Abbey Court School is very proud to have achieved the Gold Award for Unicef’s Right Respecting School Award.  To achieve the award, the school has to demonstrate that it has met three ‘strands’: teaching and learning about, through and for rights.

About: Strand A – Teaching the whole school about rights

This involves the whole school knowing about children’s rights, and then using the rights to improve the school and the children’s general well-being. The whole school should also know about global issues.

How do we do this at Abbey Court?

• Through our curriculum: children’s rights and global issues are taught in all areas of the curriculum, in topics and individual lessons and activities, as well as in assemblies
• Work on Eco-Schools Award and development of farm curriculum, with links made to basic rights
• Staff training and meetings: focused on staff learning about the rights, and about how they can support pupils and parents to learn about these also
• Resources about rights are used throughout the school and are on display
• Through our newsletter and parent workshops! Supporting our parents/carers and the local community to learn about rights

Through: Strand B – Teaching through rights

The school has a rights respecting ethos and rights respecting classrooms. This involves not just learning about rights, but putting rights into practice every day, in everything that happens in school.

How do we do this at Abbey Court?

• A ‘rights respecting’ ethos is embedded in everything we do!
• High expectations of behaviour and respect towards each other – adults and pupils
• Our Classroom Charters
• School documents, including curriculum planning and policies, all take into account and refer to the rights of the child, and are followed in every day practice
• Pupil Voice – all of our pupils are supported to communicate and learn how to express their own views and opinions, which are then acted upon.

For: Strand C –  Teaching for rights

The school empowers its pupils to become active global citizens, by supporting them to develop knowledge of local and global issues related to rights, and then become ambassadors for rights, locally and globally.

How do we do this at Abbey Court?

• Pupil Focus Groups enable our pupils to tell us what they want to change and how, and then pupils are supported to do this within school e.g. developing Complaints card, having more lunchtime clubs, making posters about bullying and online safety
• Pupils are taught about different charities and participate in activities of their choice to help others e.g. donating food to homeless charities
• The Eco-Committee has enabled pupils to identify how they can help to make a difference on global issues e.g. reducing the amount of plastic we use in school by campaigning to get rid of disposable plastic cups, and recycling paper and plastic waste
• International Schools Projects and inclusion activities with other schools and local community

These are just some of the examples of all of the work that goes on all of the time at Abbey Court to ensure the rights of the child are at the heart of everything we do!