UNCRC Drama Workshop

On Wednesday of last week Séamus Quinn came to our Fifth Class classroom to speak to us about the Ombudsman and the Rights of the Child. Séamus told us he was from the Ombudsman Office for Children in Dublin and where he is a drama teacher and a therapist.

We learned that the Ombudsman works to protect all children in Ireland. He also makes sure all children’s rights are being protected or as much as they possibly can be.

The first thing we did with Séamus was play a few games to warm up which were great fun. After that he asked if we had any questions about the UNCRC and we had a great discussion. The UNCRC stands for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and this year they are celebrating their 25th anniversary. Séamus said there were only two countries in the world who have not yet signed the agreement, and they are Somalia and The United States of America.

After all of that Séamus went into role as Mr Wright (the president of the world in 2042). Before Christmas we had made posters on the UNCRC. We were divided into groups and were given four rights to illustrate. So we got them back and Séamus went into role as the character Mr Wright and he announced that he had narrowed the 42 rights down to only 6 and our task was to write a letter to him to tell him how we felt and to choose in our groups, six rights which we felt were the most important. We were all so outraged at the request and found the task very difficult.
Once we had ‘sent our letters’, Mr Wright made another announcement saying he cut the rights down to 5 which we couldn’t believe!! What we learned from that task was that we are entitled to all 42 rights and they should never be divided into more important or less important, all must be protected.

The next task Séamus did was he got a humongous poster and we got a marker and traced around a student’s body. We then wrote about the 42 rights and who helps us protect those rights and ensures we receive them. We drew small pictures to represent them too which was fun. Overall this day was so great and interesting and we learnt so much. Thank you Ms Henry and Séamus for opening up our eyes to the importance of the UNCRC!

Thank you to the students of 5th Class for this detailed report!