Welcome to our new Equality Committee for 2019-2020.

Every pupil in the school was asked if they wished to apply to be part of the  Equality Committee and given an application form. Pupils presented why they should be their class representative  and the children voted for their favourite candidate.

The Equality Committee are celebrating today achieving the Rights Respecting Schools SILVER Award.

Well done to everyone for all your hard work 🎉

Miss Reid delivered a RRSA update to the whole staff at our Inservice Day.

We re-capped the ABCDE of Rights and then completed a matching activity between statements and explanations.

A – Rights are for ALL children.                                        UNIVERSAL

B – Rights are there at BIRTH.                                           INHERENT

C – Rights CANNOT be taken away.                              INALIENABLE

D – Rights DO NOT have to be earned.                       UNCONDITIONAL

E – All rights are EQUALLY important.                        INDIVISIBLE

The Equality Committee shared our learning about children’s rights with our parents and carers.

We talked about the impact of the Rights Respecting Silver Award at Cross Arthurlie and completed  an activity to see how many rights our visitors knew already.

Finally we gave examples and discussed how all our learning can be linked to children’s rights from topics on World War Two to current issues on Plastic Pollution.

Primary 6 have been learning about life in Victorian times. They discovered many children were sent to work in dangerous factories or as a chimney sweep.

They were therefore denied their right to Article 32 – Children must not be sent to work and working conditions should be safe and Article 28 – Right to an Education.

When children were allowed to attend school their teachers were very strict. They used the belt or cane to punish children and often humiliated them by making them sit at the front of the room wearing a ‘Dunce’ hat and encouraged other pupils to ridicule them.

They were therefore denied their right to Article 19 – Adults should do what’s best for children. Children should not be harmed or punished.

Last year we created a wall display within the assembly hall to raise awareness of the United Convention on the Rights of the Child.

We chose 4 articles which we wanted everyone to know a little more about. This year we have to decided to choose 4 other articles to continue our learning about children’s rights and reinforce how we enjoy our rights and that this is not always possible for other children around the world.

Article 7- You have the right to a name and nationality.

Article 17- You have the right to get information that is important to your wellbeing. Adults should make sure the information you get is not harmful.

Article 14- You have the right to choose your own religion and beliefs.

Article 30- You have the right to practice your own culture, language and religion.

We launched our playground charter last term and look forward to embedding it within our whole school ethos.

Our Equality Committee voted and decided on the following articles from the UNCRC:

Article 39- We have the right to help when we are hurt.

Article 15-We have the right to have friends.

Article 3- We have the right for adults to do what’s best for us.

Article 31- We have the right to play and rest.

We shared our rights respecting survey with all pupils, teachers and support staff to monitor our progress towards our Silver Award and becoming a ‘Rights Aware’ school.

Our Equality reps recorded the results and we discussed them as a group.

The Our P6 & P7 Equality reps have been working with the Sports Committee and JRSOs to launch the Beat the Street Initiative within Cross Arthurlie. Pupils, teachers and parents are being encouraged to walk, run or cycle and collect points for our school by scanning their fob or card against the beat boxes across Barrhead and Newton Mearns.

We helped install the air monitor to see if the air quality improves and will look at the readings as the weeks progress. We want to help raise awareness in our local community about article 24: the right to a clean and safe environment.

P3 have been learning how plastic pollution is having an impact on our local environment, especially animals living in the sea such as turtles. They have been leading recycling of plastic within the school through separate plastic bins.

Article 24

You have the right to the best health care possible, safe water to drink, nutritious food,  a clean and safe environment, and information to help you stay well.