Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA)

'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. Our Rights 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.

Using the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as our guide, we are working with more UK schools than almost any other organisation. Over 1.5 million children in the UK go to a Rights Respecting School and more than 4,500 schools up and down the country are working through the Award. Schools work with us on a journey to become fully Rights Respecting.

The Award recognises a school’s achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into practice within the school and beyond.'

At Prescot Primary, we believe in the ethos and spirit behind this award. We achieved our BRONZE award in 2019 and are very proud to share that we have recently been awarded our SILVER award. We are now 'RIGHTS AWARE'.

'Silver: Rights Aware is granted to schools that make good progress towards embedding the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into their ethos and curriculum. Silver: Rights Aware is the second stage of the Rights Respecting Schools Award, preceding Gold: Rights Respecting. Both accreditations are valid for a period of three years.'

Read more about the SILVER accreditation here:

https://www.unicef.org.uk/rights-respecting-schools/getting-started/silver/what-is-silver/

Our work towards the SILVER accreditation has included:

Weekly whole school assemblies, and associated class assemblies, use UNICEF's resources to explore the articles from the Convention on the Rights of the Child. These may be linked to mental health, online safety, identity or equality. See a sample assembly plan below.
Each class has created its own Class Charter that encourages children to behave in a 'rights respecting' manner. We find that these behaviour principles work in perfect harmony with our own set of school values.
Children in Y3, Y4, Y5 and Y6 have at least one PSHE Conference each year. These are days full of activities exploring the rights of the child alongside various aspects of safeguarding, diversity and an awareness of global citizenship.
Establishing a 'Steering Group' of adults and children who help to drive the programme across school. This captures the voice of the child and adds to the important jobs our pupils leaders already do.
Staff CPD to secure a commitment from the whole staff to the principles of the RRS and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Planning review: Where we can thread and embed issues and themes of the UN Convention across our curriculum so that the children visit and revisit important concepts throughout their learning journey at PCP.

Click on each page to read more about our work in the above areas.

We now intend to work towards the Gold accreditation. This will include a review of our Behaviour Policy inline with the principles of a Rights Respecting School.

Click this link to watch our video that shows how everyday life at Prescot Primary is underlined by the articles of children's rights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iln_Ol17Ii4