Rights Respecting School
Our school's Christian Vision has at its heart the importance of treating each other as we would want to be treated ourselves, with respect and dignity, making sure that each person is valued. This is one of the reasons why the work of UNICEF and Rights Respecting Schools is so significant to us.
We are incredibly proud to be a Rights Respecting school and of having achieved the Gold: Rights Respecting level.
What is a Rights Respecting School?
The UNICEF UK Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) is based on principles of equality, dignity, respect, non-discrimination and participation. The RRSA seeks to put the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 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.
We believe in treating everybody with respect and dignity because we acknowledge everyone's God given value and unique identity
A rights-respecting school is a community where children’s rights are learned, taught, practised, respected, protected and promoted. Young people and the school community learn about children’s rights by putting them into practice every day.
We feel it is important that when children learn about their rights it is important that deeper connections are also made in their understanding about the nature of rights so they are taught the ABCDE of their rights.
unicEF UK Rights Respecting Schools are required to implement four evidence-based standards.
- Rights-respecting values underpin leadership and management.
- The whole school community learns about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
- The school has a rights-respecting ethos.
- Children are empowered to become active citizens and learners.
Gold: Rights Respecting is granted by UNICEF UK to schools that have fully embedded children’s rights throughout the school in their policies, practice and ethos, as outlined in the RRSA Strands and Outcomes
To find out more visit this website: https://www.unicef.org.uk/rights-respecting-schools/
Empower all to be enthusiastic learners
Within our school, we hold the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child at the centre of everything we do. We have a Rights Respecting School(RRS) committee which consists of two Rights Ambassadors from each KS1 class who are voted in by their classmates to represent them.
As well as the Rights Ambassadors there are several other school bodies to which the pupils elect representatives: the School Council, Art Council, Eco Warriors and Science Council. Each of these meet a few times each term to give pupil input to school decisions.
Be responsible to and for society
The Rights Ambassadors lead an assembly at the start of each school year to ensure that every pupil is aware of the Convention and what their rights are. During the year they are also involved in other special days which highlight one or more of those rights. These have included Anti-bullying week and Parliament week and raising funds and awareness for a number of charities. Some of the charities we have supported recently are Nasio Trust, who provide healthcare and education to families in Kenya, the NSPCC and holding food collections for the One Can Trust, a local food bank.
Each week we send out the Article of the Week as a news story that appears on our website and is sent to parents via the school app. This highlights a particular article giving the children information on an issue and some activities to do at home. During the COVID pandemic when we were not in school this was part of our remote learning to keep children engaged with the Convention and when school is open it is a part of home learning.
We are very proud that, over the past few years, several of our pupils have been inspired to take action individually on issues they are passionate about. One of our pupils wrote a letter to DEFRA about her concerns for the plight of honey bees and another undertook to litter pick around Marlow on their daily exercise walks during the Lockdown.
Sustainable Development Goals
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by member states in 2015 and were a universal call to action poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. The involvement of children and young people from a young age in understanding these goals and helping to achieve them is important. At Marlow C of E Infant School, we want to make a contribution to this and through our Curriculum, Rights Respecting Schools and Eco Schools learning, there are many actions that we have taken that show this commitment.