Children's Rights
South Downs is a UNICEF Rights Respecting School.
What are Children’s Rights?
The RRSA Award
The UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK) works with schools in the UK to create safe and inspiring places to learn, where children are respected, their talents are nurtured, and they are able to thrive.
Our Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) embeds these values through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) into daily school life, and gives children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives, and to be responsible, active citizens.
The Award is based on principles of:
equality, dignity, respect, non-discrimination and participation
and takes a whole-school approach to Children’s Rights education, which can be defined as:
1. Learning about rights for the whole school community through training, curriculum, assemblies, topics, focus days/weeks, displays.
2. Learning through rights by modelling rights respecting language and attitudes and making strategic decisions that involve our students.
3. Learning for rights by developing as rights respecting citizens through participation, empowerment and action.
This is taught within an overall context of education as a right.
Alongside Children's Rights, UNICEF also works on Sustainable Development Global Goals.
Every year we work on different Children's Rights and Global Goals, as well as further developing and consolidating those we have already featured in previous years. For 2023/24 we are focussing on:
Children's Rights
12 Respect for children's views
14 Freedom of thought and religion
15 Setting up or joining groups
24 Health, water, food, environment
31 Rest, play, culture, arts
Global Goals
3 Good Health and wellbeing
13 Climate action
14 Life below water
Earth Day 2024 information for parents and carers
