Promoting children's rights

When it comes to planning activities to promote children's rights and responsibilities at your out of school club, it can be hard to think of something that is fun and engaging and which will stimulate discussion.

Although this is not a very play-based activity, it is nonetheless useful to discuss the concepts of rights and responsibilities with the children, so at our club we have tried to make it as light and engaging as possible. We downloaded the rights and responsibilities matching pairs game from www.instantdisplay.co.uk and used this as the basis for making an attractive display for the setting.

We printed the game out and laminated the individual cards. A playworker then picked up a 'rights' card and asked the children to find the corresponding 'responsibilities' card. We then punched holes and strung them up following the method used in our Halloween bunting activity. Whilst doing this the playworker engaged the children in discussion about the meaning of each pair.

The finished bunting looks attractive when hung up at the club, efficiently conveys the key messages, and should also tick a few boxes with the Ofsted inspector!

  Bunting promoting children's rights and responsibilities

If you try this activity at your club — or indeed use the cards for a different activity — remember to take photos and to display them, to provide evidence that you have covered this topic with the children.

More resources

UNICEF's "Little Book of Children's Rights" provides a complete summary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in a very readable format.
Download the Little Book of Children's Rights

The Instant Display website has lots of other useful display resources (look in the PSHE section), many of which are free, for example these rights of a child posters.