Engaging young people with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

At the moment we are revamping the GCSE Economic Geography Unit. As Priory is striving to be a Rights Respecting School, and the fact that I believe that children should engage with controversial issues using the language of rights and responsibility, here is a brief description of how we’ve worked the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into a case study about the environmental impact of an economic activity. To me, this is a no brainer as using the framework, students not only engage more deeply with the topic, but also gain an insight into a controversial issue.

Oil and the environment from David Rogers

This is an extract from our Scheme of Work, so please forgive the shorthand:

What is the environmental price of our love affair with oil?

Do Now - Bing start page - what jobs etc.

Show this image and play beat the teacher: what event does this image represent. Follow up by playing this poetry.

Flickr Search of images - BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico whilst listening to Audio interview. Students to record in pairs SEE impacts. Lengthen these to disaster chains. Focus on the environment, which rights of children may have been infringed - focus on Article 24 - Health and health services. The environmental impacts could have long term health effects. Children in the area sometimes have bleeding from the ears in classrooms. Consider this Fact Sheet aimed at children and highlighting the impacts of crude oil exposure. Opportunity to look at science fact and uncertainty. Link students lives to dependency on oil. Use the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child available here. (there are laminated copies of both available) Use the development compass rose to ask questions about the oil spill - this is good practice for developing CA questions.

Do we have the right to freeze duty on fuel? Consider the Sun’s campaign to keep the price of fuel down. If we are to protect the environment for future generations, shouldn't we make fuel really expensive to encourage drivers onto public transport? Play devils advocate, e.g. would you accept a £2 rise in the cost of bread for higher fuel prices?

Carousel -

Whilst watching Stephen Fry’s investigation

1. iPads / computers / netbooks - investigate the news stories around the time and record the environmental impacts. Some nice specific detail on the C4 news site here.

2. WideWorld Magazine - 22 /3

3. Map give outline map of the gulf of mexico and the map on the back of World Wide 24/1.

4. Google Earth files on the spill.

5. ERMA Deepwater Gulf Response

Spend 6 minutes at each station - getting information about the environmental cost. CASE STUDY. How were new technologies used to help?

What if this happened in the UK? Shetland set for deep water drilling.

Engaging the students with the Convention turned out to be very powerful, especially when considering the environmental and social impact of the oil spill.

Photos thanks to @GeoDebs. Some images are Copyright and I have contacted the user for permission.

High Impact, Low effort

This month is the start of the #29daysofwriting challenge. I enjoyed this last year and will be using my Staffrm account to post. I'll also be reporting here, both to give a little more detail and to keep a log of what I have written. The challenge developed a great sense of community last year, which is why I'm choosing to write on Staffrm. What I would say to those who are new to writing or don't want to run out of ideas is: Write for yourself. Clarify an idea, write something out loud. The process of distilling thoughts into writing is immensely beneficial to your practice. If other read, comment and respond, that's a bonus. Ignore the muppets who know nothing of your context, style or students. Mix it up - I like to read about real stuff from real classrooms and schools and also about other stuff. If we always write about school, how does that work for workload? If you've nothing nice to say, don't say it. So, the following has been ...

What makes a learning experience profound? Personal reflections and possible implications for classroom practice.

I have recently begun a Leadership Pathways journey. As part of the first core day, we were asked to reflect on a profound learning experience. This got me thinking about how many profound learning experiences I have both been involved in, and how many I have been able to give to others. Our group came up with a huge long list, but these are my five. Emotional Connected Demanding Reflective Collaborative As always, these are personal thoughts and quite mixed up. I put them here so that I can look back on them (plus they’d get lost inside my world-cup-free brain) 1. Emotional I can’t think of a time where deep learning hasn’t engaged my emotions. From being awe inspired to that tingle feeling when a student gets a light bulb moment. From this-is-the-happiest-day-ever, to I-think-I’m-about-to die. How often do we engage the emotions of those we teach? Here, I would argue that having a safe learning environment i...

Banned Word Board

Today I want to share some simple ideas that I have found to be very effective in the classroom. I can't say that they are my own original ideas, although I have played around with them. The first is the Banned word Board. This is a simple display in the classroom that lists a number of words that are not allowed to be used by pupils in their written or oral answers. The effect has been an increase in the quality of written work, and I have almost made comments such as 'Sir it's simple, the stuff just affects the thing and causes people problems'. Pupils are now more able to use specific language, something that is vital especially at GCSE. I have had to make a few modifications, such as the introduction of 'Heavenly Words' This is an additional display placed on the ceiling. I found this necessary as pupils needed some stimulus in finding replacement words. After advice received after posting the idea on the SLN forum , I have also introduced semi-banned words...

David Rogers

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