Since its introduction in 1989, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) has inspired countless books, articles and resources to help educators learn and teach about children’s rights. However, much to the frustration of Early Years Practitioners across the UK, a high percentage of the literature produced around children’s rights tends to exclusively focus on Primary and Secondary aged children. An apparent scarcity of UNCRC resources created specifically for Early Years can perpetuate the myth that rights are something children have to wait until primary school to learn about, or, force Early Years practitioners to try and adapt or ‘water-down’ resources and activities designed for much older children. Sadly, both approaches often lead to missed opportunities and superficial learning around children’s rights.

“The early years are a critical period for realising Children’s Rights.”United Nations

Early Years are Critical

Since the UNCRC came into force, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has identified specific issues that require further clarification from the original document. General Comment No.7 was adopted in 2005 in response to the observation by the UNCRC that the rights and capabilities of young children were being entirely overlooked due to perceptions of immaturity. Within this follow-up document, the Committee clarified that “the early years are a critical period for realising children’s rights” (United Nations 2006, p. 3) and decreed that even the very youngest children be respected as active members of families and communities, with their own concerns, interests and points of view.

“Before young children are able to understand the abstract concept of ‘having rights’ or talk about rights, they need direct experience of their rights being met, enacted and prioritised within their everyday interactions, spaces and experiences.”

Padlet of Resources

To help Early Years Practitioners meet this requirement and access the modest but growing canon of literature around children’s rights in the Early Years, The City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) Early Years Team has collated a bank of online resources, in hopes of establishing a one-stop shop for promoting a rights-based approach in Early Years. To access the site, pleases visit here

Learning through Rights

In addition to this, CEC’s Early Years Team have also created their own guidance documents to help practitioners engage with UNCRC articles and develop an understanding of how they weave through national guidance and translate into meaningful, everyday experiences for young children and babies. The key messages within these documents do not claim to be anything new, but rather highlight the link between the rights of the child and what is often referred to as ‘best practice’ in Early Years.

“Rights are not an add on, they are woven through every aspect of the ethos and provision of the service. Staff interactions with children are loving and caring and support children to understand their rights, not as an activity to be planned but as an everyday experience.”Doreen Watson (Care Inspectorate)

New Guidance Documents

Embedding the UNCRC and strengthening rights-based approaches among Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) providers is a current priority within Edinburgh’s Early Years Improvement Framework 2021-24. However, for practitioners working directly with young children, the challenge of promoting children’s rights in a way that is age and stage appropriate can often be daunting, particularly for those working with very young or non-verbal children. Using UNICEF’s helpful distinction between learning about rights and learning through rights, the CEC’s guidance document ‘Learning Through Rights in the Early Years: Weaving the UNCRC through Policy, Provision and Everyday Practice’ recommends that from an Early Years perspective, learning and teaching through rights should take priority until a child is developmentally ready to grasp the concept of rights.

‘Before young children are able to understand the abstract concept of ‘having rights’ or talk about rights, they need direct experience of their rights being met, enacted and prioritised within their everyday interactions, spaces and experiences.” (Learning Through Rights in the Early Years, pg.2)

While the main document provides helpful guidance and examples of how young children and babies can experience and learn through their rights, there is also a separate reflection tool to help ELC settings evaluation their current provision and practice through an UNCRC lens. Both documents are currently available to download on CEC – Edinburgh Early Years Teams page or via their UNCRC resource bank (first column – key documents).