Month: March 2021

The whole school was involved in the International Women’s Day #ChooseToChallenge celebrations. We celebrated the wonderful, strong women in our own lives and also enjoyed learning about some remarkable women from around the world.

We most definitely have many inspirational women of the future in St Cadoc’s!

Article 13:

You have the right to find out things and say what you think, through making art, speaking and writing, unless it harms the rights of others.

Article 2:

You have the right to protection against discrimination. This means that nobody can treat you badly because of your colour, sex or religion, if you speak another language, have a disability, or are rich or poor.

Miss Mackay & the The Rights Ambassadors 😊

World Book Day was celebrated across the school and nursery both online and in school! We all had great fun celebrating our love of books. Some of us built reading dens at home to enjoy our favourite books in and even had class meetings online from our dens! Children in school were lucky enough to have our janitor Mr Campbell come in to their classes to read a very funny story. We had a great day and all pupils took part in a special competition to design a book cover. The winner will be announced soon and the winning design is going to made into a poster for our new library area!

Article 28:

You have the right to an education.

Article 13:

You have the right to find out things and say what you think, through making art, speaking and writing, unless it breaks the rights of others.

Miss Mackay & the The Rights Ambassadors 😊

Fairtrade Fortnight #ChooseTheWorldYouWant was celebrated across the school, online and in the building. There were many activities to help all of us to understand more about Fairtrade and we really enjoyed learning all about this year’s special theme ‘Climate Fairtrade and You’. Some of the activities we chose to do were: create a Fairtrade restaurant at home, research where Cocoa grows around the world, bake delicious Fairtrade treats for our family, create a Fairtrade Farm in a shoebox, and we even had our own P6 Fairtrade superhero!

Article 29:

You have the right to education which tries to develop your personality and abilities as much as possible and encourages you to respect other people’s rights and values and to respect the environment.

Article 12:

You have the right to an opinion and for it to be listened to and taken seriously.

Miss Mackay & the The Rights Ambassadors 😊

We decided at the start of this year that it would be a really good idea to create a new school logo and values – Love, Achieve, Respect and Kindness – to reflect our Rights Respecting Schools work and to make it very clear what our school is all about. We remember this using the acronym ‘LARK’ and by thinking about this little bird. The pupils, staff and parents worked together to create our beautiful new logos! We are delighted with how they look and will be celebrating achievements related to the values throughout the year.

Mrs McBride even had some super photo frames made so that we can share our achievements on Twitter with our parents!

Article 29:

You have the right to education which tries to develop your personality and abilities as much as possible and encourages you to respect other people’s rights and values and to respect the environment.

Miss Mackay & the The Rights Ambassadors 😊

We are here to tell you about the latest campaign that we participated in! In February, Primary 4 – 7 took part in the Send My Friend To School (Keep All Our Friends Learning) campaign, to spread awareness about Article 28 (The right to an education) and the extent to which this is often denied around the world, for different reasons, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Importantly, we were encouraged to use our voice to raise concerns about global issues – some incredibly meaningful learning occurred!

“We’re calling for all children, everywhere, to keep learning safely during the COVID-19 pandemic”

We explored case studies to discover the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on young people’s education around the world and compare and contrast these with our own experiences:

We took this a step further to amplify the message, sending our concerns and ideas with our local MPs, to push for change! We can’t wait to hear a response from them and we will let you know what they have to say.

This experience was valuable as it developed our understanding of social justice and the vital role that we can play in righting injustices at home and around the world – we are well on our way to becoming proactive citizens of the world!

Miss Mackay, Mrs Lindsay & The Rights Ambassadors 😊

In November, the whole school took part in various learning activities for this year’s OutRight Campaign. We all focused on the importance of Climate Change and what a changing climate means for children’s rights. Across the school, we looked into what climate change is, how it affects us, and what we can do to help.

We explored a variety of activities – writing to the COP26 President and ‘Conversations about Climate with Adults’ – which involved interviewing and creating questions to ask our teachers and parents what they know about climate change and have observed in their lifetime and its effects – especially on children.

Classes made fantastic ‘Then and Now’ posters highlighting how climate change affects different eco-systems around the world. These activities helped us to gain a better understanding of climate change and how it affects children’s rights across the world.
We then showcased all of our brilliant Climate Change work on World Children’s Day on the 20th November. The whole school was invited to view this and celebrate our amazing contributions!

