Children’s Rights |

Rights Respecting Schools – Our Class Charter

February 16, 2024 by Mrs Maxwell | 1 Comment

As part of our journey towards becoming a Rights Respecting School, we explored the ABCDE of Children’s Rights. Through this process, the children now understand that their rights are always there no matter what (unconditional) and that they apply to every child without discrimination (universal). We made a classroom display to remind us.

Our next step was to develop a charter for our school/class. We started by exploring the UNCRC (Convention or Rights for Children) articles to decide what rights felt most relevant within our school environment. Through discussion, debating and voting, the children agreed to incorporate 4 rights:

Article 12 – Respect for Children’s Views – Our children’s views will be sought on all matters concerning them. Their views will be taken seriously and considered.

Article 13 – Freedom of Expression – Our children have the right to share their views and opinions freely.

Article 29 – Aims of Education – Education should develop the personality, talents and abilities of all our pupils.

Article 31 – Rest, play, culture, arts – Our children have the right to play and rest.

A summary of Children’s rights can be found here:

https://www.unicef.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/UNCRC_summary-1_1.pdf

We then explored each of our chosen articles in turn to agree on actions for pupils and adults to uphold within each right. Together, we decided on a display to represent our Charter. The petals on the flowers are our 4 chosen rights. The leaves on the left are pupil (Duty Holders) actions and the leaves on the right are adult (Duty Bearers) actions. The roots represent the pupils and adults in our school community.

Duty Holders (pupils) will….. Duty Bearers (adults) will

(31 – Play and rest)

(29 – Aims of Education)

(13 – Freedom of Expression)

(12 – Respect for children’s views)

We included Article 12 in our charter which is one of 4 Guiding Principles of the CRC. We wanted to include the other 3 other in some way too so Article 2 (Anti-discrimination) is the rain, Article 3 (Best interests of the child) is the sun and Article 6 (Life, Survival and Development) is the soil.

Our final task was to ask every pupil and staff member to agree and sign our Charter to show our commitment to uphold it.

This gallery contains 19 photos

Christmas Jumper Day & Blythswood Care Shoebox Appeal

January 9, 2024 by Mrs Maxwell | 1 Comment

As a Rights Committed (UNICEF Bronze Award) school, we are generating awareness of children and people in the UK, and around the world, whose human rights may not be met for a number of reasons. This can range from natural disasters or war, to poverty and other events that can affect lives.

In addition to our UNICEF and Children in Need Coffee Morning Fundraiser in November, the pupils and staff of FIPS decided to support two further charities last term. We took part in the Blythswood Care Shoebox Appeal. Each of our families filled one or two shoeboxes for children of different ages. The boxes included a toy, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, sweets, socks, hat, scarf and gloves. Our pupils appreciate that every day items like these can make a difference to the lives of children who cannot always afford such items.

On Thursday 7th December, we took part in Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day. The children enjoyed wearing Christmas clothing that day. This event introduced the children to another important charity that helps children around the world. We raised £30 which we think is brilliant for a tiny school like ours!

This gallery contains 3 photos