Keills Primary Gold Success!
Our UNICEF GOLD Rights Respecting certificate and banner has finally arrived! We are all thrilled to be able to display our success both inside and outside our school. We were informed that we had achieved Gold status at the end of last session, which was a fantastic achievement and we were all so proud. But, it is even better now that we can visually share this with everyone. This award has been the culmination of many years work – learning about, promoting and embedding children’s rights. We would like to thank former pupils, parents and our school community who have also contributed towards our Rights Respecting journey to Gold!.
‘We are very proud of ourselves because we had to do lots of work to get the Gold Award. We are delighted that the banner has come so we can display it at the front of the school. Our Gold certificate is huge, and we are looking forward to adding it to our Rights Respecting Wall. We are very pleased with our Rights Respecting Gold Award.’ P.2-4
We are proud that we received our Gold Rights Respecting award banner this week. To achieve it we had to do an interview with the whole school. We proved that we know lots about children’s rights and we are worthy of this award. In 2028 we are aiming to keep our Gold award (Gold Reaccreditation),and are confident that we will manage it! P.5/6
Remember to look out for our new GOLD Banner as you pass by the school.
UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools Award
We are delighted to announce that we have achieved the Rights Respecting schools award GOLD status!
This is a fantastic achievement and we are one of few schools across Argyll and Bute to have achieved this level of recognition.
The Award recognises achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child at the heart of a school’s planning, policies and practice. A Rights Respecting School is a community where children’s rights are learned, taught, practised, respected, protected and promoted.
We are so proud of our children’s hard work and effort over the past 4 and half years on our journey from Bronze to Gold. They did an amazing job demonstrating our school strengths as a Rights Respecting School.
It is important that we recognise that this achievement has only been made possible by the continued support of our whole school community – current and former pupils, all staff, parents, families and community members. The whole Keills family!  (June 2025)
Port Charlotte visit February 2025
Our rights respecting steering group did an excellent job sharing their learning and experiences about our ‘Rights Journey’ with the children at Port Charlotte Primary. It was a great opportunity to build confidence when talking to others. We also enjoyed a tour of the school and learning about the rights work undertaken at Port Charlotte though displays and conversations. We learnt a lot from each other. We finished off by teaching and playing our rights respecting games, making new friends in the process. Well done everyone!
RRS Open Day 2024
Parents and families participated in a Rights Respecting open afternoon, learning about children’s rights through stories, games and activities. The children did an excellent job of supporting and explaining to the adults the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) and the wellbeing indicators (Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible and Included) in a fun and engaging manner.
Learning about children’s rights and the wellbeing indicators through Literacy
As part of the children’s weekly paired reading session the children enjoyed reading our newly acquired books and matching children’s rights and the wellbeing indicators to the story.
Keills Primary receives Rights Respecting School – Silver Award!
June 2023
On the 24th May, Keills Primary School underwent a Rights Respecting Schools Accreditation for the Silver Award. After almost 3 hours of the Argyll and Bute assessor, Christine Walker, asking questions to staff, parents and children about the teaching, learning and experiences within the school, she finally announced that we had indeed met the standard for UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting School Award at Silver: Rights Aware. We were all delighted with this recognition – a massive achievement for our small school!
Our next steps is of course aiming for the Gold Award, which is achieved when children’s rights are embedded throughout the school in polices, practice and the ethos. This is a long term process which will take approximately three years! It is however a journey we are committed to and are looking forward to undertaking!
Wellbeing Indicators
As part of our journey learning about, through and for children’s rights, we have also been learning about the wellbeing indicators – SHANARRI. Through various activities we have linked the two together.
SAFE
HEALTHY
ACHIEVING
NURTURE
Pupils and staff together created our ‘Nurture Agreement’.
ACTIVE
RESPECTED, RESPONSIBLE ANDÂ Â INCLUDED
Children are included in decision making and their contributions are valued. Children are taught to show respect for themselves, each other and their environment. We support the children to be responsible and make good choices.
GIRFEC (GETTING IT RIGHT FOR EVERY CHILD) WELLBEING WHEEL
Keills Primary Celebrate ‘Childhood Day’ June 2023
Games up the field at Keills!
On the 9th June, the children at Keills Primary had a challenging but fun morning participating in the ‘Childhood Day Mile’.  The children took part in a range of sports activities which covered a distance of a mile to fundraise for the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children). The activities were planned and organised by our Rights Respecting Steering group and some additional helpers. These included travelling along the school trim trail, jumping over hurdles, an obstacle course, a football dribbling and scoring challenge as well as a conga style dance around the perimeter of the school playground.
The children have been learning about the work of the NSPCC and the support they provide for children. They have been learning and reinforcing one of the key messages – ‘Speak Out, Stay Safe’. This important message links directly to their rights which as a Rights Respecting School we are keen to share: Children have the right to be listened to and taken seriously; to be protected from being hurt or badly treated; and to help if they have been hurt, neglected and badly treated.
The children and staff would like to thank the support of our parents for their generous donations. We raised a total of £120. A fantastic achievement!
Article 1 and 2 – World Children’s Day November 2022
learned about World Children’s Day which is celebrated on 20th November every year, the date when world leaders adopted the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) in 1989. One aspect of the event is for children and young people to learn about their rights.
Article 24 – World Water Day October 2022
Continuing with our work, linked to our Rights Respecting School (Article 24 – I have the right to good quality health care, to clean water and good food), and the SHANARRI indicator Healthy, we spent time this morning on practical water based activities. All the children experienced three different activities: learning about volume, experiencing the weight of water and experimenting with different filters. We have been learning about how easily we can access clean water and, what we need and use it for. We also looked at how other children around the world do not have access to clean water. We learned how some children have to travel long distances to fetch and carry heavy loads of water, how unsafe the water is and how having doing this impacts on other aspects of their life
Article 24 – Healthy Eating August 2022
To learn about our access to ‘Good Food’ we worked on the ‘Eatwell’ topic in our classes then came together for a ‘Fruit and Vegetable Food Tasting’ session to promote our 5 a day – incorporating as many different colours of the rainbow as possible. Children were encouraged to try new foods. The response was very positive!
The event gave our cook feedback which helped to inform her of ways of incorporating popular foods to snack time and to our salad bar. The support from our cook who prepared food and to our local CO-OP who donated an amazing selection of fruit and vegetables was invaluable as we would not have been able to achieve this.
We then had a Googlemeet with Argyll and Bute Catering Team to learn more about the school lunch menus. It was interesting to learn how much time and effort is put into making sure our meals are healthy and well balanced. We asked lots of questions and learned lots about the food/meals we access at school.
UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) links.
Parent Club Childrens Rights leaflet
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