Abbeywood celebrate Unicef silver award

The award puts children right at the heart of schools in the UK and recognises a school’s achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) into practice within the school and beyond.

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 can thrive. The 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.

The accreditation report noted:

• Children are engaged with the concept of rights and are supported to learn about them through relatable and engaging topics. Abbeywood has a strong rights-based ethos that ‘empowers children to know their rights’ and ‘provides a common agenda helping to build a sense of community’ as described by staff.
• All children engage with a ‘Word of the Week’ which helps develop language skills. These are clearly linked to relevant articles of the CRC or are taken directly from articles and support understanding. UNICEF UK’s Article of the Week resources were used as activities during lockdown and now are used when relevant and support discussion about current affairs such as Black Lives Matter.
• Open and honest communication allows children to gain an understanding of why previous education placements haven’t worked and how to advocate for their rights in a respectful and safe way. As a member of staff described ‘learning about rights has had a huge impact on behaviour and engagement. Children are now able to focus on their learning and aspirations as they are settled.’ Options are provided in relation to learning and self-regulation ensuring a positive learning environment for all.
• Children are engaged in learning about the world around them through current affairs and the learning programmes they are involved in. As part of this, they support each other and work sustainably. For example, the construction group have built a shed for the allotment group, who are growing vegetables, that will be used by the catering group, and leftovers fed to the animals by the animal care team

Always on the look out to achieve their next goal, pupils and staff are preparing for their next award in the scheme - Gold! 

Well done everyone!