Into Film is an education organisation providing a unified UK-wide offer for learning through and about film. It is supported by the British Film Institute (BFI) through Lottery funding and its programme includes delivery of the BFI 5-19 education scheme. Into Film's resources range from film discussion guides, to curriculum linked worksheets, lesson plans and presentations. Our resources are tailored to fit the curriculum criteria of each nation, supporting learning outcomes.
Into Film is an education organisation providing a unified UK-wide offer for learning through and about film. It is supported by the British Film Institute (BFI) through Lottery funding and its programme includes delivery of the BFI 5-19 education scheme. Into Film's resources range from film discussion guides, to curriculum linked worksheets, lesson plans and presentations. Our resources are tailored to fit the curriculum criteria of each nation, supporting learning outcomes.
Designed to be used with Disney Pixar Shorts Volume 1, this resource, aimed at primary pupils, provides simple-to-use activities that are a fun way to start a film club. The activities allow learners to explore key themes of empathy, friendship, tolerance and emotional health, while developing their literacy skills.
Disney Pixar Shorts Volume 1 and other Pixar films are available to stream for free on Into Film + https://www.intofilm.org/films/19630
A resource based on the Disney film Zootropolis. Students can become entrepreneurs like the character of Nick. The resource contains activity outlines and activity sheets to support students to create a healthy popsicle recipe, tradmark their creation, calculate production costs and apply for a loan from The First Bank of Zootropolis to start their business.
This film is available to stream free on Into Film+ https://www.intofilm.org/films/18642
This one-page film guide on the film The Lion King (a loose adaptation of the play Hamlet) is designed to support pre- and post-screening discussions of character and the nature of adaptation, for use with primary school pupils aged 5 and over.
It comprises of discussion questions and notes for teacher reference before encouraging young people to write their own reviews of the film, take part in extension activities and with suggestions for further viewing.
This film is available to stream free on Into Film+ https://www.intofilm.org/films/3008
Through using the youth made short films made as part of The Moving Minds 2 Filmmaking project, this resource equips young people aged 11-19 and their educators to confidently:
• Express ideas about mental health using the medium of film.
• Engage with film and filmmaking with increased confidence
in order to articulate ideas about what mental health means to them.
• Raise self-esteem by participating in engaging personal reflective activities in class or at home.
• Work towards their own mental health goals in a personalised Mental Wellbeing Strategies Toolkit.
• Be guided by peers and filmmakers alike to make their own Moving Minds 2: Building Resilience for Wellbeing short film, no matter their skill level or equipment.
Into Film believes that youth-made films are uniquely useful for starting and supporting discussions about mental health, as they enable the viewer to see the subject through young people’s eyes.
It is our hope that youth-made films contribute to destigmatising mental ill health, as well as inspiring engagement with filmmaking as a means to articulate many of the hard to express ideas seen in many mental health conditions.
This resource is a PSHE lesson for use with students aged 11–16 covering topics within media literacy and digital resilience through English and drama, with the option to include filmmaking.
Students will consider how relationships can be strengthened
using digital media as well as examining how interacting through
digital media can make us feel. Students can reflect on their own
experiences as well as how relationships with digital media are
depicted in film.
This resource is suitable for in-class teaching and learning but could
also be adapted for home learning or a blended learning approach.
Immerse your class in learning about properties of materials, states of matter and reactions with the help of the colourful characters featured in the new Disney and Pixar animated film Elemental.
The resource encourages children to think critically about the properties of, and potential reactions between, the Elemental characters and put forward their hypotheses about what could happen when they interact.
The resource consists of a science-themed lesson, a home learning activity and
a competition to bring together children’s understanding
of scientific concepts and language.
A film guide that looks at Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2019), exploring its key topics and themes through informal discussion.
This film is now free to stream on Into Film+ https://www.intofilm.org/films/19347
BroZone is getting back together, and it’s time for the reunion tour! This cross-curricular activity pack challenges your class to get hands-on with a range of activities framed around coordinating a reunion tour for BroZone, the
boyband Branch and his long-lost brothers are part of in DreamWorks’ new film Trolls Band Together.
Kicking off the sequence, your class will get out of their seats to learn some of the film’s key dance moves. Learners will have the chance to try choreographing a sequence using these new dance moves and even add in some signature moves of their own!
The Stage Design activity asks learners to plan, design and make a model of the stage for the tour, including a new BroZone logo for band merchandise.
The tour needs to run smoothly, and this is where the Tour Times task comes in. Pupils will be given a series of time based problems to solve using the gig dates and locations as a stimulus for the maths outcomes, demonstrating the real-world importance of learning about telling the time and
calculating duration.
The home learning activity gives insight into writing to inform, as learners will be asked to create a newspaper front page that includes key information about the BroZone reunion tour.
