Teaching Resources

Right Here, Right Now: Teaching Citizenship through Human Rights

A FREE resource for Key Stage 3 citizenship teachers

Right Here, Right Now: Teaching citizenship through human rights aims to link the concept of universal human rights with everyday experiences and help teachers examine human rights issues such as identity and diversity with students as part of the new KS3 citizenship curriculum in secondary schools in England. The resource is part of the Human Rights in Schools project, which is a partnership between the Ministry of Justice, BIHR, Amnesty International UK and the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

This resource is designed to support the delivery of the revised KS3 Citizenship curriculum to be taught from September 2008. The resource contains comprehensive background information and a series of 12 lesson plans with accompanying worksheets and resource sheets. The lessons are divided into 3 sections:

• Lessons 1 - 7: Exploring human rights - in this section students will explore key human rights concepts and values and how these are expressed in the Human Rights Act and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. They will learn about upholding human rights in our personal lives, and as part of a school, local and global community.
• Lessons 8 - 11: Human rights issues - in this section students will explore relevant domestic issues including homophobia, identities and diversity, participation and child poverty from a human rights perspective.
• Lesson 12: Taking action for human rights - in this section students will plan to take action on a human rights issue, using their knowledge and skills for taking responsibility and action. Students and teachers may choose to use this lesson as the start of an active citizenship project.

Download the resource from Teachernet.

Download the press release from the launch of the resource.

To order a print copy of Right Here, Right Now, email student@amnesty.org.uk quoting the product code ED130, your name, school name + address.

Human Rights Day 2007 Schools Pack

Human Rights Day was celebrated annually across the world on 10th December. The date was chosen to commemorate the United Nations General Assembly's adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the first global human rights document.

As part of our Human Rights in Schools project, BIHR worked with two teachers from the Teach First programme to produce a schools pack to support secondary schools to celebrate Human Rights Day, offering a taster of some of the activities in the forthcoming KS3 Citizenship resource. The Human Rights Day pack contains a range of activities, from whole-school assemblies to lesson plans which are suitable for use in secondary schools.

If you would like to receive a copy of the pack, please contact BIHR on info@bihr.org.uk.

BIHR would like to thank Ruth Owen and Sequoia Taylor, both members of the Teach First programme, for working on this pack as part of their internships with BIHR this year.