UNICEF Rights Respecting School
At Holland House, our aim is to nurture pupil’s self-confidence, and model sensitivity and respect towards others through an understanding of our rights and responsibilities. These are our building blocks; our pillar core rights and responsibilities that determine everything we do. In order to have a strong foundation of what is right and wrong, wellbeing, self-respect and respect for others, we need to be able to talk to children about the importance of their rights and the responsibilities that we have, to ensure we respect these rights, and behave appropriately. At Holland House, we all speak the same language, so that children are clear as to what is expected of them. They know their rights and they know the responsibilities that come with understanding and honoring these rights accordingly. We don’t have rules at Holland House, we have responsibilities to respect our rights and the rights of others.
The aim of a Rights Respecting School is to promote the values of respect, dignity and non-discrimination. A child who understands their rights then understands how they themselves, and others, should be treated and their sense of self-worth is strengthened. This helps build their confidence in making informed decisions. They have a moral framework, based on equality and respect for all, which lasts a lifetime, as they grow into engaged, responsible members of society. Rights and principles of the Convention are used to put moral situations into perspective and consider rights-respecting solutions – this all has a huge impact on relationships, behaviour and personal wellbeing. Holland House is proud to have an elected group of Rights Respecting Ambassadors who uphold our charter and model exception behaviour. Our children look to these ambassadors as the voice and role models for upholding children’s rights throughout our school.
As the duty facilitators, Holland House has a primary responsibility to fulfil and protect the rights of children. Rights Respecting Ambassadors are the rights upholders, ensuring that the duty facilitators are held to account. Through weekly meetings, Ambassadors share the voices and views of their class members so that plans can be made to continue to improve and drive our school development further.
So that we show consistency in our approach to teaching children about their choices and behaviours, we follow our school charter. This consists of five key rights and responsibilities children have to respect the rights of all.
Supporting local charities
As a school we support many local charities at different times of the year.
- During November we held a Harvest Festival and all food donations were taken to our local baptist church food bank for distribution to people in need.
- We all dressed in spotty clothes to support Children in Need in November this year , we raised £123 for children across the UK.
- During Anti-bullying Week in November, we decided to all wear odd socks to school to celebrate how we are all unique, different and special in our own way.
- We held a coffee morning for Macmillan Cancer Support in September and we raised £114 for this worthwhile charity.
- We also wore jeans to school on Jeans for Genes Day in September and we raised £126. This donation will make a big difference to the lives of children and families living with genetic disorders.
- We regularly support our community by raising Christmas presents for those less fortunate than us and we have visited our local Care home to bring them cheer since COVID:19.
- We GIVE all we can to those in need.
The article this term is Article 24:
Every child has the right to the best possible healthcare. Safe water to drink, nutritious food and a safe environment.
Click above to find out about how the pupils at Holland House have decided to support other children around the world.
Click above to find out about what happened when the children wrote to Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP.
Click above to find out more about the work of our Rights Respecting Ambassadors in school.
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