UNICEF Rights Respecting School Program
A UNICEF Rights Respecting School
At the heart of our school's ethos and behaviour systems is our commitment to promoting children's rights. We make sure that children understand their rights in the context of our school, in their communities as well as national and global issues. We have been accredited Silver which is the second stage of the Rights Respecting award and are now working towards achieving Gold.
Our children understand that with rights we must respect the rights of others. Practically this means that if we understand that we have the right to be safe, learn, be respected and happy; we must respect others to ensure they get their right to be safe, learn, respected and happy too.
At the start of each academic year every class decides which three rights they want their class to focus (see the example class charter).
In this section we have attached some literature to explain how this works in our school and links to some UNICEF documents about Rights Respecting Schools. You can also visit UNICEF's website for further information.
Every month we focus on a different right which links to our Value of the Month, the posters are displayed on our Values display and shared on our school Twitter page. To motivate and develop the pupils’ understanding further, there is a monthly competition, for example, to make a poster or poem on the focused right. We have included some images from our recent fundraising for Ukraine.
We would like to share our work and learning from Spring Term 2023
Foundation 1
This term Foundation 1 have taken part in World Book Day, Adrift project and listened to stories from around the world.
Foundation 2
Foundation 2 have taken part in various initiatives this term including children in need and The Adrift project, supporting people who have been displaced from their homes.
Year 1
As part of our Adrift 2023 project, Year 1 have learnt about the UNICEF Rights of the Child. Children know that they have the right to a life, good food and clean water and to grow up healthy. We thought about the concept of ‘Home’ and what does that mean to us; where do you belong? We read a beautifully illustrated book called ‘Home’. The children talked about their own homes and families and drew line drawings of their own home and their fantasy homes. Year 1 also read the story of Beegu and empathised with the character as he was lost. We developed this and gave the children opportunities to think how they would feel in a new place where they knew nobody! How would it feel? The children then went on to create ‘lost’ posters and then a ‘Welcome’ booklet, to welcome any new children to our school.
For our Values based learning, we update our display board each month and discuss how we can embed that value into our everyday life. So far we have learned about respect, love and positivity this term and talked about how we can uphold these values into our lives at home and school.
Year 3
As part of our Adrift 2023 project, Year 3 have learnt about the UNICEF Rights of the Child. Children know that they have the right to a life, good food and clean water and to grow up healthy. We thought about the concept of ‘Home’ and what does that mean to us; where do you belong? The children gathered ideas, talked about their own homes and families and wrote some beautiful shapes poems, on the theme of ‘Home’.
For our Values based learning, we update our display board each month and discuss how we can embed that value into our everyday life. For January’s value – Positivity, we put positive affirmations on the door, which children now say as they enter each morning, meaning we start the day with a positive feeling about ourselves!
Year 4
As part of our Adrift 2023 project, Year 4 have learnt about the UNICEF Rights of the Child. Children know that they have the right to a life, good food and clean water and to grow up healthy. We thought about the concept of ‘Home’ and what does that mean to us; where do you belong? The children gathered ideas, talked about their own homes and families and wrote some poetry, on the theme of ‘Home’ and what home means to them.
For our Values based learning, we update our display board each month and discuss how we can embed that value into our everyday life. So far we have learned about respect, love and positivity this term and are constantly trying to inserting these values into our lives at home and school.
Year 5
Our ADRIFT project was based on the book Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai. The children learnt all about Malala, who survived an almost fatal attack when journeying to school. She is now known for fighting for the rights of girls and women, campaigning for them to go to school to have the right to be educated. Year 5 thought about their home environments and what made them safe and special. Pupils wrote their own poems based on ‘home’ and sketched their own home, as well as their dream home.
Alongside this, we have continued to work on our monthly values. During the Spring term we have focused on respect, love and positivity. We talk about and embed these within school on a daily basis, and encourage thee values to be adopted outside of school also.
Year 6
During our ADRIFT project, we explored what home meant to us and considered those that didn’t have a home because they have been displaced. We thought about the challenges faced by many refugees and wrote a poem inspired by what we had discussed. We then went on to sketch our homes and our dream homes that we’d love to live in in the future. We finished the project by creating posters welcoming refugees to Bedford Drive Primary School and discussed how we would help anyone that arrived into our class.
In addition to this, we have been looking at our school values: respect, love and positivity. We took part in weekly assemblies, which helped us to reflect on the importance of these values and how we could embed them into our daily activities both within and outside of school.
Spring Term
Foundation 1
This month Foundation 1 celebrated Chinese New Year. They explored colours and counting in Mandarin, dancing, singing, crafting Chinese lanterns and sensory play with coloured rice.
Foundation 2
For our whole school Adrift project, Foundation 2 have looked at family trees. They began by looking at the story of Paddington Bear and what ‘family’ means to them. They then drew their own family trees.
Year 1
Year 1 have been learning how to keep themselves clean and healthy as part of their Jigsaw lesson. Great actions to the song! Watch here: Year 1 video
Year 2
2CF really enjoyed their morning of fun, jokes and fitness, all for Comic Relief 2022. They told jokes in the classroom and whilst taking part in fitness Friday activities outside.
Year 3
Year 3 have been taste testing different pizza getting ready for the STEMterprise project.
Year 4
Year 4 combined #FitnessFriday with joke telling for Comic Relief, multi-tasking at its finest! Watch here: Year 4 video
Year 5
Year 5 really enjoyed their winter warmer session in January, they listened to a selection of stories and the hot chocolate went down a treat too!
Year 6
Year 6 have spent the day being historians, writing letters as evacuated children. They completed research into the role of women in the war and finally, analysed the use of propaganda in wartime.
Autumn Term
F1
The children have enjoyed learning about September’s value of the month, democracy. They put this into practise by voting each day for their class story.
F2
We loved wearing our Christmas jumpers in December to raise money for the charity; Save the Children.
Year 1
Year 1 have been learning about being special and belonging as part of their Jigsaw lesson. What wonderful singing! https://twitter.com/i/status/1437444846399131650
Year 2
The children took part in a Pudsey hunt for Children in Need day, this involved fitness challenges dotted around the school playground. Excellent effort!
Year 3
As part of our value of the month; tolerance, the children wrote their own acrostic poems about what tolerance is and how to be tolerant.
Year 4
In the dark and hail, our Year 4 and 5 Football team won their first round fixture of the Corgi cup, they showed great resilience. Well done!
Year 5
During their Jigsaw lesson exploring the definitions of an asylum seeker, migrant and refugee the children linked the relevant articles from the UNCRC.
Year 6
The children spent the afternoon in thoughtful discussion about our value of the month; tolerance. They discussed what tolerance is; how they can demonstrate tolerance and how they can encourage others to be more tolerant.
