The start of a new term presents a great opportunity to create charters within your class or school.
A charter is a visual document that establishes an agreed set of rights-based principles upon which relationships can be based and which provide a language for shared values. Creating charters can support a positive learning environment for children and young people the classroom, across the whole school, in the playground or in specific departments or other areas within the school context.
Creating a charter helps to make the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) more prominent and relevant. It should be seen as a framework for both adults and children and young people on how to respect each other’s rights. A charter not only provides an opportunity to learn about specific articles from the CRC, but helps to establish and build shared values and relationships for creating a rights respecting ethos. The process of developing a charter models a rights respecting way of working in school.
We have developed guidance on creating charters which includes a background on the aims of these documents, pointers on the creative process and answers to the most frequently asked question we receive.