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Hi there,

There are different kinds of rights - human rights are ones that belong to every person on the planet, no matter where they are. You have rights as a citizen of your country, rights as a young person and rights as a pupil at your school. But having rights doesn't mean there won't be consequences for your actions - and some of those rights can be taken away.

The bottom line is yes, you as a human being have a right to refuse to do something like homework, but you don't have the right to do that and remain a pupil of your school. Your school can be seen as a bit like a small-scale version of the country and its rules are a bit like the laws that protect us. If you break those rules, there will be consequences. You have a right to make your own decisions and to break a rule, but you then have to face what happens because of that.

If we didn't have rules, there would be people doing whatever they wanted - which would be very chaotic. Instead of this we choose to have a set of laws that say what people can and can't do. If your school were to restrain and physically force you to do homework then this would be wrong and against your human rights. Instead they give you a choice of doing your homework and carrying on at school, or not doing it and being made to leave. You have that choice, but you'd need to think about how serious it would be if you were to be kicked out of school.

I would really think very carefully about refusing to do homework because it's important to get an education - and it is in fact another one of your rights. As a young person you have a right to an education and sometimes there needs to be rules, like homework, to make sure you are getting that.

It is a complicated question and not one I can really answer fully here. You might want to try asking the same question over at the message boards to see what other young people think about this.

Thanks for the letter.

Sam