During Term 1 and 2 Fetlar Primary School came in to work with us about Rights Respecting Schools as we both have our level 1 rights Respecting School award and are working towards our level 2 award. We did different activities all to do with why the war in Syria started, what is going on now and how this affects refugee children and their rights. It was really interesting and generated a lot of discussion which was great. We looked at various articles from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and thought about how these are being met/not being met for the refugee children, for example: article 9 states you should be looked after by your parents, unless this would not be best for you – it is sometimes in the children’s best interest to flee Syria (sometimes without their parents) for their own safety so this right is being met in a way. It is sad that their parents cannot go with them though, they must be scared and lonely. Article 10 states if a child lives in a different country  to their parents, they have the right to stay in touch with them and to apply to live with them. But this cannot always happen as some children have either lost their parents due to the fighting or do not know where they are as they have had to flee too/maybe gotten separated when getting out of Syria. Article 6 is about having the right to be alive and being the best that you can be – sadly not all children in Syria has this right as a lot of them have been killed due to the war or have sadly died trying to flee Syria.

Here are some photos from our cooperative learning days:

We have added our work from these days onto our Rights Respecting School wall: