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Resources for teachers
Be Ahead of the Game offers teachers information and resources to help students and the wider school community understand the risks associated with gambling.
All units have been professionally developed by the Foundation in partnership with experts in education and resource development. They are designed to be user-friendly, flexible and aligned to Victorian school curriculums.
Explore resources:
Professional development for teachers
Teachers can book a free online or face-to-face professional development session (one hour), which includes strategies for developing a whole-of-school approach to raise awareness and tackle the issue.
VCE Vocational Major – Literacy
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UNIT 1 – LOVE THE GAME
Students will develop a presentation pitch to convince a sporting club that they should sign up to the Love the Game sporting club program. Students will analyse a sample pitch before going through the process of planning, drafting, and editing their own pitch. They will then complete a self-assessment using a rubric.
Curriculum alignment: This resource addresses learning outcomes of Unit 1 of VCE VM Literacy.
This unit was developed in partnership with Multifangled.
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UNIT 3 – POTENTIAL INFLUENCES
Students will consider the potential influences shaping the attitudes of themselves and the community toward gambling. Influencing factors include:
- access to real and simulated gambling via apps, social media, and gaming
- saturation levels of gambling advertising
- family and peer attitudes to gambling.
Students will plan, draft and write a report for a sporting club that explains the influences on attitudes towards gambling before completing a self-assessment using a rubric.
Curriculum alignment: this unit addresses learning outcomes for Unit 3 of VCE VM Literacy.
This unit was developed in partnership with Multifangled.
VCE Vocational Major – Numeracy
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UNIT 1 – FINANCES AND GAMBLING
Students will develop the mathematical skills used for managing household and living expenses. Using activities and worksheets, students will learn to interpret household utility bills and create a personal budget. Students will also explore the financial harm that gambling can cause to individuals, families, and the wider community.
Curriculum alignment: This unit addresses the learning outcomes from Unit 1 of VCE VM Numeracy.
This unit was developed in partnership with Multifangled.
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UNIT 2 – WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?
Students will explore chance and probability to help them develop informed attitudes toward gambling. The unit’s interactive activities are designed to introduce students to the concepts and language of probability and chance and shows them how to interpret odds. Analysis of real-world data is used to illustrate how much Victorians lose to gambling, highlighting the reality that people are more likely to lose money.
Curriculum alignment: This unit addresses the learning outcomes from Unit 2 of VCE VM Numeracy.
This unit was developed in partnership with Multifangled.
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UNIT 3 – EARNINGS AND EXPENDITURE
Students will learn some of the key things they need to know about getting their first job including paying tax, superannuation, government allowances, workplace rights and payslips. Throughout the unit, students will access national data to investigate how much Australians earn on average, and what impact gambling expenditure has on Australians.
Curriculum alignment: This unit addresses the learning outcomes from Unit 3 of VCE VM Numeracy.
This unit was developed in partnership with Multifangled.
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UNIT 4 – ODDS AND PROBABILITY
Students will do a deep dive into the way gambling really works. Students learn about the randomness of gambling and experience the difficulty of predicting outcomes. They will explore firsthand how betting agencies design products to maximise their own profits and learn to think critically about gambling advertising.
Download spreadsheets used in this unit:
Curriculum alignment: This unit addresses the learning outcomes from Unit 4 of VCE VM Numeracy.
This unit was developed in partnership with Multifangled.
VCE Vocational Major - Personal Development skills
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UNIT 2 – KNOWING THE SCORE
Using a variety of information sources, students will create a product (e.g., a magazine, song, podcast,
TV-style interview, documentary, poem, artwork, PowerPoint or Prezi presentation) to help young
people understand the risks of gambling. Students will work in groups to plan, develop, share and evaluate the product.
Curriculum alignment: This unit addresses the learning outcomes from Unit 2 of VCE VM - Personal Development Skills.
This unit was developed in partnership with Multifangled.
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UNIT 4 – KNOWING WHEN IT’S A CONCERN
Using a variety of information sources, students develop a community engagement activity (e.g., a media campaign
for the school, an expo for the community, a play, or a board game) that develops understanding and awareness of gambling harm and the support services that are available. Students will work in groups to plan, develop, implement, and evaluate the community project.
Curriculum alignment: This unit addresses the learning outcomes from Unit 4 of VCE VM - Personal Development Skills.
This unit was developed in partnership with Multifangled.
