UNICEF Rights Respecting School

Yenton is a Rights Respecting School

Yenton Primary School is proud to be a Rights Respecting School. Our school has Unicef Rights Respecting accreditation, which recognises our commitment to creating safe and inspiring places to learn, where children are respected, their talents are nurtured and they are able to thrive.

Developing a Rights Respecting ethos in all our schools ensures that these values are embedded in daily school life, giving children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives and to be responsible, active citizens, both locally and globally.

What does it mean to be a rights respecting school?

The Rights Respecting Schools Award puts children’s rights at the heart of schools in the UK. Unicef works with schools in the UK to create safe and inspiring places to learn, where children are respected, their talents are nurtured and they are able to thrive. Unicef’s Respecting Schools Award embeds these values in daily school life and gives children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives and to be responsible, active citizens.

There are three stages to the Rights Respecting Schools Award. Its transformative and rigorous approach means the journey to the highest stage can take a number of years.

Together young people and the school community learn about children’s rights, putting them into practice every day. The Award is not just about what children do but also, importantly, what adults do. In Rights Respecting Schools, children’s rights are promoted and realised, adults and children work towards this goal together. The Award recognises a school’s achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into practice within the school community and beyond.

What are the children's rights?

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, or UNCRC, is the basis of all of Unicef’s work. It is the most complete statement of children’s rights ever produced and is the most widely-ratified international human rights treaty in history.

The Convention has 54 articles that cover all aspects of a child’s life and set out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights that all children everywhere are entitled to. It also explains how adults and governments must work together to make sure all children can enjoy all their rights. Every child has rights, whatever their ethnicity, gender, religion, language, abilities or any other status.

Please see the rights overview for a summary of Articles 1 - 42:

Why become a Rights Respecting School?

• It develops a common language to build the schools vision and values.
• They are an inalienable set of rights which the children have a right to know (Article 42)
• Children and young people become actively involved in the learning process
• Children and young people take responsibility for respecting their right to an education, and the rights of others
• It is an efficient and effective framework for school Improvement
• To build good global citizens

What is the impact of being a rights respecting school?

• Everyone in the school community has a clear framework of reference
• Children become advocates for their own learning: “Learning is not what’s done to us anymore – we are responsible for leading it – it’s our right” (Girl aged 10 years)
• Improved behaviours for Learning
• Less passive and more active learners
• Improved results

Article 3 (Best interests of the child): The best interests of children must be the primary concern in making decisions that may affect them. All adults should do what is best for children. When adults make decisions, they should think about how their decisions will affect children. This particularly applies to budget, policy and law makers.

Surely with rights becomes responsibility?

The Convention defines a ‘child’ as a person below the age of 18. Anyone above that age is known as a duty-bearer. Children are not responsible for upholding their rights, a five-year-old for example, cannot be responsible for ensuring that they are not kidnapped or physically abused. Duty-bearers are responsible for teaching children about their rights, and for up-holding them. Children are responsible for respecting their rights, and the rights of others.

Yenton's Rights Respecting School Steering Group

Who Are We?

The Rights Respecting School Steering Group is made up of pupils, staff and adults from the wider community. We meet regularly to discuss how we can foster rights-respecting values in our school and local area.

What Are We About?

• The steering group is helping the school to achieve the Rights Respecting School Award Status.
• We are telling children about their rights and responsibilities.
• We are helping people understand that we all have rights and responsibilities.
• We are improving pupil voice throughout our school.

What Have We Been Doing?

In 2020/21 we have:

• We have continued to survey children, teachers and parents to see how we are meeting rights and responsibilities in our school.
• We raised awareness of our rights and the work the group is doing by speaking in assembly and putting up displays around the school.
• We communicated information about our goals and the RRS Award.
• We used assemblies to share information about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) with parents and our school community.
• We have recruited lots of new members to our Steering Group from the wider school community.
• We wrote rights and responsibilities charters for the communal areas of our school – all pupils will vote and agree on these and when we put them out on display.
• We have embedded rights and responsibilities into all of our school policies.
• We have a portfolio of evidence to show the work we have been doing, in preparation for our assessment.
• We have finished our whole-school charter.

In 2021/22 we have:

• We have continued with the above and revised as appropriate
• We introduced our Healthy Food focus project
• We completed a Forest School Charter
• We completed our Classroom, Playground and Dining Room charters
• We had a focus Article each Month which was linked to work within the curriculum
• We achieved our Silver Rights Respecting School Award
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What Have The Whole School Been Doing?

• Each class has taken turns to talk about rights and responsibilities in our assemblies.
• Each Key stage 2 class elected an RRS representative to join the steering group.
• The Steering Group promotes the School Charter to the whole community
• The pupils and teachers worked together to create a Class Charter for their rooms.
• All classes have been busy learning about rights and responsibilities through curriculum focus weeks and PSHE/Relationships education.
• All classes have contributed to displays around the school focusing on rights and responsibilities.
• We helped with fundraising for lots of charities who support children’s basic rights including supporting Red Nose Day, Children in Need and Odd Sock Day.

How can I get involved?

We have a child-led steering groups at school and would welcome any involvement from parents or carers. It is not a massive commitment, more an opportunity to support the children in developing a rights respecting ethos through attending one or two meetings across the year.

Please contact the RRS lead, Mrs Berriman if you would like to get involved or for any further information: enquiry@yentonprimary.co.uk