What is a Rights Respecting School?

At Lydgate Junior School, we are working towards the UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools 'Gold' Award. UNICEF is the organization working specifically for children and their rights. Its mission is to campaign for the protection of children’s rights in order to meet children’s basic needs and empower them to realise their full potential.

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 themselves. At Lydgate Junior School we are all working hard to ensure that we all respect each other’s rights.

We base our planning on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This means that we empower children to relate to each other and to share responsibility for making the big decisions about their learning and their school. Children learn to associate rights with needs and distinguish between their rights and ‘wants’. They learn that if they have rights, they need to respect the rights of others. The RRS curriculum is taught through our RRS and PSHE lessons which help children learn respect for self, others, critical thinking skills and informed decision - making. We include a global dimension to this work so that our children are gaining an understanding of the wider world and the issues faced by children in countries which are quite different from our own.

We encourage all parents, carers and families of children at Lydgate Junior School to play a full part in their learning too. We see ourselves very much as being both part of and a good example to the wider local community. Please see our Whole School Charter.

A copy of the Rights of a Child in ‘Child Friendly Language’ can be found here.