St Catherine's RC Primary SchoolRights Respecting School
In September 2018, we began our journey to become a ‘Rights Respecting School’, achieving BRONZE accreditation in 2019 and SILVER accreditation in February 2020. As of December 2021, we are now a GOLD Rights Respecting school!
What is a 'Rights Respecting School'?
‘A UNICEF UK Rights Respecting School is a community where children’s rights are learned, taught, practised, respected, protected and promoted. Children and the school community learn about children’s rights by putting them into practice every day.’ (RRSA website)
In addition to this our children will develop a deeper understanding and respect for other people’s religions, cultures, beliefs and abilities and have a wider and deeper understanding of the world in which we live.
Who are UNICEF?
UNICEF is the world’s leading organisation working for children and their rights.
What is the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child?
In 1989, governments across the world promised that every child would have the same rights when they adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The convention tells everyone what they must do to make sure that every child can grow, learn, be safe, can be listened to and treated fairly.
There are 43 articles relating to children’s rights in the charter.
What is a global citizen?
Global citizenship is an important part of our children's education.
A global citizen in a Rights Respecting School is someone who knows their rights, believes everybody has rights and is committed to working towards a world where everyone can access their rights. At St Catherine’s we are striving to develop outward looking global citizens.
Children’s Rights at St Catherine’s
At St Catherine’s, both the staff and children are passionate about upholding the rights of the children.
As rights holders, the views of the children are very important to us and the UNCRC focuses our discussions during School Council Meetings. The School council act as our Rights Respecting Steering Group and suggest ways to improve our school further. As a result, pupil voice is very strong throughout the school and this has a positive impact on learning, inclusion and wellbeing.
A recent School Council meeting where children looked at PSHE provision and discussed how it could be improved.
Six rights have been chosen from the UNCRC to display around the playground. The school staff and children are responsible for ensuring these rights are met.
Our School Council showing Mr Clarke where to display one of the Articles.
As duty bearers, the staff ensure that children's rights are referenced in policies as they are updated and we regularly introduce key initiatives to focus on upholding the children's rights.
In Key Stage 2 children get to vote for their Duty Bearer of the Week. Duty Bearer of the Week nominations are run by our School Council.
Duty Bearer of the Week nominations run by our School Council.
Our school Rights Respecting logo is displayed around school with key Articles from the UNCRC. This is a reminder to everyone in school.
Children’s Rights in the community
In October, our School Council linked up with School Councillors from The Barlow to address a local litter problem. They did a litter collection and also wrote letters to the City Council asking for a litter bin to be installed along School Lane.
“It’s definitely not a clean environment at the moment, it’s like our right doesn’t exist.” - David, Year 3.
Class Charters
In each of our classrooms, we have a Class Charter which is decided upon by the children each year. This highlights key rights chosen by the children that they will focus on throughout the year to help them know, support and uphold each others' access to their rights.
