turned what was easily a very rewarding experience, into something much more enriching and far-reaching.”
Janet Scott from Sandbach High School and Sixth Form College said:
“The competition was promoted to all year groups and interested parties were invited to a launch meeting. At this point all teacher input stopped and the teams went on their way. They developed their own concepts and storyboards, filmed, edited and added soundtracks in their own time, only coming back to the teacher when they were happy with the end result. They enjoyed the opportunity to create something focussed and demonstrate their knowledge of the topic as well as showcasing their technical skills. As a school we have encouraged students to be very conscious of their online presence and the films created this year demonstrated the understanding that the girls have developed. As for winning, the girls had convinced themselves that third place was honourable so to win was fabulous and the big cheque was taken on a tour of the London sights. The whole school is proud of the girls and we’re already encouraging the students to think of ideas for 2015.”
The winning films from the Childnet Film Competition can be viewed here:http://www.childnet.com/resources/film-competition/2014
