In July 2021, William Torbitt Primary School successfully achieved the Silver Rights Respecting School Award. A Unicef UK Rights Respecting School is a community where children’s rights are learnt, taught, practised, respected and promoted.

At William Torbitt pupils and the school community learn about children’s rights by putting them into practice every day. As a school we aim to put the children’s rights at the heart of our ethos and culture; therefore, improving pupil’s well-being, self-esteem, sense of security and knowledge of the world they live in.

As a school, we have chosen fourteen articles we wish to focus on and imbed throughout the whole school, including our curriculum, with Article 3 ‘The best interests of the child must be a top priority in all decisions and actions that affect children’ being at the forefront of all we do.

This year, the Autumn term began with ‘My Right to Be Safe Week’, which consisted of reminding and discussing the different articles that we focus on in school. From these discussions, pupils decided on the articles they wanted represented in their classrooms and designed and created their own class charter, which represents them and their rights. The pupils also voted in their new Rights Respecting Ambassadors, who have already started working on different articles, currently focusing on the feedback pupils gave at their pupil forum. We look forward to implementing the changes they wish to see in school.

When we applied for our Silver Award, we were not able to have visitors to the school so we made this video. We hope you like watching it too:

Our Ambassadors Pledge:

We aim to work closely with everyone to promote children’s rights through pupil voice. We pledge to listen to your opinions and take them seriously in order to ensure that our school remains a happy and enjoyable place for us to learn where every one of us is valued and safe. We aim to make a positive difference to each other, our community and the wider world in which we live to make it a better place. You can rely on us and ask questions at any time! The decisions and choices we make, will benefit you!

Have a look at how we have embedded the articles across the curriculum.

Coming soon…