Here you will find a huge range of ideas, resources and support for teaching across different ages by human rights theme.
Our resources are written by specialist advisors, they encourage engaged classroom discussions about human rights using creative approaches to understanding truth, freedom and justice.
Here you will find a huge range of ideas, resources and support for teaching across different ages by human rights theme.
Our resources are written by specialist advisors, they encourage engaged classroom discussions about human rights using creative approaches to understanding truth, freedom and justice.
This resource is designed to support teachers to introduce human rights to children aged 3-5. It’s the perfect starting point to engage children in discussion and raise awareness of their own rights in a fun and interactive way.
In First Steps there are five themed lesson plans each focusing on relevant articles proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights covering feelings, relationships and belonging, choices and voices, well-being and bodies.
Activities include stories, games, music, art and photography.
Flora Popescu’s parents are planning to
defect when daily life suddenly brings
frightening changes – some linked to a
friendship between Flora and a new boy
at school. Unlike his poor classmates,
Daniel dresses and eats well, and his
father ranks high in the secret police.
Flora slowly realises that her father is in
danger and only she can save him from
the secret police.
This is a compelling story about the
Crimean Tatars’ struggle to reclaim the
land from which they were exiled in
World War II. All her life, Safi’s parents
dreamed of returning to her grandpa’s
native village in Crimea. But they end
up exchanging their sunny Uzbekistan
house for a squalid camp where no one
welcomes them. The story explores
how the struggle threatens to tear Safi’s
family apart, and asks if this strange
land can ever become home.
This resource supports educators to introduce students, aged 7 -13, to young people’s rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The session plan below will help students think about what rights are important to them and understand that everyone is equally entitled to Human Rights. It will also give them the opportunity to explore the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to understand that young people have special rights that are unique to them.
Session 9 - respect
In this session students look at the subtleties and connotations of language, and the impact words have in describing a person or event and how that influences us. They read The Right Word by Imtiaz Dharker, which explores how we see and label other people, before creating their own poem about respect.
About Words that Burn
Words That Burn challenges you to take action for human rights through poetry.
Using this resource secondary schools can explore human rights through poetry, with 10 free educational resources designed to help students develop their own writing and performance style.
This is national project to explore and express human rights through poetry by Amnesty International in partnership with Cheltenham festivals.
Session 9 - words that burn
Case studies and films show that we all have the power to stand up for human rights through poetry. As an example, three well-known poets take on Amnesty International’s Make a Difference in a Minute challenge – to perform a human rights poem in one minute. Challenge your students to do this too.
Every term session plan 10 can be used to introduce your students to a particular human rights theme and individual at risk of human rights violation. Students can write their own poems and discover the impact their voice and their poetry can have.
About Words that Burn
Words That Burn challenges you to take action for human rights through poetry.
Using this resource secondary schools can explore human rights through poetry, with 10 free educational resources designed to help students develop their own writing and performance style.
This is national project to explore and express human rights through poetry by Amnesty International in partnership with Cheltenham festivals.
Session 4 - change
In this session students learn that everyone has a role to play in upholding human rights – in their school, community and world. They read poetry that acknowledges struggles and difficulties but also possibilities to positively change the world. Students write their own dream for the future triggered by I Dream A World by Langston Hughes.
About Words that Burn
Words That Burn challenges you to take action for human rights through poetry.
Using this resource secondary schools can explore human rights through poetry, with 10 free educational resources designed to help students develop their own writing and performance style.
This is national project to explore and express human rights through poetry by Amnesty International in partnership with Cheltenham festivals.
We have the right to friends and family.
Bring together pictures of your important people to celebrate your friends and family.
Each week we will share more bite size ideas for fun and creative ways to learn about human rights.
You’ll need
Colouring pencils and/or pens, paper, craft materials
What to do
Who are your important people? Draw, find, or take a picture of people who are special to you – pets and toys included!
Make a collage or make a belonging tree. Don’t forget to include yourself!
Share a picture or hold it up when you are connecting with friends and family.
We are all born free and human rights belong to all of us.
Be a human rights detective to find out more about our rights.
Each week we will share more bite size ideas for fun and creative ways to learn about human rights.
You’ll need
Right Up Your Street and a copy of the UDHR
What to do
Be a human rights detective! Using a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, can you spot: People asking for their rights? Enjoying and using their rights? Having their rights denied?
Can you draw a picture of where you live to show people enjoying some of the rights in the UDHR?
Explore the impact of poverty, and the changes needed to ensure everyone’s right to live with dignity. Three lessons, an assembly and films about residents of a Kenyan community and their fight for human rights to download below.
Search on Vimeo for the Lesson 1 Film - Deep Sea
Search on Vimeo for the Lesson 3 Film - Nyamalo Interview
We all have a duty to each other.
Write messages to show solidarity with the people in your home.
You’ll need
Paper, pens
What to do
Write poems or notes to leave around your house for the people you live with. Think about what would make people feel happy or moved and let that shape what you write. Where can you put your notes so that they will be a lovely surprise?