Finally, your class is invited to enter our Trolls Reunion Tour competition for a chance to win a karaoke machine and film merchandise bundles.
These flexible challenges will immerse young people in a range of curriculum areas and help develop their team building skills. You can cherry-pick the activities, assign different activities to groups or even teach the sequence
over a series of sessions.
It’s time to take flight and go on the journey of a lifetime with Universal and Illumination’s upcoming film release, Migration. In this two-lesson sequence, suitable for ages 6–11, your class will be introduced to the Mallard family and their daring journey south from Maine, USA, to Kingston, Jamaica, for winter. Through geography and creative writing, learners will be able to better understand the significance of the journey birds take when they migrate each year. Migration: Habitat Heroes also provides an opportunity for young people to get out into the local area to observe, explore and assess the opportunities to make their local space more inviting for local wildlife.
This learning sequence will immerse the class in the Marvels Cinematic Universe and encourage learners to become their own hero – reflecting on how they see themselves and building their self-esteem and confidence. With links to the PSHE, RSE and English/literacy curriculums, a film clip will first be used as a stimulus for students to discuss the character of Kamala Khan via a ‘Role on the Wall’ activity. Here they will explore Kamala’s newfound powers and how she feels about harnessing them versus how she appears to those around her and how the perception of those in her team can lead to her empowerment. Inspired by the heroes in the film, learners will explore the skills they can offer to the world and the importance of team effort using the Becoming Your Own Hero activity sheet.
There will be a focus on a supportive and empowering learning environment as students will feed into each other’s self-reflection to build confidence and contribute to one another’s’ positive self-image. There is an added opportunity for learners to think about one of their own goals and how they would achieve them by following in the footsteps of the Marvels using a framework based on the concept of ‘Higher. Further. Faster. Together’.
As an extension, students can explore how the skills they exemplify can be transferrable across a range of exciting careers using information on the Youth Employment UK website. A competition to drive further engagement will ask students to imagine themselves as a hero on someone else’s wall.
Using Art and Design skills, students will use the Future Hero competition sheet to create a poster depicting themselves as someone others look up to. This depiction can be inspired by a career, challenge or goal that they wish to pursue in the future.
This learning sequence will immerse your class in a world of pure
imagination as learners are tasked with planning and pitching
their very own marvellous creations to catch the eye of
Willy Wonka himself!
This resource brings together skills and learning objectives
across art, design and technology, maths and English, as well
as elements of science and nutrition. From the packaging to the
promotional materials, learners will need to develop, design and
pitch their ideas for a new, extraordinary chocolate bar.
Learners will also be encouraged to think about who they would
like to share a special chocolate bar with, and why, in our creative
writing competition, ‘Who Would You Share It With?’.
The lesson sequence can be extended with a range of activities
which can be completed in the classroom or as home-learning;
these include the My Scrummy Yummy Chocolate activity, Role
on the Wall and Working with Wonka.
This resource is for learners aged 7+ and will introduce you and your learners to a variety of techniques to develop your skills and knowledge in filmmaking. It consists of ten bitesize 15-minute activity sessions, which can be used together or separately and in any order you like, so that you can cherry-pick which activities suit you and your learners.
All activities are inspired by content from films on the Into Film+ catalogue and feature an overview of each filmmaking concept, as well as examples and practical activities for your learners to have a go at each technique.
To access the accompanying powerpoint for this resource please visit the Into Film website.
Visit our website for information on how to start a free Into Film club or to view more of our curriculum focused resources.
This resource is one of those created as part of Into Film’s ScreenWorks programme to demystify the world of screen careers to young people aged 14 to 19 across Northern Ireland and the UK.
Professional film journalist, editor and author Helen O’Hara has collaborated with us to summarise what the role entails, key skills needed and routes into the job. There is also a practical film journalism activity that learners can complete as a taster into the job role.
ScreenWorks is a screen industry work experience scheme offering unparalleled opportunities for young people aged 14-14 to learn about careers across Film, TV, Animation, Gaming and Visual Effects.
To find out more, or to apply for the programme, visit the Into Film website.
Andrew Onwubolu MBE has developed his craft of filmmaking throughout his career from a self-taught filmmaker uploading music videos and short films to YouTube to being awarded an MBE for services to Drama and Music.
This resource comprises three lessons which introduce learners to
Andrew Onwubolu, his filmmaking style and debate the role of an
auteur in a film production.
Download the full resource from the Into Film website.
Lesson 1 - Guerilla Filmmaking and Autuer Theory
The first lesson in this resource introduces or reacquaints young people studying GCSE or A level Film Studies with the concept of an auteur by analysing the filmmaking style and directorial motifs in Andrew Onwubolu’s film Blue Story and his earlier work Shiro’s Story. This will lead on to analysing the theory and features of auteurism in the films of Spike Lee, John Singleton and Alfred Hitchcock. Learners are then tasked with planning a crowdfunding campaign for a film production before planning and filming a revision film on the topic of
auteurism in the style of one of the filmmakers discussed in this lesson.
