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Rights Respecting School

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Since 2012, Olga Primary School has been involved in the Rights Respecting Schools Award - a programme organised by Unicef UK. The programme aims to ensure that children are aware of their universal rights (which are detailed in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) and that these rights are at the heart of the children’s learning. A large part of the scheme involves children learning about their responsibility to respect other people’s rights and how rights and responsibilities work together. 

At the start of each school year, the children work with their classmates and teachers to create a class charter which outlines their main responsibilities in school. These responsibilities are matched up to various articles from the convention and the children are asked to agree to follow them and respect them.

Each week, we hold a special Rights Assembly for the children in KS1 and KS2. Usually, these assemblies involve the children learning about an aspect of another culture, about a recent event in the news from our country or another part of the world or abour significant national or international days. The children are shown how these things link to particular articles from the convention and they are given time to reflect on this and ask questions.

Every year we hold democratic elections where each class votes for two representatives to form our school council. The role of these representatives is to ensure that the rights of the children in our school are being respected and that all children’s voices have a chance to be heard when it comes to making decisions about the school. The representatives distribute surveys and hold Q&A sessions with their classmates to gather their views and opinions. 

According to Unicef, the impact of this programme on children is as follows:

  • Improved self-esteem and well-being
  • Improved relationships and behaviour (reductions in bullying and exclusions and improved attendance)
  • Improved engagement in learning
  • Positive attitudes towards diversity in society and the reduction of prejudice
  • Children and young people’s enhanced moral understanding
  • Children and young people’s support for global justice
  • Children and young people become more involved in decision-making in schools.

Olga Primary School is currently on Level 1 of the award and we are now working hard to achieve Level 2.