Monday 06/12/21 GOLD RIGHTS RESPECTING SCHOOLS AWARD

Today we got confirmation of our Gold Rights Respecting Schools award.  A huge well done to everyone!

Glenurquhart Primary Gold report 2 November 2021 GM JP

Friday 26/11/2021  Our School Calendar

In this meeting we thought we should make a right of the month and we wrote down what special things happen every month.

We also had a group photo taken for our blog.  

We received a reply from Bruce Adamson on the 15th of November!  He was delighted to receive our questions and made us a video with his answers.  Unfortunately the link had expired, so Miss Mullin has emailed his assistant, Judith, to ask if we can be sent a new link.  We are hoping to watch the video at our next meeting.

Our next meeting is on 10/12/2021 

 

 

Friday 12/11/2021  Reflections

Today we reflected on our video call with Jenny & Gerry 10 days ago.  We all agreed that it was quite an unusual experience and some of us were feeling really nervous.  It would be much nicer to speak to Jenny and Gerry in person!  Maybe when things go back to normal they will be able to visit us.

 

 

Tuesday 2/11/2021  Virtual Visit from UNICEF!

Today 10 of us had a video call from Jenny and Gerry from UNICEF, as part of our Rights Respecting Schools Gold assessment.  Jenny and Gerry also spoke to other pupils in the school and some grown ups too.

We should find out if we’ve achieved Gold in about 4 weeks.

 

 

Friday 29/11/2021  Children and Young Person’s Commissioner

Today we found out about The Children and Young People’s Commissioner, Bruce Adamson.  We had a look at a website that explains who he is and what his job is:  Commissioner Bruce Adamson

We were curious to find out more, so Miss Mullin helped us to send an email to him.

 

 Dear Mr Adamson,

We are the rights respecting pupil group for our school.  We have been learning about you and your role as a children’s rights commissioner.  We would like to ask you some questions.

How did you get the job of commissioner? (S age 10)

Why did you start helping children?  (E age 7 ¾)

Has it always been your passion to help children?  (M age 10, almost 11!)

What did you do before you were a lawyer?  (J age 10)

Did you ever experience bullying when you were a child?  (S age 10)

Are you allowed to visit schools yet?  (A age 7)

Please can you come to visit some Highland schools, including ours, if possible?  (I age 6)

Thank you for the work that you do,

Best wishes,

Glenurquhart Primary School Rights Respecting Group

 

We know he must be really busy but we are looking forward to his reply.

We also had a chat about what to expect when Jenny and Gerry from UNICEF video call us next week.

Our next meeting will be on Friday 12/11/2021.

 

 

1/10/2021   Charters Check-up

Today we made sure that all the classes are displaying their class charters.  We gave every class 2 copies of the playground charter to display in cloakroom areas.  We also put up posters of our playground charter in some windows, so that they can be seen from the playground.

 

 

17/09/2021   Our new Rights Respecting Schools Group

Our new Rights Respecting School group was formed today.  This year, children from different classes are allowed to mix, so we have people from every class in the school in our group.

Thanks to Layla, JJ, Maisie and Eva for taking on special responsibilities for our group.  Layla is our chairperson and JJ is our vice-chair.  Maisie and Eva are going to share the job of being secretary and writing our blog posts.

At our first meeting, we had a big talk about all the rights that we want to take action on and tell the rest of the school about!  These include: sharing, including everyone, child safety, mental health, doctors and nurses for children, clean and safe water, housing, food, climate change and refugees.

Our Rights Respecting Schools group has a special responsibility to help with UNCRC articles 12, 13, 29 and 42.

 

 

14.06.2021   Our Playground Charter

So here it is, approved by our duty bearers (playground staff) and rights holders (children at our school.)

 

 

09.06.2021   Playground Charter: Collating our rules

P6/7 felt that we needed a small number of easy to understand and remember rules.  Miss Mullin collated the rules from every class and used the key words to create a word cloud.  This was then used to simplify the rules.

We listened to everyone’s ideas during assembly, then had some time to discuss the simplified rules in our classes.  The draft rules were also shared with the playground staff for their approval too.  If all the rights holders and duty bearers agree with these, then they will become our playground charter.

