Rights Respecting Schools Award
"Strong engagement with rights and the active promotion of respect for the rights of others are clearly important characteristics of life at Highcrest Academy. The pupils inspire hope for the future. As one young man explained, “knowing about rights helps to shape a new generation... it’s the way to a better life”.
Unicef 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. The Rights Respecting Schools Award embeds these values in daily school life and gives children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives and to be responsible, active citizens.
At Highcrest, we first became a Rights Respecting School back in 2015 when we achieved the Level 1 award. UNICEF moderators then upgraded us to become a Gold Award school after an inspection in May 2018. The Award recognises a school’s achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into practice within the school, and beyond.
Highcrest was the first secondary school in Buckinghamshire, and only the fifteenth secondary school nationally, to be accredited as a Gold Award UNICEF Rights Respecting School; you can imagine how proud our community is of this award.
Despite the interruptions caused by the pandemic, the UNICEF articles continue to be at the heart of everything that we do at Highcrest.
Our Gold Award Report highlighted the following as strengths:
- a strategic commitment to the principles and values of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
- an inclusive and supportive learning community where respect plays an integral part and rights are actively promoted and upheld
- young people’s views are actively sought, respectfully listened to and taken seriously
- Click here for the latest report.
BucksFreePress Article: Highcrest First in Bucks to Receive Gold RRSA Award
What makes the UNCRC so Special?
The Convention has 54 articles that cover all aspects of a child’s life and set out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights to which all children everywhere are entitled.
It also explains how adults and governments must work together to make sure all children can enjoy all their rights.
Every child has rights, whatever their ethnicity, gender, religion, language, abilities or any other status.
The Convention must be seen as a whole: all the rights are linked and no right is more important that another. The right to relax and play (Article 31) and the right to freedom of expression (Article 13) have equal importance as the right to be safe from violence (Article 19) and the right to education (Article 28).
The UNCRC is also the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world – it has even been accepted by non-state entities, such as the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), a rebel movement in South Sudan. All UN member states except for the United States have ratified the Convention. The Convention came into force in the UK in 1992.