Rights Respecting School

In July 2017, we were awarded the Rights Respecting School level 1 award, an award that puts children’s rights at the heart of schools in the UK. We are now, proudly, working towards our gold award.

Children at Diamond Hall Junior Academy know that all children have the same rights. No one right is more important than others. Rights are universal. They do not have to be earned.

We chose to strive to be a ‘Rights Respecting School’ because we want our pupils to be kind, respectful, knowledgeable, articulate, confident, tolerant and globally-aware citizens of the 21^st century.

Our children learn ABOUT rights; THROUGH rights and how to take action FOR rights.

Please watch our video below that explains what being 'rights respecting' means to our pupils or scroll down to see what rights respecting activities we have completed so far this year.

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14 of our pupils were chosen by their peers to be part of our steering group, and they meet frequently to ‘drive’ the ethos of rights and respect through school, suggesting and leading activities and providing a platform for pupils to have a voice.

Recent Rights Respecting School activities in 2017-18 include:

Raising funds for Tiny Lives and the Neo-Natal Unit - a charity chosen by pupils with a Christmas jumper day.
Shoe Share. Thank you to everyone for donations of shoes, which will be turned by Unicef and Clarks into ‘School in a Box’ for children in parts of the world who do not get their right to education.
Raising funds for sports equipment by taking part in the Olympic Athlete sponsored fitness event.
Year 3 are currently lobbying the Prime Minister as part of their ‘Send my friend to school - make school safe campaign.’
Year 4 were concerned at the amount of litter in the local area, so wrote to Julie Elliott (MP) who responded by visiting our academy. Children then organised their own litter pick in Pocket Park. The Eco- Group also helped out by litter picking on the beach.
Year 5 have taken part in the Heartstone Odyssey project which aims to raise awareness of discrimination.
Another Year 5 class was visited by a representative from the WE campaign, to demonstrate how children can make a difference in the world and to teach them how to action plan for campaigning.
Lots of recycling activities have also been generated by Year 5, and you may have seen our new greenhouse, made from recycled materials, in the school grounds, which was created by the Eco –group.
Year 6 have taken part in Parliamentary Outreach workshops, to teach them more about democracy in action.
The community police delivered a whole school assembly during ‘Safe Children’ week and introduced the idea of ‘Mini-police’.
Some children worked collaboratively on Rights Respecting School awareness with children from Browney Academy. Others have been involved in the training of student teachers.

Yet to come:

Refugee week (whole school)
Fair Trade week (Year 6)
The RRS steering group impressed the Principal of Academy 360 so much when they met her that they have been invited to deliver a presentation to the senior management team of her academy with a view to the Rights Respecting programme being introduced into that school!

Impact

The impact of our full year can be seen in a recent survey, in which 99% of pupils surveyed said they feel they can influence matters locally, and 98% globally. 95% feel they can make a difference in school. This is because children have a good knowledge of the articles in the CRC and this knowledge empowers them to take action to make a positive change to the lives of other children.