| About Winners and More Winners
Boy Soldiers
In 1910, all boys between 14 and 17 years old had to register for compulsory
military training. Will Barnes, a pacifist, refuses and is sentenced to
three months training at Fort Queenscliff. There he meets opposition,
but also wins admirers by sticking to his beliefs.
Themes: conscientious objection, victimisation,
endurance
Lesson Plan: The Other Facts of Life
The Other Facts of Life B
His Master's Ghost
Flea is spending his vacation at a music camp in a spooky old mansion.
But he is more interested in scaring people with practical jokes than
in music. When tales of a ghost start to surface, Flea is determined to
track it down - and finds himself in a scary story better than anything
he could invent!
Themes: obsessions, practical joking,
humour, horror
Lesson Plan: His Masters Ghost
Just Friends
When Susan moves to a new part of town, she catches the eye of Buzz, a
local Romeo on roller skates. Susan joins Buzz and his gang, but Buzz
is looking for more than just a skating partner. Susan has to decide what
she is prepared to accept and what is important to her.
Themes: unemployment, alcohol, smoking,
teenage pregnancy, trouble with the law
Lesson Plan: Just Friends
Mr Edmund
Cherry and her brother Sam live in a boarding house under the Sydney Harbour
Bridge. Their mum works so hard she has forgotten how to dream. Things
change when Mr. Edmund comes to stay. He has a big dream, and the kids
can help it come true. This is a story of hope.
Themes: ambition and dreams, personal
relationships
Lesson Plan: Mr. Edmund
On Loan
At her 14th birthday party Lindy wishes she knew her actual birth date.
Her real parents would know, but they are dead, or so Lindy and her adoptive
Australian family believe. A letter arrives from Thailand, from her natural
father, Le. He is coming to see her and she must make a painful choice.
Themes: adoption, multicultural Australia,
the meaning of family
Lesson Plan: On Loan
On Loan B
The Journey
Ada’s dying father tells her to journey south to find her inheritance.
Agnes, the housekeeper’s stepdaughter, is to accompany her. But
the housekeeper is a witch and secretly orders her stepdaughter to kill
Ada. During the journey the girls learn to work together.
Themes: stereotyping, co-operation, the
genre of mystery
Lesson Plan: The Journey
The Paper Boy
It is 1932. Joe is 11 years old and sells newspapers. When Joe’s
father loses his job, Joe’s tiny wage is all the family have to
live on. Not easy for Dad! Trouble brews and Joe runs away. But is living
on the streets worse than living with the conflict and confrontation with
your father?
Themes: unemployment, welfare and its
effects, Christmas tradition, family relationships, social justice
Lesson Plan: Paper Boy
Top Kid
Gary has brains - a photographic memory! But the other kids beat him up
all the time. Things look up when Gary blitzes a radio quiz show. The
smart kid could be a rich kid, but when they start rigging the show, Gary
has a very difficult decision to make. A story about a boy’s moral
dilemma.
Themes: the media, moral relativism,
the understanding of right and wrong
Lesson Plan: Top Kid
Quest Beyond Time
Mike loves hang-gliding. One day a freak wind strikes and he crash lands,
finding himself surrounded by weird people in rags who call him the ‘man
from the sky’. They think he can cure ‘The Sickness’.
Mike has somehow flown to a post-nuclear holocaust Australia, 500 years
in the future! He embarks on a dangerous mission to help a small community.
Themes: nuclear war and the destruction
that ensues
Lesson Plan: There is no specific lesson
related to this telemovie. See Spellbinder for similar themes relevant
to Science, SOSE and English KLA’s.
Room to Move
A story about an unlikely friendship between two girls - one a sporting
champion, the other a dancer and an outsider. Carol is a top runner, coached
by her father day and night. When she meets Angie, the punk new girl,
she is inspired to plan a new life for herself. But the big race is coming
up, and Carol has to give it all she’s got.
Themes: search for identity, peer group
support, parental authority, effort, achievement
Lesson Plans: Room to Move
Room to Move B
Tarflowers
Kev is special. Every garbage night, he and his dog Big go out to paint
‘tarflowers’ on fences and walls. Kev reckons they will die
if he doesn’t. Sour old Mrs. Pearl thinks Kev is just a vandal and
wants to give him ‘special training’. But when the tarflowers
blossom, everyone sees that Kev’s magic is real. An urban fairytale
about a simple boy and his belief in his own magic.
Themes: individual difference, disability,
authority
Lesson Plan: Tarflowers
The Big Wish
Every 100 years, the Faeries must grant one human seven wishes. They have
left it to the last minute, and now have one day to track down a human
who believes in Faeries. They find C.W. (Christopher Walter Pratt). But
what they don’t tell him is that the final wish lasts forever!
Themes: responsibility to others, fantasy
and humour, scepticism and disbelief, social structure
The Other Facts of Life
Ben’s father tells him ‘The Facts of Life,’ but Ben
hits Dad with much tougher questions than that old birds-and-bees stuff.
Like, why are some people starving? Dad can’t answer. Ben starts
a one-boy crusade to make the world right.
Themes: current affairs, social fears,
personal responsibility
Lesson Plan: The Other Facts of Life
The Other Facts of Life B
Second Childhood
Who were you in a former life? Four friends reckon they were Henry Ford,
Phar Lap, Queen Victoria and Albert Einstein! At school they learn that
their previous lives caused harm as well as good, so they set out to make
amends.
Themes: parental expectations, the environment,
reincarnation, good and bad
Lesson Plans: Second Childhood
Second Childhood B
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