We Are A Rights Respecting School!

We Are A Rights Respecting School!

The Rights Respecting Schools Award is an initiative created by UNICEF, the world’s leading organisation working to protect and promote children’s rights.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child includes a list of articles that say what countries must do so that children can grow up as healthy as possible, learn at school, receive protection, have their views listened to, and are treated fairly so that they can fulfill their potential.

This applies equally to every child, regardless of who they are, or where they are from.

The Rights Respecting Schools Awards recognises achievement in putting these articles at the heart of a school’s ethos and culture to improve well-being and develop every child’s talents and abilities to their full potential.

Children and young people play an active role in their school becoming rights-respecting, and participation runs through all aspects of school life. For children and young people, knowing that they have the right to be heard in decisions which affect them boosts not only their sense of security but also their self confidence.

At Burdett-Coutts, our headteacher, school leaders, staff, parents and carers and pupils are committed to becoming a right-respecting school, with the children working together with adults to decide how to develop a whole-school rights-respecting approach.

We are delighted to announce that we have achieved the first stage of accreditation: Recognition of Commitment. Here are some of the actions that we’ve completed:

  • Introduced the rights at assemblies in the Autumn Term (2015)
  • A copy of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child poster as well as a Class Charter in every class
  • Completed a Class Charter learning walk (January 2016)
  • Assembled a steering group from each class year to meet each month
  • Collected and analysed pupil questionnaires from the steering group
  • Presented to parents at a coffee morning
  • Prominent displays of the children’s rights around the school
  • Pertinent articles displayed prominently around the school

The next stage on our journey is to achieve Level 1 by implementing our action plan and embedding children’s rights in our school’s practice. This usually takes between nine to twelve months and during this time, the steering group will continue to meet every month, to plan more opportunities for our pupils to learn about the Convention and its importance to the well-being of children and young people locally and globally.