Lesson 2 - Discovering the Auteur
This second lesson continues to develop learners’ understanding of auteurism by debating who has the most creative control on a film production before planning a presentation. The project for this lesson is to produce a film in the style of one of the auteurs studied in this lesson sequence, summarising what learners know about auteur theory to be used as a revision aid.
Lesson 3 - Debating the Auteur
The final lesson in this sequence is an opportunity for learners to practise writing an answer to an examination-style question which is scaffolded with opportunities for peer and class feedback before individuals produce their own essay.
For many of us, listening is one of the key ways that we connect with the world. By learning to pay closer attention to the sounds around us, we can strengthen this connection and develop many vital life skills that come along with it.
In this lesson, learners will act out scenarios to differentiate between active and passive listening. They will practise listening closely to the sounds around them while also learning to deal with internal and external interruptions and regain their focus.
This resource has been designed for learners aged 11-16. It can be used as a standalone lesson for short PSHE education and form/pastoral sessions, or cherry-picked to incorporate into longer lessons.
The full resource and many more are available for free to UK-based teachers
who enrol on Into Film’s Mindfulness Through Film course. To register for the course please visit the Into Film, website and look at our training tab.
Using the short film The Penguin Who Couldn’t Swim, this resource is suitable for use with pupils aged 7–11 and helps pupils to safely identify and discuss issues around body image while celebrating the differences that make everyone unique. Using images and film highlights, pupils are encouraged to analyse and explore characters before tracking their differing emotional journeys through the entire film.
This resource is accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation with
embedded clips and the teachers’ notes document includes activity
sheets to support learners in class or at home. Where appropriate,
suggestions for adaptation for home learning have been included in
the teachers’ notes.
CURRICULUM LINKS
PSHE education – Relationships Education
Respectful relationships:
• The importance of respecting others, even when they are
very different from you (for example, physically, in character,
personality or backgrounds), or make different choices or have
different preferences or beliefs
• The importance of self-respect and how this links to your
own happiness.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
• To be able to identify similarities and differences in characters
• To recognise that differences are what make us unique
• To use visual clues to identify how a character is feeling
• To understand how differences are viewed by others
• To understand the benefits of positive friendships.
DOWNLOAD THE ACCOMPANYING POWERPOINT ON THE INTO FILM WEBSITE
This assembly is suitable for use with learners aged 7 and over to explore the concepts of fairness, respect and fair play in football and how it can apply to daily life.
The assembly kicks off with a discussion of different football, imagery before discussing the racist abuse that Marcus Rashford, and other black players in the England team, received in the 2021 Euros final match. Learners are then asked to look at an example of an incident in a football themed film before discussing how fair play, respect and good conduct could change this situation; there are two options, Early Man for younger learners and Bend it Like Beckham for use with students aged 11 and older. The assembly concludes with learners reflecting on how they can exhibit fairness and fair play in their daily lives.
A film guide that looks at The Queen (2006), exploring its key topics and themes through informal discussion.
This film is now free to stream on Into Film+. Go to the Into Film website for more information.
The climate crisis is continuing, and we need solutions. This resource, in association with Doc Academy and Picture Zero Productions, is suitable for use with learners aged 11-16 and includes themes of climate change, global issues, consumption, recycling, green initiatives, net zero, sustainability, and youth voice.
Using a variety of feature films, short films and archival footage as stimuli for discussion, students will be encouraged to share their thoughts and suggestions for a more positive future. As a result of taking part in this learning sequence, young people should be motivated to put their suggestions into action and be more empowered to discuss and understand climate change issues.
This resource is suitable for curriculum and GCSE exam specification teaching for geography, English and citizenship and can support the 2023 model science curriculum. In addition, it can support educators to tackle Sustainable Development Goal 13: Climate Action of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
The full resource is available to download from the Into Film website. Search for ‘Our Generation’ on the Into Film website.
DOWNLOAD THE ACCOMPANYING POWERPOINT AND ACTIVITY SHEETS FROM THE INTO FILM WEBSITE
This resource, suitable for learners aged 7 and over, is designed to instill a sense of fair play, respect towards others and team building, using football on film as a vehicle for this discussion and understanding.
The structure of this resource follows a football match with each section titled accordingly, and activities can be cherry-picked by educators to fit into the planning and the time available. All the activities can be used in the classroom, Into Film Clubs or for home learning and some activities can be adapted for language learning opportunities as explained in the activity outlines that follow. You may wish to use the activities as part of a series of lessons during the World Cup period or you may want to use the Extra Time activities as home learning during the school holidays.