We are proud to say that Castle Hill School is a Rights Respecting School. We achieved the Unicef Gold Award in May 2022 which recoginses our commitment and achievement in developing a rights respecting community within our school and alongside our stakeholders.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child sets out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights all children are entitled to (these rights are known as Articles). The articles are universal, inherent, inalienable, unconditional, and indivisible. That is to say that they are for all children, from birth, can not be taken away, do not have to be earnt, and all are equally important. We respect all of these rights.
We support Unicef in their promotion of the Convention of the Rights of the Child and we are putting these rights in to the heart of our practice.
Our School Council helps to steer our practice within school. They have helped us choose and name our Rights Respecting mascot – Eunice the lamb – who is currently visiting classes. We hope that in the future Eunice will be able to visit the children at home to help share understanding of their rights.
The School Council has also developed our school charter. The pupils chose four Articles that were most important to them in school:
- we have the right to be listened to (Article 12)
- we have the right to the best healthcare and to be kept safe (Article 24)
- we will use our rights and respect the rights of others (Article 29)
- we will take part in creative and cultural activities (Article 31
Castle Hill School is fully engaged with the Rights of the Child, which includes a monthly ‘Right/Article’ focus, which is shared and discussed through whole school and class staff meetings for Teachers and Educational Teaching Assistants. Our Lunchtime Support Assistants have also had presentations delivered on the work that we do.
As a school we are updating all of our Curriculum areas and Policies to include information on how focusing on the Rights of the Child informs the work we do with our pupils and drives us forward. We have shared this information with our families and other stakeholders through our newsletters, social media and on our website.