Here is a quote from Ava (Primary 6) – ‘It is clear that climate change is affecting the world and the effects are really worrying. The posters and the conversations we have been having will make a difference.’

We know that, together, we can make a change!

Mrs Burns & The Rights Ambassadors 😊

Article 24:

Every child has the right to the best possible health. Governments must provide good quality health care, clean water, nutritious food, a clean environment and education on health and well-being so that children can stay healthy.

Prior to home-learning, as part of our learning & teaching about rights, the Ambassadors visited classes to raise awareness of the UNCRC and further develop our pupils’ knowledge of rights. The children loved learning from the older pupils and the Ambassadors were able to use their voice, creativity and knowledge to enhance understanding throughout the school!

Here are some examples of the Ambassador’s interactive presentations, focused on the UNCRC, the nature of rights, Climate Change, World Children’s Day and Human Rights:

Article 1:
Everyone under the age of 18 has all the
rights in the Convention.

Miss Mackay & the The Rights Ambassadors 😊

Within each classroom, a Class Charter is displayed which reminds us all of the importance of respect and kindness when interacting with one another; they ensure that respect is at the heart of each room within our school. The Charters state their rights and how they can be respected by pupils (rights-holders) and adults (duty-bearers). The children worked with their class teachers at the beginning of the year to create these, using their own brilliant ideas. Here are some examples of our fabulous Class Charters:

We also have a Playground Charter to help us to respect rights in the surrounding areas of our school building, during break and lunch times. The eye-catching design was created by a Primary 5 pupil, who won the whole-school competition, to illustrate kind and respectful behaviour when playing. It is displayed throughout our school to remind us all to respect Article 31 – The right to relax and play.

Miss Mackay & the The Rights Ambassadors 😊

Hello and welcome to the St Cadoc’s Rights Respecting Schools blog!

Here, you will find the latest up-to-date information as we progress in our journey to achieve the UNICEF Gold Rights Respecting Schools award, through our commitment to the Rights of the Child.

On the 20th November 1989, the world committed to an international set of promises for every child on Earth – the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. ‘Rights’ are universal, unconditional and inalienable – they are things that every child has and should be able to do, and cannot be taken away. UNICEF protects and promotes these rights to ensure that every child around the world is healthy, educated, treated fairly, listened to, protected, and kept safe from harm. Please click here to take a closer look at children’s rights, as enshrined within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

What have we achieved so far? 

St Cadoc’s was first awarded the Silver award in 2017 as the ways in which we learn, laugh, play and worship together, showing love, respect, care and support, reflected our dedication to children’s rights. A rights-respecting ethos is at the heart of everything we do at St Cadoc’s and underpins our school values of Love, Achieve, Respect and Kindness. We respect the rights of all and promote the dignity, self-esteem and full development of each person, recognising the strengths and talents of each member of our school community. Importantly, we recognise that it is our responsibility to make meaningful contributions to ensure a better and fairer world for future generations, through our growing understanding and appreciation of children’s rights and human rights more broadly. We were extremely proud to receive the Silver Rights Respecting School award.

Why are we striving to become a Gold rights-respecting school? 

As some time has now passed, our Silver re-accreditation visit will take place in April where we will re-affirm our dedication to children’s rights by sharing the wonderful efforts of our pupils and school community to learn about rights. Moving forward, we intend to demonstrate how we have embedded children’s rights throughout the school, within our policies, practise and ethos, and achieve the Gold award. It is our duty to equip our pupils with a strong knowledge of rights and support them to become ‘active global citizens’ who can advocate for their rights and for the rights of others.

Thank you for reading this introductory post – we really can’t wait to share more with you moving forward! Our fabulous Rights Ambassadors will be keeping you up-to-date with our rights learning and journey to Gold. The Ambassadors are proactive and passionate about providing a voice for all children in our school; their views are respected and our SMT aim to use these to improve the life of our school, whenever possible.

This fantastic illustration, made by one of our pupils whilst learning at home, summarises the importance and nature of the Rights of the Child:  

Miss Mackay & the The Rights Ambassadors 😊