Narberth 2017 – 18 (follow-on)
Civil rights and freedoms (includes identity, information, privacy/image, freedom of association, assembly, thought, conscience and religion, non-discrimination and remedies) · Education/leisure/cultural activities (includes school, training, skills and employability) · UN Theme
Narberth was selected as a Little Voices Being Heard ‘Follow On’ project; to conduct further evidence-based research on their recommendations and impact from the previously funded Little Voices Shouting Out project, ‘Education, Politics and Decision Making’ (2014-2017). The pupil management board undertook a review of previous recommendations and actions and decided they would like to research further into the education they receive on the things they felt were important to them that would help them engage more in decision making.
RQ: What is it important to pupils in our school to learn to help them engage in decision-making?
Methods: Wall chart tally with pupils in the school; dot voting
Findings: Top priorities for learning: (not in ranked order)
- Terrorism
- Human Rights
- Drug Awareness
- Homelessness
- Sport and Leisure
- Healthy Living
- Healthy Relationships
- Animal Rights
- Racism
- Disability Rights
- How to stay safe form abuse
- How to manage money
Outcomes/Impact
To co-create their curriculum the children brainstormed what they would like to learn across the most voted topics and the teaching methods they would prefer teachers to use to teach them. They selected Terrorism to develop a detailed lesson plan.
Swansea University Cyber Terrorism project (Research assistant Amy-Louise Watkins) and Dr. Orla Lehane (Dublin City University) worked with Helen Dale (Little Voices) to create a lesson plan on Terrorism using the pupils research questions. This was piloted with parents, pupil management board and head teacher and further presented by Amy-Louise Watkins and Helen Dale at a training event for teachers at Swansea University: ‘How to create lesson plans for sensitive subject areas’.
The project report and lesson plan were shared at the Senedd for the Children, Young People and Democracy in Wales event hosted by Swansea University, attended by the public and decision makers.