GPS Playground Charter 9.6.21

 

02.06.2021   Playground Charter: Agreeing our rules

The results of all our discussions and voting are in!  We have chosen our “super six” articles to base our playground charter on: Playground Charter _ Agreeing our rules intro 2.6.21

P6/7 decided that the fairest and quickest way to create our charter would be to assign each class a different article, and then ask each class to create 1-3 rules inspired by that article.

Yesterday, P6/7 worked in small groups to create a separate task for each class, with a Google Slide for the class to complete by Tuesday 8th June.  To see P6/7 in action, visit:

https://2020primary67.wordpress.com/2021/06/08/creating-our-playground-charter/

We even had a go at splitting into separate Google Meets for the second half of our assembly but we had loads of technical problems.  P6/7 were great at really persevering and problem solving throughout the afternoon.

Here are the tasks that each class were given; as you can see every class did a great job creating their rules.

Playground Charter Rules Task P1

Playground Charter Rules Task_ P2_3

Playground Charter Rules Task P3_4

Playground Charter Rules Task P5_6

Playground Charter Rules Task_ GM Class

 

 

12.05.2021   Playground Charter: Time to Decide

Now that everyone has settled back into school after the big lockdown of 2021, our self isolation and Spring holidays, it seems a good time to return to creating our playground charter!

At our virtual assembly, Miss Mullin went over the UNCRC articles that P6/7 had selected in December.

UNCRC Rights holders (our pupils) were asked to talk about this as a class and agree on the six best articles for our playground charter.  Their teachers were then asked to fill in a Google Form showing their class choices.  The Duty Bearers (adults) who supervise in the playground also voted for their “super six” articles using a Google Form.

Playground Charter Time to Decide 12.5.21

 

 

09.12.2020   Playground Charter

One of the important jobs that we need to do this year is to create a rights-based charter for our playground.

In pairs, P6/7 looked at all 54 articles of the UNCRC and highlighted the ones we felt were most relevant to our primary school playground.
We found 11 articles that could be relevant: Articles 2, 3, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 23, 24, 28 and 31!
This is too many! UNICEF advise a maximum of 6 articles for a playground charter.

Joshua and Matthew created a presentation for the whole school to share this information, and to ask each class to think about these rights and try to narrow it down to 6 rights for us to base our playground charter on.

Playground Charter intro 9.12.20

 

 

25.11.2020   E: All rights are EQUALLY important

We learned that rights are indivisible: they are equally important.  Some of the P6/7 pupils used Pxlr to pixelate an important photograph for the presentation, while others designed posters to show how rights are equally important.  Miss Mullin was very impressed by the pupils’ creativity and IT skills!

E_ All rights are EQUALLY important by P6_7 Nov 2020

 

04.11.2020   D: Rights DO NOT have to be earnt

Today we learned that children don’t need to do anything to have their rights, they are unconditional.  We also learned that all children are Rights Holders.  All adults are Duty Bearers of the UNCRC and have an obligation  to help children to access their rights.  P6/7 are busy making posters to remind everyone who the duty bearers are in each classroom.

D_ Rights DO NOT have to be earnt 4.11.20

 

07.10.2020   C: Rights CANNOT be taken away

P6/7 explained that children’s rights cannot be taken away (they are inalienable,) but sometimes it is difficult for children to claim their rights.

C_ Rights CANNOT be taken away 7.10.20.

 

 

16.09.2020   B: Rights are there at BIRTH

On Wednesday afternoon, P6/7 explained how children have their rights from BIRTH, they are inherent.  P6/7 found researching this presentation really interesting.  We didn’t realise just how important a birth certificate can be!

B_ Rights are there at BIRTH 16.9.20 P6-7

 

02.09.2020   A: Rights are for ALL children

At today’s virtual assembly, P6/7 explained how children’s rights are for ALL children, they are universal.  Please see their presentation below:

A_ Rights are for ALL children 2.9.20 P6-7

 

 

August 2020   Happy New School Year!

Since this year will be a little different to keep everyone safe, each class in the school is going to take on a different citizenship responsibility.  Rights Respecting Schools and Fairtrade Schools will be the responsibility of our P6/7 class.

