Queen Margaret College

strengthening Human Rights in The curriculum

Queen Margaret College (Wellington) has, over the past few years, been strengthening student understanding of human rights at year 10 level, helping to meet requirements both of the New Zealand Curriculum and the International Baccalaureate.

Two years ago, Queen Margaret College began its transition to the Middle Year Programme (MYP) of the International Baccalaureate system. Our Junior School had already adopted and begun working with the PYP (Primary Year Programme) and our Senior School will be ready for the International Baccalaureate Diploma in 2010.

It has long been a tradition for QMC to undertake charity work at each year level of the school, but under MYP this requires development into an integral aspect of the curriculum as “Community and Service”.

Our Year 10 have traditionally supported Amnesty International, and thus consider themselves as part of the global community. The Humanities subjects have long reflected the emancipation of peoples, and concern for our environment as one would expect under the New Zealand Social Studies curriculum, but we now had a greater incentive to include Human Rights into the overall teaching plan.

It was a relatively easy process to incorporate Human Rights as a focus rather than a side issue, and with the help of Ced Simpson, Human Rights in Education, who spoke each year to the girls about the origins of Human Rights and how they can work in schools, a programme evolved with Rights firmly in the centre of the learning.

The Community service programme became an understanding of, and active involvement in, Human Rights internationally through Amnesty International. The year begins with an extensive study of where and how the Universal Declaration of Human Rights evolved after World War Two, the development of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and then the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Both Ced and Amnesty International are integral parts of this exploration.

Once the girls return to the classroom, the subjects they study in Humanities (Old Social Studies) now reflect their new knowledge in Human Rights. Thus, the Treaty of Waitangi topic becomes a foray into the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; the Emancipation of Woman topic has become an exploration of the Rights of Women; and the two Geographical topics are now an exploration of Rights to Resources and Responsibility to sustaining our world.  The programme continues to evolve, and connections are sought across the curriculum to link into other subjects such as the moral rights and responsibilities in science, for example.

The “Human Rights Temperature” is taken of our own school and then each class creates a charter of Rights and Responsibilities for operational use within their own classroom, based on the ideas learned from the Community and Service Week.

Heartfelt thanks are extended to Ced Simpson and the Human Rights in Education Trust.

- Gaylene Kendrick, Year 10 Dean