Rights Respecting School Award

Charter School Statement of Commitment to Rights Respecting Schools Award

We are thrilled to be the first primary school in Chippenham to have received the highest recognition from UNICEF for our work on children’s rights. We earned the Gold Rights Respecting School Award after two years of learning about the 42 rights for kids, set by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). We celebrated receiving the award with a whole school afternoon tea and were delighted that Chippenham Mayor, Desna Allen, joined in the celebration.

The initiative has been introduced to the school and it is wonderful to see how ‘passionate and more invested in their education’ the pupils are.

The system operates with a Steering Group, consisting of an ambassador from each one of the seven classes, from ages 5-11. We all meet monthly and help decide on a learning plan as well as events that are run by the school.

There are three stages to the award. A bronze award is given to a school that adopts the initiative, silver is given to a school that can prove the pupils are aware of the rights, while the gold award is given when the school has fully integrated rights into every day’s learning.

A copy of our Gold accreditation report can be viewed by clicking here.

Pupils Who Are Members Of Our Steering Group

RRSA Steering Group

Members of our Steering Group are:

Mrs Flack (SLT)
Mrs Weston (Teacher)
Mrs Gale (Nurture Room)
Mrs Townsend (Office)
Mr Nicholson (Governor)

RRSA Ping’s Homework Challenge

We have been working very hard at Charter School to promote children’s rights. You can click here to see our Headteachers Ping’s Challenge homework.

You can see below how some of our pupils have been promoting the Rights Respecting Schools Award.

Visits from other Schools

We have been very lucky to have been visited by several schools who were interested in how we are promoting children’s rights at Charter. Our steering group and ambassadors were keen to show our visitors around and helped explain all about the Unicef Rights Respecting Schools Award.

We’ve all got rights

Please click on the video below to watch

Charter School Vision

Our ethos of Create, Discover, Succeed, Together supports the 4 standards of the Rights Respecting Award. The RRSA states that the rights respecting values underpin all actions taken by leadership and management and that what is in the best interests of the child is of top priority. The whole school community learn about the convention for the rights of the child. This shared understanding helps us work together for global understanding and positive living. Charter school staff collaborate to develop and maintain a rights respecting community in all areas of school life. We are empowering our children through C,D,S,T to become active citizens and learners, with every child being able to say what they think in all matters affecting them and have their views taken seriously. All are encouraged to take an active role in their own learning and to speak and act for all to be respected.

Summary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)

Class Charters

Sunshine Class Charter

Rainbows Class Charter

Raindrops Class Charter

Snowflakes Class Charter

Storm Class Charter

Hurricane Class Charter

Lightning Class Charter

York Class Charter

Lancaster Class Charter

Our Ambassadors Rights Respecting Leaflet

Rights Respecting Discs

We have been busy at Charter School creating our Rights Respecting discs that will be situated around the school.

Charter children helped to decorate 4 discs, all of which represent some of the Unicef Rights Respecting Articles.

We hope that you enjoy looking at the finished discs when you come into the school.

Unicef / Charity events at Charter School

At Charter School we have been busy supporting Unicef and other charities. In this section you can find information on what we have been up to.

Unicef Day for Change

At Charter we celebrated Day for Change by trying to make a difference for all children. We asked all children to wear blue as this is the Unicef colour and bring in £1 donation. Every child brought an empty yoghurt pot to plant seeds in to represent our pledge. During the day we designed things to help change a life, talked about how we can help children and the planet, and created a whole school Mexican wave.

Please click here to see the letter from our Steering Group which promoted this day.

Toilet Twinning

Flushing away poverty, one toilet at a time

We have recently ‘twinned’ with toilets in Afghanistan and Central African Republic and have the certificates to prove it! Following fund raising at school activities, and in conjunction with St Andrew’s church in Chippenham, we already have the funds to twin with two others in a remote part of the world.

As a Rights Respecting School, the pupils chose to support ‘Toilet Twinning’ and ‘WellBoring’ as their charities of the year. This is in line with their learning on the rights of children around the world and is in support of those who do not have the privilege of clean water and modern sanitation.

The fund raising for ‘Toilet Twinning’ and ‘WellBoring’, and the children’s passion for these charities are an outcome, but have also been brought about, by the school’s ‘Rights Respecting’ culture, as highlighted in our recent Ofsted report ‘..the school’s focus on becoming a ‘right’s respecting school’ has provided pupils with opportunities to explore different cultures…’ .

Unicef/Clarks Shoeshare Collection

We have hosted a collection for the Unicef / Clarks Shoeshare appeal. Thank you to all the families that have brought in shoes. Please click the following link to view correspondence sent to parent to promote the event. ShoeShare Friday 3rd May

Unicef Outright Campaign

Outright Campaign

Charter School is one of hundreds of schools across the country taking part in the Unicef Outright Campaign. This year we are emphasising every children’s right to a clean environment. Our steering group helped Mrs Callaghan-Wright install filters that would help us to take a snapshot of the quality of air around our school.

We were able to establish that the results for our school were below the European Union legal limit for NO2.

Big Battery Hunt

Charter School are actively involved in this years Big Battery Hunt. This scheme is helping encourage our young people to think about the importance of recycling.

We have collected over 46,000 batteries so far and have had our first collection.

As part of our Ping’s Homework Challenge our headteacher has asked pupils to write an account of how they have gone about collecting their batteries (click here to see our home work challenge). We are excited to receive these so we can add them to the Big Battery Hunt’s stories page.

Please click here to view our Quick Guide to the Rights Respecting Schools Award.