Memorandum submitted by John Clark, Deputy
Director of Children's Services, Hampshire County Council
RIGHTS, RESPECT
AND RESPONSIBILITIES
How did Rights, respect and responsibilities begin
in Hampshire?
The programme began in 2003 following a British
Council funded study visit to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, by the
County Council's Inspector/Adviser for Intercultural Education
and a small number of headteachers and teachers.
The evaluations of the programme in Canada were
impressive and showed the potential for similar work in Hampshire.
Rights, respect and responsibilities work is, fundamentally, preventative.
It sets out to create the conditions in which the social behaviour
of children and young people can develop positively and provides
a framework for relations between children, and between children
and adults, to develop in a rights-respecting way. It enhances
the cohesion of each participating school as a community and secures
the rights of children from ethnic minority backgrounds and those
with disabilities, within the context of the rights of all children.
Hampshire is large and diverse. 4.7% of the 174,000 children in
its 534 schools now come from ethnic minority backgrounds and
77 languages other than English are spoken.
The programme began in a small way, in a few
schools only: one secondary and three primaries in Andover and
Eastleigh but, in the last two years, having analysed impact in
these schools, over 300 more across the county—mainly primary—have
received training. A £50,000 grant from the Innovations Unit
of the DfES has been extremely helpful in resourcing this training.
What is the Programme?
The only piece of knowledge that has to be taught
to children, when a school begins work on this, is the UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child. Thereafter, the selection of content
for teaching is very flexible, and rights, respect and responsibilities
becomes, instead, a way of defining how people—both children,
and children and adults—relate to each other and work together.
Once established as the school's ethos, it seems reasonably easy
to sustain, but it needs constant reinforcement.
The UN Convention is introduced to children
as a set of fundamental principles agreed by countries (all but
two) across the whole world. It sets out the rights they have,
whoever they are and wherever they've come from; rights they have
now, not rights they have to wait for until they are adults. The
teaching sets out to make sure they can distinguish between rights
and wants, and that they understand if they have rights, then
so does everyone else: the other children in the class and the
school, and all the adults too, including their teachers. They
learn they have a responsibility to respect their own rights,
and those of others. Schools reinforce these principles in assemblies,
in wall displays, in the way in which lessons are conducted and
in the language they use to describe relationships between people
and to resolve conflicts.
How widespread is this work?
The Canadian programme on which the Hampshire
work is based was mandated into the Social and Health Studies
Curriculum of the province of Nova Scotia. Local Authorities in
England work in different ways. Rights, respect and responsibilities
work is spreading slowly in Hampshire, through persuasion, exhortation,
training opportunities and through dissemination by the schools
where there has been most effect: headteachers who want to tell
others "I thought I might have a riot on my hands with my
teachers when I wanted to introduce this. Now I'd have a riot
if I told them they couldn't do it."
The degree of penetration through schools is
difficult to gauge, but the specific mention of rights and responsibilities
in the Self Evaluation Form, developed for the new Ofsted inspections
and the New Relationship with Schools, is likely to be very helpful
in spreading this work throughout the system.
In a few parts of the county, experiments are
also taking place with rights, respect and responsibilities in
community based work and in parenting programmes. In developing
a community dimension, clusters of schools—primary and secondary—in
a number of areas are developing rights, respect and responsibilities
as an inter-school philosophy and language. A few schools, specifically
in Basingstoke, are now working to introduce the principles and
language to all agencies who have dealings with families and children,
to build community cohesion around shared values.
A pilot for using a rights, respect and responsibilities
approach in a residential children's home is about to begin—an
early benefit of closer working between education and social care
within Children's Services.
What is the evidence of impact?
An evaluation was undertaken by Canadian academics
and reported in July 2005. The key conclusions are that where
schools implement this work seriously:
— there is a notable change from confrontational
and adversarial approaches to conflict resolution, and pupils
are less intimidated by bullies; they understand they do not have
to put up with such treatment. There is an increased respect for
the protection of the rights of all children;
— children, themselves, develop strategies
for ensuring that rights are upheld and they promote equality
in the classroom and playground. They begin to behave as the citizens
of the world they have been taught they are;
— children are able to generalise their
work on rights, respect and responsibilities throughout the school,
into other lessons, and into a greater concern for children in
other parts of the world;
— children develop a broader concept
of community and their social understanding is expanded;
— classroom discussions are characterised
by the use of more sophisticated language;
— there is a significant improvement
in children's behaviour, their self esteem and social confidence;
they are more ready to accept responsibility for their errors
and classroom environments improve;
— the self-awareness of some children
increases so that, for the first time, they begin to take responsibility
for themselves and their learning. "Knowing I have the right
to learn—it's up to me not to be distracted.";
— in certain schools, where detention
and exclusion statistics were high, both have dropped significantly.
In one case, detentions have fallen by 50% and exclusions by 70%.
In another where, three years ago, children were excluded for
a total of 101 days, this had been reduced to seven last year;
— headteachers in some schools report
that attendance has improved as a direct result of this work;
— the more teachers use rights, respect
and responsibilities, the more supportive they themselves become
of children's rights; and
— teachers' confidence and enjoyment
of teaching are enhanced; they feel more empowered.
Why does it seem to work?
Rights, respect and responsibilities improves
those areas everyone is seeking to improve and, although it is
not a cure for all the ills of schools or the wider community,
it does make a positive difference. There are four main reasons:
— the focus on the UN Convention as
the core document is the key. Finding out about it appeals to
children's self interest because they understand they are already
citizens and have rights, now, as children, unconditionally. They
are not being taught about rights they will have to earn or receive
when they become adults. It also appeals to their desire to understand
their place in the world, and tends to lead to higher self esteem;
— it removes the "moral relativism"
that has afflicted community schools, because it provides an Authority
outside the school to which children and adults can appeal. Rules
in rights, respect and responsibilities schools are not derived
from adult constructed codes, or from codes written by children
that are guided by adults, but from the Convention itself, and
this allows children to see that rules must be based on rights
and the responsibility to respect them. This tends to lead to
greater maturity in behaviour, a better social understanding,
and an appreciation of the rights of other people;
— the work provides a language that
can be used to resolve conflict between children, and between
children and adults; and
— teachers—and other adults—are
positive about the work and show commitment to the ideas, and
children respond much better as a result. Not only are teachers
generally comfortable with the philosophical base of the work
but they appreciate the practical benefits too: higher order language
skills among the children, less disruption in their lessons, and
more time to teach.
24 October 2005
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