We are becoming a Unicef UK Rights Respecting School!
Miss Smith is now meeting regularly with the Rights Respecting School group. They have created a newsletter showcasing last months key messages. P4 created a wordsearch with some key words linked to article 14! Both are included below.
We have been working on our class charters, we will share these with you here.
Sometimes at Together Time we have “Fun 31” sessions. This is where we get to play our own way with a selection of toys and activities. This is all part of our Right to Play! Article 31!
This session we continue our journey towards Rights Respecting Schools (Silver). Our P7 class are the pupils leading this work but all children are involved in different ways.
At Mrs McCracken’s Together Time this term we focused on Article 12 – click below to find a summary of the key themes!
Let’s Think about Rights – Article 12
As we leave September, before moving onto our next Right of the month, we have looked at Article 2, the link below gives more information about this. We will revisit this key right at other times too!
Let’s Think about Rights – Article 2
In October our key focus will be on article 24! Check back later for more information and also for photographs of our newly created class charters!
Below you can find out more about Rights Respecting Schools, and a flavour of some of the work carried last session and pre pandemic!
Newmilns Primary and ECC aims to be a school where children’s rights are at the heart of our ethos and culture, to improve well-being and to develop every child’s talents and abilities to their full potential. It is our vision that all children will flourish in all aspects of their life.
As part of this vision, we are working towards recognition as a ‘Rights Respecting School’, an award given to schools on behalf of Unicef UK.
We have already achieved our Bronze, Rights Committed Award.
Unicef is the world’s leading organisation working for children and young people and their rights. In 1989, governments across the world agreed that all children have the same rights by adopting the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). These rights are based on what a child needs to survive, grow, participate and fulfil their potential.
Our pupils are learning about their rights by putting them into practice every day. A Rights Respecting School models rights and respect in all its relationships.
We really hope that you will be able to support our school on our journey towards becoming a Unicef UK Rights Respecting School.
For further information about Rights Respecting Schools please visit: www.unicef.org.uk/rrsa
The Award is not just about what children do but also, importantly, what adults do. In Rights Respecting Schools children’s rights are promoted and realised, adults and children work towards this goal together.
There are four key areas of impact for children at a Rights Respecting school; wellbeing, participation, relationships and self-esteem.
The difference that a Rights Respecting School makes goes beyond the school gates, making a positive impact on the whole community.
- Children are healthier and happier
- Children feel safe
- Children have better relationships
- Children become active and involved in school life and the wider world
We paused our focused work on our Rights Resecpting School’s Award during Lockdown and the intial COVID recovery period. We started or work again in earnest this session, supporting our school community to move from being Rights Committed to becoming Rights Aware.
Click the link below to find out a bit more about Children’s Rights. This was shared with children at a Together Time in September 2022.
The first link below will take you to a firendly guide detailing the different articles relating to The United Nations Conventions of the Child. The children are learning about different articles and how they impacrt on them at our Together Times and in class. The second link will take you to a summary of the key areas of our Rights.
Our P6 children are our Rights Respecting School Committe. They help school staff in taking our Rights Respecting Work forward. All going well, children from the committee will welcome the accreditation team to our school around Easter 2024.
One of the first projects our committee were involved in was choosing a new mascot. All children in the school were given the opportunity to design a mascot. a small sub group whitled the entries down to a final 6 with the rest of the group voting for the winner!
Introducing our Rights Respecting School’s Mascot Penny! Penny was designed by Daryl and digitised by Mrs Clarke.
Look out for Penny around the school, she reminds us about some of her rights. When used as part of a display she has a small purple balloon!
At Together Time we often think about our school rules and values.
Our rules are: Ready, Respect and Safe.
And our values: Hope and Ambition, Friendship, Cooperation, Determination, Honesty and Respect
Our Golden Thread of Kindness join our rules and values together.
Click the link below to find out more
This year we revisited 5 star school, and used this work to develop our new school and playground charter. Click the link below to see our School and Playground Charters.
We have had class charters for sometime and we will develop these further as we move into next session. Have a look at our charter next time you visit our classroom. We have also created a Rights Resepcting Display which is updated regularly.
On Friday 24th February we remembered all the different rights we have already focused on this year! Click on the link to see them!
