Creating codes of conduct with young people by Calvert Stephens, Youth Band Leader on Base Studios’ The Junction project

Young people coming up with their own code of conduct.

In my opinion, a code of conduct is something everyone involved should abide by, respect and understand. So, instead of laying down rules to follow, I asked the young people in my group in The Junction project to form rules they thought were necessary so that they would understand them from day one.

We did this in first session and we came up with some familiar rules that everyone agreed upon:

1. Don’t play any instrument whilst people are talking

2. No swearing

3. Have an open mind to ideas whilst writing new songs and music

We didn’t create a large amount of rules and I believe that this helped the students feel freer and relaxed in the sessions.

Now, I will admit that I had some influence on the rules (namely number 2), however they did agree and this method did help the young people remember the rules as they had come up with them. Also, we didn’t have any issues with the 3rd rule as they all respected each other enough to hear and try each idea out and give an honest opinion of what they thought.

All in all, letting the young people have a say in the rules they would have to abide by definitely had a positive impact, so much so that one young person wrote that the best part of the project was, “the independence of being able to be our own band and make our own decisions.”

I am just about to start work with a new band on The Junction project and it will be interesting to see whether they come up with the same set of rules as the first one!