Tag Archives: pupil voice

Pupil Voice: Respecting Rights at our School⤴

from @ Reach

At most schools, there’s lots of talk about children’s rights. Rights are like promises to make sure that you are treated fairly, kept safe, and have what you need to live a good life. Learning about your rights at school can help you feel more cared for and in control of your future.

You might have questions about what rights are and why they’re such a big deal. Questions like… What rights do I have? What does it mean to respect everyone’s rights at school? Are my wants and my needs always the same as my rights? What happens when children’s rights are denied?

These are all good questions.

UNICEF rights respecting school logoThe charity UNICEF helps school to explore more about what rights are with their ‘Rights Respecting School’ award. 

Here’s what a few pupils at Ross High have to say about their school being a rights respecting school:

‘It has had a huge positive impact on my learning and I have a greater awareness of my rights and how that impacts my education.’ Hannah, S4

‘Moving from primary, to a rights respecting school, I have made really good relationships with my friends and teachers. I have learnt more about my rights and how it affects me and my family.’ Euan, S1

‘People are more aware of their rights and are putting them to practise.’ Leiha, S2

Ross High rights respecting schoolHere’s what Ailiya and Emma in S4 at Ross High shared with Reach:

“Our school is very proud that we successfully achieved our Level Two Rights Respecting Schools award, the first Secondary School to do so in East Lothian.

Being in a Rights Respecting School gives all the pupils a voice and a platform where pupils can express their opinion. For example we have our Pupil Council, Junior Leadership Team and Senior Leadership teams.

Being in a Rights Respecting School means everyone is aware of their rights as it is taught and applied in class but also shown with class displays and posters throughout the school.

We also have the privilege of having a mural outside our school, that was created by the Children’s Parliament . A group of our pupils went to a primary school to see how the mural was being made but also meeting the children behind it. This was a great opportunity to interact with younger years and find out their view on rights.

Ross High School is a place where pupils, teachers and the community have great respect for each other and their surroundings.”

Rights respecting school journey

Find out more about the bronze, silver and gold rights respecting schools awards, and how children’s rights can be a lived reality in your school. 

 

The post Pupil Voice: Respecting Rights at our School appeared first on Reach.

Engaging pupils with iMovie trailers⤴

from

Following a challenging morning, we were bracing ourselves for the afternoon session in our nurture base. We support the most vulnerable children in the authority. We base our practice on the nurture principles and the Boxall profile and the children’s mental, social and emotional well-being is a priority for us. Or, as I’ve seen on […]

RRSA pupil discussions⤴

from @ Caroline Gibson's Weblog

One of our action points for our RRSA (Rights Respecting Schools Award) was to update some of our policies in line with the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child).

This was one of a variety of reasons for us to look at our positive behaviour and bullying policies (my situational analysis for unit 2 of SQH brought out other reasons) and we have been looking in depth at the positive behaviour policy.

This policy was in place within the school before any of the current SMT were at the school and we have been able to consult thoroughly with all staff and pupils and and are about to do so with parents to gain views from everyone.

One of the things we wanted to do was make sure we were not missing any other ideas as it does not always feel that golden time for example works particularly well. (In fact in tracking it fully and questioning every child about it, it does work for most children more than we thought.)

So I organised an afternoon where children from RRSA or pupil council groups in schools across our cluster were invited to our school to share their ideas. I then collated these and emailed them back to the schools involved. It was very simple to set up, just flip charts with different questions on them and the children rotated round them in different groups like a graffiti board co-operative learning activity with an adult at each group to help facilitate discussion. The questions were around rewards, sanctions, RRSA activities and how they have involved the local community, with additional time at the end for further ideas, questions and next steps.

It ran itself very easily and we actually felt from the responses that we were broadly doing the same as other schools. That was the end of it I thought but at our local authority RRSA steering group meeting a couple of schools brought up how successful and useful they thought the event was and so I have been asked to run it again and it will be filmed for the local authority and Education Scotland as well as having staff filmed, which probably means me as no-one else wants to do it!

It was nice to have other schools mention independently how useful they thought the event was, hopefully it will prove useful second time round too!