Rights Respecting Schools

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The Rights Respecting Schools Award puts children’s rights at the heart of schools in the UK.

UNICEF works with schools in the UK to create safe and inspiring places to learn, where children are respected, their talents are nurtured and they are able to thrive. The Rights Respecting Schools Award embeds these values in daily school life and gives children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives and to be responsible, active citizens.

Using the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as our guide, Westlands is working with UNICEF and our young people to achieve this award. Over 1.6 million children in the UK go to a Rights Respecting School and nearly 5,000 schools up and down the country are working through the Award. Schools, like Westlands, work with UNICEF on a journey to become fully Rights Respecting.

The Award recognises a school’s achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into practice within the school and beyond.

The Silver Award is granted by UNICEF UK to schools that show good progress towards embedding children’s rights in the school’s policy, practice and ethos, as outlined in the RRSA Strands and Outcomes. After a visit from a Unicef UK RRSA assessor who looked at the whole school’s rights respecting work, we are proud to say that Westlands has obtained this award!

Achieving Silver: Rights Aware means there is evidence that:

Westlands is explicitly embedding the UN Convention on the Rig hts of the Child in its policy, practice and culture
Westlands is promoting knowledge and understanding of the Convention throughout the school community
We are putting into action and developing the plans outlined on our Action Plan for Silver, which wesubmitted to achieve your Bronze: Rights Committed
We are beginning to see the positive impact of these actions on children and young people, staff, and on the school’s ethos, practice and environment
Children and young people are beginning to see themselves as rights respecting global citizens and advocates for fairness and children’s rights, both locally and globally

However, the work does not stop there.

Our next goal is to reach Gold: Rights Respecting.This is the highest stage of the Rights Respecting Schools Award (after Bronze: Rights Committed and Silver: Rights Aware). It is granted by Unicef UK to schools that have fully embedded children’s rights throughout the school in its policies, practice and ethos, as outlined in the three RRSA Strands.