Guest blog from Birchgrove Primary
At Birchgrove Primary school part of our school’s aim is to develop happy, successful children.
To promote this we have been working towards recognition as a “Rights Respecting School” and have recently been awarded Rights Respecting Schools Level 1.
Bringing children’s rights to the centre of our school life has given our pupils a relevant and engaging framework to understand their learning and experiences.
Other schools interested in introducing or developing children’s rights work might like to try some of our ideas too.
Our Rights Ambassadors have done a great job in making sure all children and adults in our school know about children’s rights!
They have actively championed children’s rights through assemblies, competitions and promoting the ‘Right of the Month’ in every class.
Our very own rights mascot ‘Respectosaurus’ helps us to remember our rights.
Originally designed by a Year 1 pupil, Adam McKenna, he has recently enjoyed a make-over and looks amazing! This year he surprised us by inviting some of his friends to join our school.
These friends are called the ‘Supersaurs’ and help us to develop a Growth Mindset by being resourceful, resilient and reflective.
During the autumn term we were lucky enough to enjoy two visits to promote Children’s Rights in our school.
Birchgrove is part of the Children’s Commissioners free Super Ambassador scheme and every term we do a special mission about rights.
Last term’s mission was all about bullying and Jane Houston, Participation Officer for the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, facilitated an anti-bullying and wellbeing workshop.
During this session, we learned a great deal about bullying and were proud to hear that Jane not only passed on our views to Sally Holland but also praised our work on Rights.
This also helped to inform last term’s Super Ambassador mission.
The second visit was from Sally Holland herself! To say the children were excited is an understatement.
Sally met with the ambassadors to hear first-hand about all our work on children’s rights and we were thrilled to hear how impressed she was.
Sally was later taken on a tour of the school and enjoyed chatting to pupils and looking at our Rights displays.
This term we hope to help schools at the beginning of their journey in rights education by inviting them to visit us and look at all the work we have done.
Any schools interested in meeting the Birchgrove Primary School Rights Ambassadors are welcome to get in touch.
We are also keen to celebrate further by achieving RRSA Level 2 before the summer.