Pupils’ film-making skills are rewarded

Pupils’ creativity and film-making skills were rewarded at an annual awards ceremony at Newark Academy.

The Film And Animation Awards (FAN) hosted by the Together For Newark initiative are designed to encourage creativity, collaboration and computer skills.

Together For Newark links the Newark Family of Schools to provide children with the best possible opportunity to succeed.

The awards, held for a fourth time, were open to pupils from feeder schools for Magnus Church of England Academy and Newark Academy.

Pupils worked with school staff to plan, film and edit their productions.

All the films had to be original pieces of work of no longer than five minutes.

The films could be created in the form of live-action, animation or a mixture of both.

Prizes were awarded for the best videos with and without narration in Key Stage One (age five to seven) lower and upper Key Stage Two (seven to 11) and Key Stage Three (11 to 14).

Mount Church of England School won the overall award for their film, The Rock, which also won best narrative in the upper Key Stage Two category.

Coddington Church of England Primary School won the Key Stage One non-narrative prize with Superheroes Assemble.

John Hunt Primary School, Balderton, won the lower Key Stage Two narrative prize for The Flossers.

St Peter’s Cross Keys Academy, Farndon, won the non-narrative prize for their film, CK JW RP KH.

A second prize was won by Coddington primary in the upper Key Stage Two non-narrative award for Heart.

Orchard School was the recipient of the Key Stage Three narrative prize for Aardman Guy.

The categories were judged by the Advertiser Media Group, Lincoln Odeon, NQ Media, Literacy Shed, A Tale Unfolds, PrimarySite and children’s newspaper First News.

Mr Tim Head, acting head at Coddington primary, said he was blown away by the standard shown.

"This is the fourth time we have done it and the quality gets better and better each time," he said.

"You can see the hard work and preparation that goes in to putting these films together and it’s so rewarding to see that.

"It was great. We had a screening at Newark Academy with popcorn and it makes it a special event.

"The reason we started doing this was to improve the children’s writing skills and inspire them to write more.

"The children enjoy putting all the frames together and thinking about what they are writing."