John Flynn

These individual and group projects build on your research of John Flynn and encourage a range of creative responses.

The National Portrait Gallery invites you to share your projects online by uploading images, video, audio and text to the Portrait of a Nation: Australian Schools Portrait Project website.

Visit the projects page for more information on how your school can contribute.

Explore the biography and links to find more information about John Flynn.

Use a combination of text and images to create a timeline of Flynn’s life.

The National Portrait Gallery collection includes paintings photographs, drawings, sculptures, prints, textiles and multimedia portraits.

Experiment with a range of materials to create your own portrait of John Flynn.

Create a short performance about John Flynn.

This could be a play, a song, an interview or a dramatisation of an event. Make a video of your performance or document your activity in a series of photographs.

To the stalwart men who are stoughtly fighting
With the heat and the drought, and the dust-storm smiting,
Yet whose life, somehow, has a strange inviting,
When once to the work they have put their hand.

These words appear on the first page of The Bushman’s Companion by John Flynn.

Compose a poem, letter, story or song based on the life of John Flynn.

The Canberra suburb of Flynn is named after the Very Reverend John Flynn. The streets in Flynn reflect the suburb theme ‘Flying Doctor Service and inland missions’.

What do you know about the place names in your area? Select a town, suburb or street name and write a news article about what you discovered.

Suburbs in Canberra are named after Australia's local and national high achievers, its geography, heritage and history. Each suburb also has a theme by which its streets are named.

Imagine your group has the opportunity to plan a new suburb. Create a map of your suburb with street names based on your chosen theme.

JOTTINGS
It was played this way at a Fellowship social some time ago: Everyone present was given the A.I.M. “Map Folder” now familiar to all our friends, and a card. On the card were 25 most mysterious things which pretended to be words eg “Curlycorn” “Pomona” “Cokowont” (These were the more sweet sounding ones). Opposite each “word” was a space. Quarter of an hour was then allowed in which every player worked hard to rearrange the letters of each word into the name of an inland place. One lady scored a First with 25 correct, and that would take some beating!
John Flynn, The Inlander, 1924.

As a group, create your own game of Jottings using the scrambled letters (anagrams) of place names in your state. See if you can beat the top score of 25 correct place names in 15 minutes.