CIVICS AND CITIZENSHIP COMPETITION:

Improving Student Knowledge and Understanding of Civics

Expressions of Interest to Join Pilot Program

If you are unable to fill in the expression of interest form, please email Justine at education@ruleoflaw.org.au

What is it and who can enter?

We’re inviting students from years 5-10 to create impactful, informative and non-political short videos that explore key topics in government, citizenship, democracy and laws in Australia.

Not only will your students gain valuable skills in communication, IT and critical thinking, they will be able to use these skills to help inform other students around Australia when their video is featured on our new social media channel for civics education and our YouTube page!

Does it cost anything? What do we win?

No! The competition is free. All students will be awarded either the Rule of Law Education Centre’s Emerging Citizen (years 5-8) or Ready Citizen (years 9-10) certificate. In addition, each year we will present a special award for the top 5 videos based on the number of views and engagement.

What support do you give teachers?

To assist teachers, we will provide an entry pack that contains:

a list of curriculum linked questions and topic areas for you to choose from,
factsheets for your chosen questions,
links to supporting resources and curriculum,
an entry form; and
video upload details.

Entries can be created in groups or by whole classes.

Is it curriculum aligned so I can use it in my subject programs?

Yes! To ensure that you can use this competition in your programming, the questions have been aligned with curriculum priorities, content and outcomes from across Australia, as well as key Australian civic readiness tests:

The Australian Curriculum v.9: HASS
The Victorian Curriculum version 2.0: The Humanities
The NSW Curriculum – Stages 3 and 5 History (released 2024) and Stage 5 Commerce Syllabus (2019)
The Shape of the Australian Curriculum: Civics and Citizenship (2012)
The NSW Civics and Citizenship Education Benchmarks for years 6 and 10 (2002)
The NAP-CC years 6 and 10 Demonstration Tests

This is an opportunity for students across Australia to contribute to a better understanding of how Australia’s democracy works – for all of our young citizens – and help protect our democratic systems into the future.

Get involved and your students could be the next big winners!

Click Here for a PDF Explainer of Informed Competition

Further Details

Submissions can be made by individuals, in groups or as a whole class.

The question students are answering and and target audience must be identified (year level) at the start of the submitted video.

One of the aims of this exercise is to assist students with information gathering and assessing the validity and accuracy of the information gathered. Therefore, research undertaken by or with students should be conducted from at least 3 contrasting sources – for example, one government website, one or two differing media outlets and one NGO, so that students can see any differences in the accuracy or quality of different resources, and learn to make judgements about potential bias and disinformation based on the source of information.

Media Permissions and Clearances

The videos that are submitted may be used on our YouTube channel, our website and our social media channels for promotional and educational purposes. Please ensure that your students have appropriate parental/ guardian permissions to appear in these spaces, or that students without these permissions do not feature in the final submission. Once submitted, please get in touch with us if you become aware of any changes to permissions over time.

Submission

We are currently working on the best way to submit your applications.

Instructions for students

You are to choose a question from the question bank and, once you have been through the resources and some other research, create a video that answers that question from your perspective and understanding, using current examples where you can.

The video should be no more than 60 seconds maximum in length – think about both Tik Tok or Reels style videos as an example.

Research must be conducted from at least 3 contrasting sources – for example, one government website, one media outlet and one NGO.

You must use all Australian examples unless the question asks for an international comparison.

When you are finished, send your entry to education@ruleoflaw.org.au. Make sure you send it from your school email address!