St Matthew’s is a Gold UNICEF Rights Respecting School; the very first school in Trafford to earn this award and one of only 33 in the North West of England to achieve the highest standard. We are proud to have children’s rights shining out across our community.
What is the UNICEF UK Rights Respecting Schools Award?
The UNICEF UK Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) is based on principles of equality, dignity, respect, non-discrimination and participation. The RRSA seeks to put the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child at the heart of a school’s ethos and culture to improve well-being and develop every child’s talents and abilities to their full potential. A rights-respecting school is a community where children’s rights are learned, taught, practised, respected, protected and promoted. Young people and the school community learn about children’s rights by putting them into practice every day.
Examples of Rights Respecting work in our school
Steering Group
With the help of our school council, we created a Rights Respecting Schools Steering Group with the role of driving the initiative forward through the stages of Recognition of Commitment, Level 1 award and Level 2 award. The steering group hold regular meetings to discuss our progress and decide on what to do next. They work with our rights governor, Anne, and members of staff.
Toilet Twinning
To raise awareness of Rights Respecting Schools and the work we are doing in school, our steering group created and ran a stall at our community fun day. We also used the stall to raise money for toilet twinning – a fantastic cause. Our stall was amazing and the feedback from visitors was amazing!
After learning about the UN Convention of the Child and some of the rights, staff and children worked together to redesign our school values so that they incorporated the rights that we, as a school, thought were most pertinent to us. The children in Year 6 worked really hard to adapt our aging golden rules into 3 new rules that reflect the ethos of our school. The document below shows what we decided on together.
Let Your Light Shine
As well as having a whole school charter, each class has worked on developing their own class charter in, in which they have set out articles that are important to them, how they will make sure everyone is able to enjoy their rights and how adults can support them. Each class chose a theme for their charter and the finished work is amazing!
Out Right 2021/22: Mental Health Campaign
Children in our steering group have been learning about the importance of mental health support for children, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. This leads them to hold a stall at a local market to help share their recent work and ask for support. They worked tirelessly to collect over 200 signatures for their petition for more mental health funding, due to be sent to the House of Commons.
Key Policies and Documents
