THE FINAL QUARTER, a feature documentary which tells the story of the last three years of the career of AFL champion Adam Goodes, is now freely available to every school and sporting club in Australia as part of a comprehensive education package.
More than one million Australians have already seen the film with sold out screenings at the Sydney Film Festival in June and a national broadcast on Network Ten and WIN in July.
The Final Quarter is being donated to teachers and students around the nation, along with 46 lesson plans aligned to years 5-12 of the Australian curriculum.
The teaching and learning resources and lesson plans have been created by Cool Australia, with advice from a team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous teachers and educators.
The lessons are designed for subject areas including Civics and Citizenship, Health and Physical Education, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures, English and Media Arts. The first lessons are available now and others will be rolled out over the next three months.
The Shark Island Productions film, along with the educational material and screening guides, is free for schools, registered sporting clubs, community groups and corporate partners to access via the website www.thefinalquarterfilm.com.au
The education and outreach program has been made possible through philanthropic funding.
The director of The Final Quarter, Ian Darling, says: “We’ve focused our free education campaign on schools and sporting clubs so the next generation of young Australians has a greater awareness about racism and its impact.
“Through The Final Quarter’s extensive education materials, teachers and students will be given tools to have these important but often difficult conversations about racism and bullying in an engaging and constructive way.’’
Since The Final Quarter was broadcast in July, nearly 2000 schools and teachers have requested the film for use in their classrooms.
At test screenings earlier this year, students and teachers responded strongly to the film, which is made entirely from archival sources during the period from 2013 to 2015 when Goodes called out racism and was booed at AFL stadiums around the country.
Shark Island Productions has worked with the Australian Human Rights Commission and Reconciliation Australia to develop a long-term education strategy for the film.
The lesson plans created by Cool Australia cover themes such as racism and wellbeing, truth-telling, cultural pride, the language of influence, identity and belonging, and respect and bullying in sport, and there are also resources available from the Australian Teachers of Media (AToM).
During the Network Ten broadcast in July The Final Quarter trended number one on Twitter in Australia and number seven worldwide as thousands of people expressed their feelings about the way Goodes departed the game, and the media’s role in his treatment.
