Calthorpe Academy are a GOLD UNICEF Rights Respecting School

The Rights Respecting School Award puts children's rights at the heart of schools in the UK, and we are proud to announce that we are rights respecting and have been awarded our Gold Award.

Strengths of the school identified in our Gold Review were:

• “Learners who understood a range of rights and why they are important and relevant to their lives.”
• “A strong commitment to children’s rights and to RRSA from leaders at all levels tied into the vision and values of the school”
• “A school with inclusion at its heart, where pupils feel safe and secure. Senior leaders and staff spoke passionately of a desire to ensure the best interests of each learner are met. Policies and practice appeared geared to realise the ambition.”
• “A determination from all adults to develop approaches to enable learners, including those who are non-verbal and/or with complex needs, to express their views and for these to be acted upon”
• “Learners whose leadership roles are having a positive impact on school improvement and supporting other children to experience their rights locally, nationally and globally.”

Please click here to read our Gold Report.

We have achieved our Gold Award through:

• Teaching and Learning about rights: for the whole school community through training, curriculum, assemblies, topics, focus days/weeks and displays. (E.g. Developing a Co-Production Framework for gathering learners views, identifying the communication skills of the learner, how we support opportunities for gathering views and identifying the tools to gain views. CRC Articles are embedded within curriculum documents)
• Teaching and Learning through rights: by modelling rights respecting language and attitudes, and making strategic decisions that involve learners. (E.g. surveying learners to gain their views about Safeguarding, Lunchtime, Curriculum, and School Environment to review and improve our provision. Supporting other schools within Thrive Educational Partnership Trust to begin their Rights Respecting journeys enabling more children to access and enjoy their rights) 
• Being ambassadors for the rights of others: developing as rights-respecting citizens. (E.g. Post 16 learners leading on a charity Shoe-Share project with Clarks; celebrating disability awareness and acceptance through a community inclusion performance with a local primary school and Music of Life Choir; Sports Leaders delivering sports sessions at local primary schools)

Please see our Rights Respecting Journey to GOLD

Our Rights Respecting School Charter:

Our whole school charter is our promise to make the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) more prominent and relevant to our school and is a framework for both adults and children and young people on how to respect each other’s rights. Our charter not only provides an opportunity to learn about specific articles from the CRC, but has helped to establish and build shared values and relationships for creating a rights-respecting ethos.

Calthorpe Academy Rights Respecting School Charter

UNICEF Rights Respecting School Award:

Unicef works with schools in the UK to create safe and inspiring places to learn, where children are respected, their talents are nurtured and they are able to thrive.

Our Rights Respecting Schools Award embeds these values in daily school life and gives children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives and to be responsible, active citizens.

Using the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as our guide, Unicef are working with more UK schools than almost any other organisation. Over 1.6 million children in the UK go to a Rights Respecting School and nearly 5,000 schools up and down the country are working through the Award. Schools work with us on a journey to become fully Rights Respecting.

The Award recognises a school’s achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into practice within the school and beyond.

For further information about Unicef and their Rights Respecting school award please click the following links:

• UNICEF UK - Children's charity - For Every Child
• The Rights Respecting Schools Award | UNICEF UK

Please see our newsfeed for updates of what we are learning about, through and for our rights.