Description
The ongoing program developed in North Rhine-Westphalia by EDUCATION Y in cooperation with UNICEF puts every child as a subject and rights holder in the focus of school development. The approach focuses on Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to which children and adolescents are given space and encouragement for meaningful participation. The main objective is to create an inclusive, non-discriminatory, intersectional, power-critical, participatory, school- and lifeworld-based school and learning environments for all children and young people. Paradigm shift from school as a formal educational institution to a participation-oriented place of education with non-formal and informal living and learning opportunities with reference to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The main activities include intra-school development including the staff of the all-day school; incorporation of the UN CRC as a part of the school curriculum; inclusion of children's rights in the school's mission statement; and local and regional networking with extracurricular partners of youth welfare services, youth associations, and local children's and youth parliaments. Overall, there are three areas of development: Organisational development, Human Resources Development, Classroom development. Funds are provided by NRW.Bank, UnfallkasseNRW and UNICEF Germany.
- Children maintain their cultural identity while adopting new cultural values and intercultural competences
- Children's academic skills
- Children's life satisfaction / happiness
- Children's sense of belonging
- Friends and peers (bridges)
- Friends and peers (support)
- Institutions
- Teachers
Evaluation ex post
Use of various monitoring and impact analysis tools:
- Reflection talks with the trainers,
- Feedback and evaluation forms for the training programmes,
- Surveys of school stakeholders on experiences and conditions for success with regard to the school development process,
- Survey of pupils.
The positive effects became evident in the statements of educators and school administrators whose schools participated in the children's rights programme.
Contact: Elisabeth Streotmann, State Coortdinator, Email: elisabeth.stroetmann@education-y.de
Projects’ deliverables
Workshop concept and materials for the pedagogical day (including a workshop guide): Children's rights at school - online course (see link below).
Teaching Materials Collection is available for Primary and Secondary Schools at the program site, including:
- Teaching materials collection
- Background material collection (Children’s Right Report, Handbook on Human Rights Education, Inclusion, etc.)
- Educational video collection (UN CRC, SDG2030, etc.)
https://online-kurs-kickoff.kinderrechteschulen-nrw.de/ueberblick-module/
Reproducibility
Materials are freely accessible and useful for replication
https://kinderrechteschulen.de/education-y-bildung-gemeinsam-gestalten/wirkung/
Motivation for the submission
Since the IMMERSE approach is a whole-school one, this ongoing programme is analogous to IMMERSE methodolgy and reflects on many indicators and beyond.