Character Development: Hope, Aspiration and Courageous Advocacy

A look at how the school have pursued the UN Rights respecting award to embody courageous advocacy. 

How we live this out in our school – a celebration of excellence 

At St. Peter’s, we firmly believe that “our humanity is co-humanity", inextricably involved with others, utterly relational, both in our humanity and our shared life on a finite planet. Children at St. Peter’s understand that they have a Christian duty to contribute positively to their communities and that it is only by supporting each other that we can flourish. To ensure children were actively involved in supporting the wider community, we decided to work towards the UN Rights Respecting Award. Overseen by our PSHE leader, each class was tasked with selecting one 'right' that they would champion over the coming academic year. As a class, it was then their responsibility to organise a programme of events to either draw attention to an issue or raise funds to support charities that link to their chosen right. 

How we achieved this 

Following an initial launch event at the start of the year, each class was given a series of deadlines throughout the academic year that they must meet. To further emphasise the power of collaboration and collective wisdom, we took the decision to pair up our youngest children with our oldest. To ensure that the projects completed were of a high standard, ample time was allocated within each term to focus solely on each class project. 

Examples of the work the children undertook: 

• EYFS and Y6 joined together to organise a sweet sale in aid of a local education charity.

• Y1/2 have organised a clothes collection in support of local families. 

• Y3/4 have led assemblies illustrating the potential inequalities in gender and how to counteract gender stereotypes. As well as this, the class did an audit of our key texts to ensure that it reflected a diverse world view. 

To ensure that the projects remained on task, manageable and impactful, the Rights Respecting Lead visited each classroom regularly to be briefed as to any developments or challenges encountered.

The difference that it makes 

We have found that as a result of participation in the Rights Respecting Schools Award our children: 

• Know about their rights 
• Can exercise their rights in a mindful and respectful manner 
• Understand that they are of value to the school and wider community 
• Can recognise when the rights of others are being restricted and fight for them 

Children are visibly impassioned when talking about their chosen right and have a markedly better appreciation of the challenges others face within our local area and further afield; this contrasts with the start of the year, when children struggled to articulate challenges facing the local and global community. 

“I love our Rights Respecting project. My favourite moment was when we spoke in front of the whole school about celebrating diversity.” Year 4 pupil 

“I was amazed at how deeply passionate the class felt about championing the rights of others. It was hugely heart-warming to see how impassioned they were about the need to support refugees. As a result of the award, my class now understand that they can and should be a voice for those in need.” Year 6 teacher