Into Film Clubs
Find out everything you need to know about starting an Into Film Club.
Our Film Buff Challenge is a unique and exciting way for all club leaders to engage young people with film, watching a wide range of short films that will challenge and open up their viewing choices. As well as being fun, the challenge is also a powerful educational tool with a range of supporting activities and resources to explore key themes and topics.
Caroline Ferguson, a teacher at Findochty Primary School in Moray, was the first in Scotland to take on the Film Buff Challenge. The small friendly school has only 71 pupils and all of them got started with a free introductory workshop session from us. This sparked a passion that led to them achieving platinum status as well as receiving certificates, keyrings and other Into Film stationary as a reward for their success.
Below, Caroline chats to us about what inspired her to get involved, how her pupils have benefitted and her favourite parts of the challenge.
What inspired you to get involved with the Film Buff Challenge?
When we learned about the Film Buff Challenge, we had been looking into ways that we could improve talking and listening within the school. These two things can be difficult to teach and even harder to assess. We felt that using the variety of materials available in the challenge would open doors to meaningful discussions that our pupils could really get their teeth into.
What were the main benefits for your young people engaging with the Film Buff Challenge?
It gave us a whole school focus. It allowed us the opportunity to compare and contrast genres, and share our views in classes and assemblies. Children were sharing their experiences in the playground and it was interesting to see how each class viewed the films according to age and key stage.
The use of short films allowed us to fit viewing, discussing and completing one of the activities into an afternoon session. Using a whole film is a much longer process so the challenge allowed us to have a weekly film club topic rather than go by term or month.
What are your other plans to engage your pupils with film?
We plan to use film as a whole school approach to topical issues. We plan to have a whole school film day once a month and complete linked activities in the weeks in-between.
More specifically, our plan is to use our film sessions to engage our pupils in helping be part of re-vamping our anti bullying policy and promoting positive behaviour. We are also looking to update our visions, values and aims, and feel that linking into the themes of the films we use will help this.
If your school would like to take part in the challenge and receive a free introductory session to inspire your pupils, please get in touch with the Scotland team at edinburgh@intofilm.org
Our Film Buff Challenge is also available in Gaelic language and the films are available to watch on Into Film+ or can be accessed via Vimeo.
