What does it mean to be a Rights Respecting School?

Rights Respecting Schools is an award by the charity UNICEF. The award is for schools that are working towards children’s rights becoming an embedded part of their school ethos. It teaches children about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and enables them to be Rights Respecting Global Citizens and advocates for fairness and social justice in our local community, our country and across the globe.

A rights-respecting school is a community where children’s rights are learned, taught, practised, respected, protected and promoted. Young people and the school community learn about children’s rights by putting them into practice every day.

Our Rights Respecting School Council

The St Luke’s Rights Respecting School Council is led by pupil representatives form Years 3-6. They teach pupils in all year groups about their rights and how to understand them. Mrs Walton meets with the group every two weeks.

What is a class charter?

Every class in school has discussed, agreed on and designed their own class charters. These consist of three or four articles that the whole class agree to focus on and incorporate into their day to day lives. The children have discussed what both the adults (Duty Bearers) and the children (Rights holders) have to do to ensure the rights are met and have included these on their charters. The Rights Respecting School Council have also created the playground and lunch hall charters.

How do children learn about the rights of the child?

Children at St Luke’s have different opportunities throughout the curriculum to explore the articles including PSHE sessions, assemblies and themed events throughout the year, including World Children’s Day. The children really enjoy these discussions as they explore new articles in relation to their life and see how the convention is followed in countries around the world. The teachers also actively plan lessons that are linked to the articles.

Our Mascot

This is Luke the Ox, our Rights Respecting School mascot. The Ox was designed by Catherine, who won our whole school competition in November 2024. Catherine was inspired by her research into St Luke and discovered that St Luke is represented in Christian art by an Ox. We are always looking out for fantastic Rights Respecting work happening around the school.

How can parents and carers help their child to know their rights?

• Spend time talking about the articles at home. https://www.unicef.org/rightsite/files/uncrcchilldfriendlylanguage.pdf
• Look at the local and worldwide news. Newsround is a child-friendly way of discussing important events happening around the world. These will often link with rights learning. 
• Talk about our ‘Article of the month’ which is also mentioned in the school newsletter.
• Join in with local charity events and school charity days.
• Take action for positive change in their local community e.g. litter pick
• Give an hour of your time to charity e.g. the homeless, elderly, a hospice.
• Encourage your child to take action for positive change in their local and global community. E.g. clear the plastics from our seas and oceans.

 

Celebrating Silver 

This award is granted by Unicef UK to schools that are embedding children’s rights throughout the school in their policies, practice and ethos. We are extremely proud of our children and our whole school community, as we have worked to promote children’s rights within our school. Our children spoke enthusiastically about our rights respecting journey and the impact on their interactions with others both in and out of school.  The UNCRC underpins all that we do in school and our Rights Respecting Silver Award is a lovely way to recognise this.

The UNCRC

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is displayed in classrooms and corridors in our school. We wrote to the Children’s Commissioner and asked her for these colourful posters to support us in our Rights Respecting Journey (Article 12: Respect for the views of the child)

 

The following link will direct you to a summary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child:

Click here to see the UNCRC - Summary