- July 29th, 2011
Developing Rights and Responsibilities at Mearns Primary: the Rights Respecting School Award
- kmayer
- Comments: noneTags: community, democracy, learner voice, rights
In June 2009, Mearns Primary School achieved Level 1 of the Rights Respecting School Award. We surveyed staff, parents and pupils to evaluate the impact of developing an understanding of rights and responsibilities within the school and wider community. Embarking on Rights Respecting Schools Award had a hugely positive effect on general behaviour and the ethos within the school. With this in mind we decided to work towards Level 2.
As every class had participated in lessons to develop an understanding of the UNCRC we looked to ways to further embed this within the school. This was done through looking for ways to embed rights and responsibilities throughout the curriculum. When planning, teachers look for specific links to articles in the UNCRC through topics such as WW2, Victorians, Refugees, Election Fever and Local Area. In addition to this, our P7 reading buddies now have a template they use to discuss various rights and responsibilities when reading with younger children.
Every class has a class charter, displays linked to Articles and a copy of the UNCRC display so to up level this the steering group interviewed members of the school community from pupils, catering, office and janitorial staff to teachers and parents. They highlighted the right that they felt applied to them and the responsibility they have in ensuring others enjoy it. These were displayed throughout the school.
We introduced a ‘Right of the Week’ system where each week we focus on a different right and responsibility. Pupils who display responsible and respectful attitude towards that right receive a certificate. This is organised independently by the steering group.
The steering group wanted to raise awareness in the local community so they organised a poster competition throughout the school. Details were put in our RRS Newsletter and the posters were completed as a homework task. This increased awareness and understanding for parents. The winning posters were published and then the steering group visited local community establishments explaining what the UNCRC is and what we had been doing to become a RRS. They then asked for the posters to be displayed and for that place to be a RRS doctors, dentist, library etc.
Our RRS also visited local guides, brownies and BBs to do presentations about RRS there, this was well received and we aim to continue to do this.
Written by Siobhan McColgan, DHT, Mearns Primary. Siobhan can be contacted at [email protected].
Categories citizenship, primary schools, social studies
Find us on