Rights Respecting School
Why the Rights Respecting School Award?
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is based on an analysis of what children need in order to thrive. These needs can be grouped into four categories:
- To survive as a fit and healthy person
- To be protected from harm and abuse
- To develop physically, mentally and socially
- To participate as an active citizen
We are now a Bronze Rights Respecting School
The award recognises achievement under the following four aspects of school life:
- Leadership and management for embedding the values of the UNCRC in the life of the school
- Knowledge and understanding of CRC
- Classroom climate and culture: rights-respecting classroom
- Pupils actively participate in decision-making throughout the school
Some of the Articles of CRC:
Article 12: Every child has the right to say what they think in all matters affecting them, and to have their views taken seriously.
Article 13: Every child must be free to say what they think and to seek and receive information of any kind as long as it is within the law.
Article 28: Every child has the right to an education. Primary education must be free. Secondary education must be available to every child. Discipline in schools must respect children’s human dignity. Wealthy countries must help poorer countries achieve this.
Article 29: Education must develop every child’s personality, talents and abilities to the full. It must encourage the child’s respect for human rights, as well as respect for their parents, their own and other cultures, and the environment.
Article 31: Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.
UNICEF UK believes that the principles and values of the CRC should be embedded in the ethos and curriculum of every school. This is the purpose of the Rights Respecting School Award.
UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting School Award (RRSA) provides a framework to help schools to use CRC as the basis for their ethos. In a rights respecting school, children learn about their rights and the responsibilities that are implied. Children learn to associate rights with needs and distinguish between their rights and ‘wants’. They learn that if they have rights, they need to respect the rights of others.
Check out all of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child here.
