Southend school UNICEF award is first for Kintyre
Southend Primary is the first school in Kintyre to receive a UNICEF award for its commitment to respecting children’s rights.
The school’s pupils and staff are ‘delighted’ to have received a Bronze: Rights Committed award, the first stage of the Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA).
The RRSA is an initiative run by UNICEF UK, which encourages schools to place the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child at the heart of its ethos and curriculum.
To achieve their award, Southend, which currently has seven pupils and two pre-five children, has created the best possible environment for pupils, with commitment in promoting and realising children’s rights and encouraging staff and children to respect the rights of others in school and beyond.
Head teacher Margaret Bannatyne told the Courier: ‘The RRSA encourages the children to have respect
not just for each other but, beyond that, for all children, in a global sense.’
Mrs Bannatyne said that the initiative ties in with the school’s current vision, values and aims, and although the children have been working towards their bronze RRSA since August, many past projects have taught the children about respecting others.
Last year pupils raised £124 for the Mary’s Meals charity from the sale of a recipe book they created. The Argyll-based charity sets up school feeding programmes in some of the world’s poorest communities, where hunger and poverty prevent children from gaining an education.
A poster in the school reminds pupils of Southend’s Convention for the Rights of the Child, which states that they have the right to: eat healthily, keep warm, play and relax, drink clean water, an opinion, play together, make friends, be respected, respect others, a name, practise a religion, be educated, share our views as long as they are legal, to go to a doctor, to go to a hospital, to believe what we choose, and to information.
Pupils and staff at Southend are now working towards the silver award, which they hope to achieve by June 2020.