Delamere School has met the standards for UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting School Award at Gold: Rights Respecting
This 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
Our assessor said:
“It was evident that children’s rights are embedded across the school and underpin every facet of the school life”
During our assessment our assessor spoke to children and staff. These are some of his findings:
“Wellbeing is central to the school’s work and is seen by all as a priority”
“The school’s evidence stated that pupils enjoy supporting others locally and globally. This includes advocating for their own rights as people with disabilities”
It was clear that the management team and staff spoken with, are very passionate about the principles of the UNCRC, and understood how, along with RRSA, it supported not only their vision for school improvement, but also as a tool to ensure that every child is respected and has the best school experience possible”
Find out bit more about the Convention on the Rights of the Child by visiting: unicef.org.uk/crc
World’s Largest Lesson Article 13
The children at Delamere took part in the “The World’s Largest Lesson” which promotes use of the Sustainable Development Goals in learning so that children can contribute to a better future for all.
We learnt about cold environments and how ice melts.
In our steering group meeting this term, we celebrated winning the silver award. We walked outside the school to look at our new sign showing the award we achieved. We brainstormed ideas of how to ensure all children at Delamere school understand their rights including those from different countries, those speaking other languages and English as an additional language. Our ideas included: asking each class to make a flag of a different country, making a video of understanding our rights in different languages and writing a letter to Joe Biden, the new American president asking him to sign UNICEF’s rights respecting schools for all children’s rights. We are excited to do these activities very soon and have some ideas in store to celebrate “Everyone is Special Day” in December, celebrating our differences and learning about different conditions. Watch this space!
The Rights Squad met to write our letters to President Joe Biden. It was important for us to discuss and write to the new US president about our rights as a Rights Respecting School as we believe all children in schools should be safe, happy and kind. We were surprised that the USA is the only country that has not signed for children’s rights yet in line with UNICEF and the UN conventions. We spoke about Joe Biden being the new president who may want to sign if we help to convince him why it is so important! We should all have opportunities to participate to our fullest and have our needs met from person-centred teaching and care from staff. Polly and Mason explained that “all voices matter!” The Rights Squad agreed that they felt safe at Delamere.
We discussed how to send letters and pictures to Joe Biden and could do this through sourcing his address, following him on Twitter and using our Delamere twitter page. Ben- the teacher in Woodpecker class has kindly offered to help with US links with his friends and family there. We spoke about potentially making American pen pals to share stories and write more about the importance of our rights. The four key areas being: wellbeing, participation, relationships and self esteem. Polly requested finding out his favourite colour so we could write to him using his favourite colour which is very kind. We are really excited to have these letters posted and eagerly await his reply!