We were introduced to Article 3! This article is all about adults acting upon our best interests. Mrs McCracken set us a home challenge! Click below to see what our challenge was and come back later to see the results and for further updates on our Rights Respecting School Journey! Look out for our posters around the school!
The section below highlights some of the work we carried out before the Pandemic. It was carried out in session 19/20, although we are revisiting much of this work, it summarises ther work we undertook.
May Rights!
Article 14! Find out more here!
Article of the Week – Article 14
Our April Right!
Have a look at the link below for more information on our Right of the Month! It’s all about respecting views of children! Why not talk about this at home and think about what it means for everyone.
Our March right is:
Article 3
Best Interest of the Child: The best interests of the child must be a top priority in all decisions and actions that affect children.
We also celebrated World Book Day, demonstrating some of our right to an education and are also revisiting article 2, through raising awareness of the work of Sports Relief and collecting donations for the food bank.
February 2020 Update
The RRS Team introduced Right of the Month at assembly. Every month they will introduce a new right to the whole school. All children will complete an activity in class for each Right of the Month to help them learn more about their rights. The blog will be updated each month with information about our Right of the Month which can be used to support discussion at home.
Our first Right of the Month (February) is:
ARTICLE 2
Non-Discrimination
The Convention applies to EVERY child without discrimination, whatever their ethnicity, gender, religion, language, abilities or any other status, whatever they think or say, whatever their family background.
Here is a video that was shared at assembly to explain discrimination.
Article 2 is our first Right of the Month because it is important that children understand ALL children, every single one, have the rights in the UNCRC no matter what!
This is the article image which is now displayed throughout the school alongside our RRS mascots as a reminder about Article 2.
The ‘Right Runner’ app is now available to download which is a fun game to help children learn about their rights. Check out the preview video below.
During the 1st block of Newmilns Teams for session 2019/20, the Rights Respecting Schools Team ran a whole school competition to create Newmilns Primary Rights Respecting mascots. The team chose two winners, one from P1-3 and another from P4-7. The winning mascots were ‘Rainbow the Rights Respecting Superhero’ and ‘Sasha the Super Bear’! These mascots are now the new faces of Rights Respecting Schools at Newmilns Primary and will begin appearing around the school to help the children become more aware of their rights
The RRS Team have also been working hard to create eye catching images and clear captions to remind the children of their rights. These will also begin appearing around the school alongside our mascots.
Each class has their own personal Class Charter displayed in their classroom to remind them of their rights. These have been created by the children and they have decided together the actions they will take to respect their rights.
We are now on our journey to achieve the RRS Silver Award. We will continue to work hard during the next block of Newmilns Teams to achieve this!
Good News!
Newmilns Primary and ECC is gained a Rights Respecting Schools Bronze Award. We are now working towards our Silver!
Primary 5/6 worked together to develop our school charter.
We will review this charter as we move towards silver but this is the basis of how we can all ensure that our rights are met and that we behave in a rights respecting way,
We are currently learning about each of these articles in more depth at assemblies. After which we will explore what the other key articles mean to us.
The RRSA team have organised a simple activity for Comic Relief. They delivered a short presentation at assembly explaining the need for such a charity and highlighted the different rights we take for granted that are not available to some children.
We are working to become a UNICEF UK Rights Respecting School!
In 1989, Governments across the world promised all children the same rights by following the United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child, the UNCRC for short! The Convention outlines what countries must do so that all children grow as healthy as possible, can learn at school, are protected, have their views listened to, and are treated fairly. We will be learning about our rights and using them throughout the school so that everyone feels happy, safe and respected.
At assemblies the children have learned about Rights Respecting School through video clips and have developed their understanding of Rights through categorising wants and needs. The children have learned a song about rights and sang it to parents at the Harvest Assembly.
The Rights Respecting School committee have decided to introduce a new right every fortnight to support the whole school in learning about our rights. So far we have looked at Article 2, 28, 29, 19 and 12.
We have also looked at our core values and we have linked these to our rights, in light of our work with Children’s rights we will be reviewing our Aims and Core values with our whole school community.
Each class now has a Class Charter displayed in their classroom to show the rights and responsibilities that are important for us to follow. The Class Charters were made and decided together as a whole class so that staff and children can work together to help us be the best we can be!
If you want to find out more about the different articles within the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child click the link below:
There are 54 articles, or rights, in the convention.