VCE - Health and Human Development
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‘GAME ON’. Gambling: a youth health issue
Students will focus on the health and wellbeing of young Australians and conduct independent research into a selected area of interest. This resource will support teachers in introducing this topic to their students using a strengths-based approach, providing data and resources from VRGF’s various projects and support programs to enable students to analyse real-life data and develop an understanding of help-seeking strategies should students find themselves, or a loved-one, experiencing problems with gambling.
Download free resources:
- Lesson 1 – Who’s gambling and gaming?
- Lesson 2 – The community and gambling
- Lesson 3 - The two G’s (gaming and gambling)
- Lesson 4 – Here to help!
- Lesson 5 – What’s at stake?
- Lesson 6 – Find your voice – youth speak!
- Unit overview and assessment
Curriculum alignment: This six-lesson unit addresses the learning outcomes of VCE Health and Human Development Unit 1, Area of Study 3 (Youth health and wellbeing).
These resources were developed in partnership with the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (ACHPER Victoria).
VCE – Media Studies
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Representations of gambling in advertising
The unit of work helps students explore gambling advertising and what values these media products are representing. They discuss who the target audience is for these media products and how they have been constructed for this audience.
Students will also compare these representations of gambling and inherent values with those depicted in advertising by the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation. Students then will create a negative representation of gambling through a social media post through the theme, the harms of gambling.
Unit outline:
Media forms, representations and Australian stories
- How do gambling companies represent gambling?
- How can gambling be represented in other ways?
- How can we create gambling representations for different audiences?
Narrative across media forms
- What concerns do we have with advertising?
- How is advertising regulated in Australia?
- What rules are there around gambling advertising?
- How can I submit a complaint about a gambling advertisement?
Download free resource: VCE Media: Representations of gambling in advertising
Curriculum alignment: This unit addresses the learning outcomes of Units 1 and 2 of the VCE Media studies.
This VCE teaching resource has been developed in partnership with the Australian Teachers of Media Victoria.
Year 10 - Wellbeing
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Telling gaming from gambling
In this unit, students will learn how it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between gaming and gambling and how digital games that look like gambling can be misleading.
Students will:
- investigate the screen time habits of their peers and their common online activities
- consider their awareness of ‘fake’ gambling apps and identify possible cyber safety issues associated with these apps
- understand the difficulties in differentiating between gaming and gambling
- develop a tool that is targeted to parents to assist them in educating their children about ‘fake’ gambling apps and cyber safety concerns.
Download free resources:
- Wellbeing: Telling gaming from gambling
- Teacher instruction video: Telling gaming from gambling
Curriculum alignment: This unit is linked to the levels 9 and 10 achievement standards for Critical and creative thinking, and Personal and social capability.
This unit was developed and piloted in partnership with Valad Solutions Pty Ltd education consultants.
Year 10 - Humanities
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The role of regulation
This unit will help students understand that gambling is an inherently risky activity and regulation exists to help protect Australian and Victorian citizens from gambling harm.
Students will:
- revise and consolidate their understanding of elements of a democratic society and freedom of choice
- consider reasons for the regulation of gambling in Australia and draw comparisons with other risky activities which are regulated to protect citizens from harm
- understand the role the government has in regulating gambling in Australia
- investigate effects of gambling regulation in Australia
- learn about how gambling is regulated in Australia and overseas.
Download free resources:
- Humanities Unit: The role of regulation
- Teacher instruction video: The role of regulation
Curriculum alignment: On completion of this unit, students can be assessed against the elaborations in Humanities - Civics and Citizenship.
These units were developed in partnership with Valad Solutions Pty Ltd education consultants.
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Risky business
This unit helps students understand the financial risks associated with gambling and how recognising the limited chances of winning can be a way of protecting yourself.
Students will:
- understand the concept of chance and probability
- understand the limited chances of winning money when gambling because gambling and betting agencies are businesses that exist to make a profit
- identify some of the short and long-term financial risks associated with gambling, with a greater emphasis on shorter-term
- identify strategies to minimise the financial risks associated with gambling.
Download free resources:
- Humanities Unit: Risky business
- Teacher instruction video: Risky business
Curriculum alignment: On completion of this unit, students can be assessed against the elaborations in Humanities - Economics and Business.
These units were developed in partnership with Valad Solutions Pty Ltd education consultants.
Years 5 & 6 - The Bridge
The Bridge is a school education program about the risks of online gaming.
It's a free, creative program developed for upper primary school students that explores the potential risks of online gaming. The Bridge caters for all teachers, regardless of their knowledge and experience of gaming.