Share your messages with us.
Amnesty’s education work is supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
This Words That Burn bitesize blog series explores the power of poetry. We will introduce you to some incredible poets and share simple activities you can do to inspire your own poetry.
You can find links to all the blog posts below:
Blog 1: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/classroom-community/words-burn-introducing-our-bitesize-poetry-series
Blog 2: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/classroom-community/words-burn-reflect-through-poetry
Blog 3: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/classroom-community/words-burn-feel-through-poetry
Blog 4: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/classroom-community/words-burn-question-through-poetry
Blog 5: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/classroom-community/words-burn-listen-through-poetry
Blog 6: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/classroom-community/words-burn-dream-through-poetry
Blog 7: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/classroom-community/words-burn-demand-through-poetry
Blog 7: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/classroom-community/words-burn-celebrate-through-poetry
If you find these resources useful you can also find our full Words That Burn resources on TES or on the Amnesty website.
Lluniwyd yr adnodd hwn i fod yn gytbwys a hwyluso dadl a thrafodaeth agored ymhlith myfyrwyr 14 oed a hŷn o blaid ac yn erbyn y gosb eithaf.
Mae’n cynnwys gweithgareddau a ffeithiau i archwilio’r gosb eithaf. Mae’n ystyried y dadleuon o blaid ac yn erbyn, ac yn gofyn sut mae dienyddio wedi dod yn fater hawliau dynol. Gall myfyrwyr hefyd archwilio effaith byw ar res yr angau ac ystyried p’un a yw’n deg dedfrydu plant i farwolaeth.
Mae’r adnodd yn cynnwys sgript ar gyfer gwasanaeth a thrafodaeth. Mae hefyd yn defnyddio ffilmiau, astudiaethau achos a data i bobl ifanc ysgrifennu amdanynt.
Mae Amnest yn gwrthwynebu defnyddio’r gosb eithaf ym mhob achos ac ar gyfer pob trosedd, p’un a yw rhywun yn ddieuog neu’n euog.
This resource is designed to be balanced and facilitate open debate and discussion for and against the death penalty for students aged 14+.
It includes activities and facts to explore the death penalty. It looks at the arguments in favour and against, and asks how capital punishment has become a human rights issue. Students can also examine the impact of living on death row and consider whether it is fair to sentence children to death.
The resource includes an assembly script and debate. It also uses films, case studies and data for young people to write about.
Amnesty opposes the use of the death penalty in all cases and for all crimes, whether someone is innocent or guilty.
Also available in English and Arabic.
Session 5 - witness
In this session poet Emtithal Mahmoud asks students to ‘bear witness’ to her experiences of genocide in Darfur. Students look at poetic responses to war and human rights abuses to understand that poetry can destroy silence and create remembrance. They then choose a photograph and let events speak through their writing.
About Words that Burn
Words That Burn challenges you to take action for human rights through poetry.
Using this resource secondary schools can explore human rights through poetry, with 10 free educational resources designed to help students develop their own writing and performance style.
This is national project to explore and express human rights through poetry by Amnesty International in partnership with Cheltenham festivals.
We all have the right to have our own thoughts and ideas and to share them
Make faces to show different feelings.
Each week we will share more bite size ideas for fun and creative ways to learn about human rights.
You’ll need:
A mirror, feelings resource sheet
What to do
Look in the mirror or look at someone else and make sad/happy faces. Can you make a face to express fear and anger too? Look at the faces on the sheets or the screen – what are they feeling? What other words can we use for these feelings?
Amnesty’s education work is supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
Human rights belong to all of us
Colour the freedoms that belong to all of us.
Each week we will share more bite size ideas for fun and creative ways to learn about human rights.
You’ll need:
Freedom colouring pages, colouring pencils and/or pens
What to do:
Print out the colouring pages to see how Chris Riddell has illustrated the freedoms that belong to all of us.
Colour them in and add to the drawings.
Amnesty’s education work is supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
We are all born free.
Make a kite to celebrate our right to freedom.
Each week we will share more bite size ideas for fun and creative ways to learn about human rights.
You’ll need
Paper, paint or colouring pencils, scissors, string or ribbon
What to do
Draw a kite shape and decorate it with a scene in which you feel free. Cut it out and add string or ribbon.
If you let your kite go, where would it travel? Who might find it? Can you write or draw a story showing what might happen?
Amnesty’s education work is supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
Human rights belong to everybody.
Celebrate what makes you unique with a self-portrait.
Each week we will share more bite size ideas for fun and creative ways to learn about human rights.
You’ll need
Paper, paint or colouring pencils
What to do
What makes you different to everyone else? What do you have in common with your friends? Why is it important to be yourself?
Draw a picture or self-portrait that emphasises something that makes you unique.
Can you create a gallery of self-portraits by your friends and family?
Amnesty’s education work is supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
Two Welsh language one-hour lessons for students to use UN Convention Against Torture definitions to judge which interrogation techniques amount to torture, then consider whether governments should be allowed to interrogate terrorist suspects using these methods.