Dear Parents and Carers,

At Castilion Primary School, in March 2024, we were thrilled to achieve our Silver (Rights Aware) status, for the Unicef Rights Respecting Schools award. 

Castilion Primary School was visited in March by a UNICEF representative who undertook an audit of our practice to determine whether we should be accredited for Silver or not. This involved looking at every aspect of school life and required children and adults from the school community to be open and honest about the impact they felt being a rights Respecting School has had for them.

As a school, we are very proud of the whole school community who have worked together as a team to achieve the Silver Rights Respecting School Award. This award recognises achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child at the heart of a school’s planning, policies and practice. A Rights Respecting School is a community where children’s rights are learned, taught, practised, respected, protected and promoted. 

UNICEF is the world’s leading organisation working for children and their rights. The Rights Respecting Schools Award is granted to schools that show commitment to promoting and realising children’s rights and encouraging adults, children, and young people to respect the rights of others in school. Silver is given to schools that make excellent progress towards embedding the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into its ethos and curriculum. There are over 1,300 schools across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales that have achieved Silver and over 600 schools that have been awarded Gold, the next step up and highest accolade granted by UNICEF UK.

The UNICEF UK Rights Respecting Schools initiative is aimed at schools across the UK, including those in an early years setting. Currently, it works with nearly 5,000 primary schools, secondary schools, schools for children and young people with special educational needs and pupil referral units across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Schools have reported a positive impact on pupil behaviour, relationships and well-being by enhancing pupils’ self-esteem, leading to less truancy and bullying, better learning and improved academic standards.

We hope in the next year to travel from being a ‘Silver Rights Aware School’ to the Gold standard of a ‘Gold Rights Respecting School’, and we are committed to achieving this goal.

There are many areas of Castilion Primary School life where we can concentrate on embedding the Convention on the Rights of the Child; this is both implicitly in the general, everyday approach of staff and students, as well as explicitly in our policies and practice. 

Thank you to our whole school community for enabling Castilion Primary School to accomplish the significant status of now being Silver Rights Respecting School.

Yours sincerely,
Mrs. Y. Bishop
Principal Castilion Primary School