Building human rights into learning inquiries (Dec 2009)

Building human rights into learning inquiries (Dec 2009)

At Nelson Central, ‘human rights' has become a key strand of the school's inquiry learning approach, linked in 2009 to the school theme of ‘Citizenship is everybody's business'":

• A year 1 class blogged: ‘This term we have been thinking about rights for everyone. We have particularly thought about the rights of those with disabilities. As part of the last stage in our inquiry model we had to communicate with others all the things that made Nelson Central School disable friendly and things that didn't make Nelson Central disable friendly. We also had to come up with new ideas that would make Nelson Central even more disable friendly. We have made a movie to communicate this with others. Sally showed us about story boarding and then with Sally's help we planned out our movie. It was also very exciting because Sally and Tania taught us how to take little movies using the digital camera.'

• The senior Syndicate examined the purposes and functions of the student council based on the key idea that "As a member of a community we all have the right to be involved in the decision making process". The culmination of the process saw each class create a proposal for how our student council should be structured and elected so that it better represented all children at NCS. The classes held an expo where all the children at NCS were able to hear the different presentations and proposals and then had the opportunity to vote (by secret ballot) on which proposal should to be implemented. The result was a restructured student council with stronger ‘ambassador' links with junior classes.

• Year 2-4 classes decided to explore the human rights of children by comparing how children's rights are observed at Nelson Central School with those at another school in a different time or place. They found a Save the Children website helping them to get to know a community of children in Kroo Bay, a slum area of Freetown in Sierra Leone. The children researched how basic children's rights were realised (or not) in Kroo Bay and ultimately made movies to highlight the differences. (see, for example, http://ncschildrensrights.wikispaces.com/room3). Their next topic was about ‘ways we express ourselves', with the final task being to perform or present an item which expresses an idea or opinion.' The children converted their knowledge into speeches which were then presented to members of the congregation from the church next door in an effort to persuade them to support Save the Children Fund. When the Samoan Tsunami led the congregation to reprioritise its fundraising efforts, the children addressed the student council which agreed to join the effort.