Rights Respecting Schools Award

At Queensway Junior Academy, we aim to be a school where children’s rights are at the heart of our ethos and culture. This is to improve well-being and to develop every child’s talents and abilities to their full potential.

UNICEF creates 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 (RRSA) embeds these values in daily school life and gives children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives. This is an award given to schools on behalf of UNICEF UK and recognises a school’s commitment and action in relation to championing the rights.

As a school, we have joined this initiative, delivering weekly lessons to our pupils on the conventions of rights of a child. These sessions help pupils develop oracy and vocabulary skills, and also help to embed values in daily school life and sets them up to lead happy, healthy lives. We hope to achieve the Bronze and then Silver status, recognising a school’s commitment and action in relation to championing the rights.

At Queensway Junior Academy, we work very hard to support our pupils to understand, appreciate and uphold their own rights and that of other children, through discussions, assemblies, use of class charters, campaigns for change and a wide range of activities.

There are four key areas of impact for children at a Rights Respecting School; wellbeing, participation, relationships and self-esteem. The difference that a Rights Respecting School makes goes beyond the school gates, making a positive impact on the whole community. Children;

• Are healthier and happier
• Feel safe
• Have better relationships
• Become active and involved in school life and the wider world.

UNICEF is the world’s leading organisation working for children and young people and their rights. In 1989, governments across the world agreed that all children have the same rights by adopting the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). These rights are based on what a child needs to survive, grow, participate and fulfil their potential.

WHAT IS RRSA?

The Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) recognises achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) at the heart of a school’s planning, policies, practice and ethos. A rights-respecting school not only teaches about children’s rights but also models rights and respect in all its relationships: between teachers / adults and pupils, between adults and between pupils.

HOW ARE WE A RRS?

Our core values INSPIRE, ASPIRE & ACHIEVE are central to our school’s ethos and day-to-day running. Children have a very good understanding of our core values and during our Friday celebration assembly; we celebrate examples of our core values being shown within the classroom. As a school, we believe we ‘learn together, achieve together and our aim is to enable every child to SHINE.’

In every class, we teach children about their rights, children are given the opportunities to share their own opinions, take part in discussions and value every one’s ideas. At Queensway Junior Academy we believe children have a voice, our Smart School Council have a RRSA Action group that are our RRS representatives and help us develop as a Rights Respecting school.  

The Smarts School Council and the numerous Action Groups meet regularly to discuss different articles, to raise money for Charity and to be our Rights Respecting ambassadors for the School.

At Queensway Junior Academy, we have taken positive steps in order to empower children to talk about their feelings and worries. Children begin to manage their emotions from an early age. Our SEARCH curriculum helps our pupils develop their personal social and emotional character traits and along with Thrive and Trauma Based Nurture approach our pupils learn to talk about their feelings, thoughts and opinions.

We aim to work towards the Silver – Rights Aware Award, and the Gold – Rights Respecting Award.

Achieving Silver & Gold: means that we have evidence that:

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

We really hope that parents / carers and the wider community will be able to support our school on our journey towards Silver & Gold and a UNICEF UK Rights Respecting School.  

Find out more about the Convention on the Rights of the Child

Find out more about Rights Respecting Schools