You may have noticed lots of our rights respecting blog posts have been mentioning a ‘Right of the Term’ recently. This is something that has been set up so each year group can learn about all the different articles on the convention on the rights of the child (see more here https://www.unicef.org.uk/what-we-do/un-convention-child-rights/) without feeling overloaded – there are over 40 of them after all! As the children move up through the school they will access different rights in different year groups and revisit ones they have covered before to ensure they are embedded. We are working hard to include our rights of the term in our every day learning and we will be introducing more information about them through assemblies and worships.

Below is a copy of the rota so you can see what rights will be coming up for your child’s year groupa and the sorts of activities that might be covered (these can be swapped and changed to fit the curriculum as it comes around so please take them as a suggestion only).

It would be lovely to see any further activities going on at home via tapestry or sending photos to the school.

We have been looking at the Right of The Term and exploring Article 29 (The Right to an Education that Develops Your Talents).

Year Sixes have also discussed the meanings of ‘indivisible’ and ‘duty bearers’ in relation to rights.

This term Year 3 are focusing on the right to good healthcare, food and water. To start this off we had a visit from Alix Harding who supports mental health support and learning across the federation. She talked to the children about her role and how our duty bearers in school are supporting everyone with their mental health. In the coming weeks our mental health champions will also be visiting us to talk about their role within this. Perhaps we can inspire some future mental health champions!

Last week our Rights Ambassadors visited Teign School to meet their student ambassadors and visit the library to get ideas for our own library makeover. They had some brilliant discussions, sharing how we work in our school and taking ideas about how Teign School ambassadors lead and support their learning across the school. The library visit was also brilliant for inpsiring some new ideas and helping us to get some ideas about differernt books and authors we can explore.

Our ambassadors truely lived up to their name and loved the opportunity to access their right to a voice (Article 12 of the UNCRC).

Our play buddies have been out at playtimes this week, supporting children with their play and teaching new games! They are working hard to promote fair and peaceful play for everyone while sharing new ideas and helping everyone to be involved.

Our rights ambassadors have been exploring the term ‘inherent’ in more detail by looking at it as a human right, not just a children’s right. They went on a visit to Bishopsteington House residential home to visit the residents and spend some time getting to know them. The ambassadors have been teaching the school that inherent means everyone is born with rights and are starting to learn about ‘inalienable’ which means rights cannot be taken away. They were brilliant at socialising with the residents and talking to them about their own lives and the memories they have. The children taught the residents some new games and the residents enjoyed joining in with colouring activities with the children. It was a brilliant hour where different generations were able to share and interact.

While the ambassadors were visiting they also took the opportunity to share their plans for our library refurbishment. The ambassadors have been working very hard on plans they would like to incorporate into a new library design and were so confident in sharing their ideas and explaining how it will help every child access their right to an education.

Year 3 have been using their English lesson today to do some reasearch. Our Right of the term is Article 17- the right to information. We have been researching different women from the book Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World using Google and the book to support us.

Every child has the right to information and to find out things that might affect them. Our research today opened a discussion about whether we can always trust the information we can find and why there is more information available on the internet than there is in books.

We gathered together our ideas and will continue the discussion in Guided Reading next week when we look at how to trust a website.

Earlier this term, Year Six discussed Holocaust Memorial Day. They learnt about why the Holocaust was so devastating and shocking and why the Memorial Day is so important. Some of their reflective responses can be seen below.

Article 2 – People should not experience discrimination

Article 8 – People have the right to an identity

Article 14 – People should be able to have freedom of thought and religion

The Rights Ambassadors have met this week to discuss a new project that they are passionate about. They have requested that we update our library and book corners to make them more exciting for the children in our school. This week they are making brainstorms of all their ideas ready to share with the school management in the next few weeks.
They will also be looking at fundraising ideas to help pay for the upgrades.

Our Rights ambassadors have been making links with our community by visiting Bishopsteignton house residential home. They went to make Christmas decorations for the residents tree and shared the work they have been doing to promote children’s rights in our school. The residents loved being able to listen to what the children have been up to and really enjoyed being able to spend some time together. The children loved getting to know the residents and sharing their creative art work.

We are always looking for ways to spread our message about children’s rights and ensure that everyone is aware of the important work the children are doing. We will be visiting Bishopsteignton House again in March and will be looking for other community links in the new year. If you want to get involved send a messae to Mrs Buff via the office.