P6/7 will begin with a series of virtual assemblies, sharing and explaining the ABCDE of rights with the whole school.  Watch this space for more updates!

 

05.03.2020     Fairtrade Fortnight: Storybombing

This morning 4 members of our Fairtrade Pupil group spent the morning “hiding” the stories of hard working Fairtrade chocolate farmers around Drumnadrochit.  The first 2 people to find each story get to keep a special Fairtrade Fortnight bookmark!  The idea is that people keep re-hiding the stories, so that as many people as possible find out about Fairtrade.  Keep an eye out for them around the village over the next few weeks!  We also included a letter about our work in school.  You can read it here: Fairtrade Fortnight letter to community FF2020 blog

Particular thanks to all the lovely library staff who made us very welcome.  🙂

 

 

02.03.2020     Fairtrade Fortnight: Forest Friendly Farming activities in P7

Today the P7s watched ‘Guardians of the Rainforest’ (a short film for schools) and took notes on how this way of farming encourages everyone to work together, is sustainable and protects the rainforest.  They are now using their notes to design an advert for forest friendly Fairtrade chocolate!

If you would like to watch the short film, the link is below:

https://schools.fairtrade.org.uk/resource/guardians-of-the-rainforest/

 

 

27.02.2020     Fairtrade Fortnight: Hunting for the Fairtrade Symbol

This morning 3 of our P1/2 pupils went a visit to our local Scotmid.  They took vouchers which Scotmid have awarded to the school to buy some items for our Fairtrade Fortnight activities.  They were very good at spotting the Fairtrade symbol on some of the products.  They had to buy different types of Fairtrade chocolate for a chocolate tasting in P1/2, as well as buying several Fairtrade chocolate eggs for end of term prizes.  We also had a look at sell by dates on fresh produce.  Well done to our amazing trio!

 

26.02.2020     Fairtrade Fortnight: Visit from Lynne Ogg (Scotmid)

This afternoon, Lynne Ogg came to visit us to help us to celebrate Fairtrade Fortnight and showed us how the chocolate supply chain works.  Each member of the Fairtrade Group was a different person/company in the chain, arguing for their income.  There are so many people involved, and often it’s the farmers that get the worst deal.

Lynne also brought us a list of all the Fairtrade items in our local Scotmid, a Bala Fairtrade Football to try out next term, and lots of chocolate goodies for our “Pirates of the Curry Bean” raffle.

We are grateful to Scotmid and especially to Lynne for driving all the way from Dundee to visit us!

 

 

12.02.2020     Fairtrade Fortnight: Protecting People and Planet

UNCRC Article 2 
The Convention applies to every child, regardless of race, colour, sex, language, place of birth, religion, politics, disability, and status.

UNCRC Article 24 
All children and young people have the right to the best health care possible, safe water to drink, nutritious food, a clean and safe environment, and information to help them stay alive, healthy and safe.

This afternoon, we presented a role play which told the story of cocoa farmers working at the edge of a rainforest in West Africa.  We wanted to show everyone how Fairtrade can help to protect both people and planet.  In the roleplay, the rainforest cocoa farmers showed us that if farmers do not earn enough money, they have to make difficult choices to survive.  If we want to protect the rainforests of the world; it is important that we make sure the people that live there are paid fairly.

We explained that Fairtrade Farmers get an extra payment, called the Fairtrade Premium, which they spend on education or healthcare for their families.  This helps their children to claim their rights.

When you buy Fairtrade chocolate, you are helping farmers to support their families and protect the places where they live.

Fairtrade Fortnight is from Monday 24 February – Sunday 8 March 2020.  During that time each of the classes will hear more about Fairtrade Farmers.  The RRS group will be hiding their “storybombs” throughout the village, so lots of people in our community can learn about Fairtrade Farmers too!

The official website for Fairtrade Fortnight 2020 is here: Fairtrade Fortnight 2020

 

05.02.2020     RRS Group Meeting: Fairtrade Assembly Preparation

Today we sorted out who will do what in our assembly next week.  We had a read through the script and worked out what actions to do.

Now that we can play the laptop sound though the speaker system in the hall, we have decided to use a song called “We’ve all got rights” when it is our turn to present assemblies.

