St Vincent’s Rights Respecting Steering Group is a group of children and adults who meet together to discuss, plan and drive forward everything we do as a Rights Respecting School. Our Rights Respecting Sports Ambassadors, Chaplains and School Council are our pupil representatives and they do an amazing job.

Article 12 in the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child states that “all children have the right to an opinion, and for adults to listen and take it seriously.” During steering group meetings, all contributions and decisions are mutual, and the children’s ideas are as important as the adults’ ideas.

This year,  the steering group have an important role as we are aiming to become a Silver Award Rights Respecting School. Today we reviewed our Rights Respecting action plan and discussed next steps to achieving the award. Silver: Rights Aware is the second stage of the Rights Respecting Schools Award. It is granted by Unicef UK to schools that show good progress towards embedding children’s rights in the school’s policy, practice and ethos. To achieve Silver: Rights Aware, schools will be assessed by a Unicef UK RRSA assessor who will look at the whole school’s rights respecting work.