Right or Not?
You’ll need
- A4 paper
- Permanent markers
- Scissors
Before you begin
- Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
- Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
- Make sure you have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help.
Planning and Setting up this activity
- For this activity, you will need to print the resources and cut out the cards. This can be done as a whole group or in smaller groups with support from an adult or young leader.
- You can run this activity in different ways depending on your group. For example, you could create two piles on the floor labelled Want and Need and have young people place their token in the pile that matches their answer, work together as a group to decide where each card belongs and place it in the correct box, or set up different corners of the room for young people to move to, representing their choice.
- You can use the Scouts Cymru Rights Award booklet to support this activity.
- All the rights for young people are written on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
- For Squirrels and Beavers, rights can be explained as the things all children need to grow up happy, healthy and safe.
- You may wish to use this Song, Lyrics, or poster to help your group learn about their rights.
Running this activity
- Gather everyone together and explain that today they will be learning about their rights.
- Tell them that rights are the things all children need to grow up happy, healthy, and safe.
- Show a card to the group and ask, “Is this something you need, or something you want?”
- The young people can answer in whichever way your group has chosen, such as saying their answer out loud together, placing a token or coin on the answer, or moving to the corner of the room for Want or Need.
- After each card, ask the young people, “Why did you choose that?” and encourage them to share their ideas. Continue going through all the cards, one at a time.
- When all the cards have been shown, ask the young people which things they remember and how the activity made them feel.
- Finally, let them know that there is a long list of their rights called the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and you could show them a poster to help them see and understand it.
Extended the activity for Beavers
- Place cards labelled Yes, No, and Maybe around the room.
- Explain to the young people that you are going to ask them some questions, and they should stand by the card that reflects their answer.
- After each question, you could discuss why they chose what they did.
- Children rights is for children aged 3 – 18. (No – remind pupils that ALL children aged 0 -18 have children’s rights – Article 1).
- Adults should do what’s best for children (Yes – this links to Article 3)
- Children have the right to eat chocolate every day (No – they have a right to be as healthy as possible – Article 24)
- Children have the right to be kept safe (Yes – links to Article 19)
- All children have the right to meet with friends and join clubs – like this one! (Yes – links to Article 15)
- Children have a right to a mobile phone (No – whilst it may help keep them safe, this list is for ALL children in the world and was written in 1989 – there is not a right to have a mobile phone)
Reflection
In this activity you learnt about your rights. You found out that rights are the things all children need to grow up happy, healthy, and safe. Using the cards to sort wants and needs was fun because everyone could join in. Some of you moved to different corners of the room, some put a token on the answer, and some said it out loud as a group. It was interesting to see how everyone thought about the cards in different ways. Some things were needs, like food and a safe home, and some were wants, like toys or sweets. You also talked about why you chose your answers and listened to each other’s ideas. At the end, you remembered lots of the things you need and thought about how it feels to have them. You learned that all the things' children need are written in a long list called the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, or UNCRC, and you even got to see a poster with some of the rights on it. The game helped you understand your rights in a fun way and made you think about what is important for all children.
Safety
All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.
You must run your activities in line with the Safeguarding Code of Conduct for Adults (Yellow Card) and report any concerns to the UK HQ Safeguarding Team.
- Scissors
Supervise young people appropriately when they’re using scissors. Store all sharp objects securely, out of the reach of young people.
Make it accessible
All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.
If you enjoyed this activity, you could try the next right activity to continue your award - Know your children's commissioner