You can listen to the song here: UNICEF UK “We’ve all got rights” Youtube link

 

22.01.2020     RRS Group Meeting with Pupil Council

We worked with the Pupil Council to match children’s rights with our Curriculum Rationale.  (This describes the learning and teaching activities that go on in our school.)  Each group looked at a different area of the curriculum: Literacy, Numeracy, Gaelic and French, RME, Sciences, Technologies and Social Subjects.  (We looked at Health and Wellbeing at the start of January.)

Now Miss Mullin needs to explain the links that we found to Mrs Laird, so that she can update the document!

 

15.01.2020     Citizenship Groups Assembly

Today we explained the links that we made between the articles of the UNCRC and the aims of HWB week (Please see our post below.)

 

08.01.2020     RRS Group Meeting: Matching children’s rights to HWB week aims

This afternoon we looked at the aims of Health and Wellbeing Week, and matched them to the UNCRC articles.

The whole week supports UNCRC Article 24 (health and health services)
Every child has the right to the best possible health. Governments must provide good quality health care, clean water, nutritious food, and a clean environment and education on health and well-being so that children can stay healthy. Richer countries must help poorer countries achieve this.

Here is how we matched the individual aims of the week with children’s rights:

“To understand more about how our emotions work” links with UNCRC Articles 12 and 13

Article 12 (respect for the views of the child)
Every child has the right to express their views, feelings and wishes in all matters affecting them, and to have their views considered and taken seriously. This right applies at all times, for example during
immigration proceedings, housing decisions or the child’s day-to-day home life.

Article 13 (freedom of expression)
Every child must be free to express their thoughts and opinions and to access all kinds of information, as long as it is within the law.

“To drink more water throughout the day and understand how this supports good health” links with UNCRC Article 24 (health and health services)
Every child has the right to the best possible health. Governments must provide good quality health care, clean water, nutritious food, and a clean environment and education on health and well-being so that children can stay healthy. Richer countries must help poorer countries achieve this.

“To increase our physical activity including time outside” links with UNCRC Articles 27 and 31

Article 27 (adequate standard of living)
Every child has the right to a standard of living that is good enough to meet their physical and social needs and support their development. Governments must help families who cannot afford to provide this.

UNCRC Article 31 (leisure, play and culture)
Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

“To learn about staying safe” links with UNCRC Article 28 (right to education)
Every child has the right to an education.  Primary education must be free and different forms of secondary education must be available to every child. Discipline in schools must respect children’s dignity and their rights. Richer countries must help poorer countries achieve this.

“To learn ways of relaxing” links with UNCRC Article 31 (leisure, play and culture)
Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

“To understand the importance of sleep” links with UNCRC Articles 28 & 31.

Article 28 (right to education)
Every child has the right to an education.  Primary education must be free and
different forms of secondary education must be available to every child. Discipline in schools must respect children’s dignity and their rights. Richer countries must help poorer countries achieve this.

UNCRC Article 31 (leisure, play and culture)
Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

We will explain these links at our Citizenship Groups assembly next week.

 

11.12.19     RRS Group Meeting: Planning Fairtrade Fortnight 2020

   

Today we looked at the Fairtrade Fortnight 2020 campaign which is all about sharing stories.  The children were very enthusiastic about the idea of “storybombing.”  The idea is that we will hide Fairtrade stories around the village, for people to find, share and hide again for someone else to find.  We made a HUGE list of places we could hide them.  We are going to write to different places in the village to tell them we are doing this.

 

06.11.19 & 27.11.19     RRS Group Meetings

 

09.10.19     RRS Group Meeting: Fairtrade Schools

Today we talked about what Fairtrade means and all the different products that carry the Fairtrade mark.  We are aiming to achieve the Fairtrade Schools FairActive Award this session!  Next term we will write a FairActive action plan together.

We made a list of the different products that we knew could be Fairtrade: bananas, chocolate, sugar, tea, coffee, clothes and footballs.  We voted to choose two to campaign about in February and May 2020.  We chose chocolate and footballs!

We watched a short film by the Fairtrade Foundation called: Playing Fair: The Story of Fairtrade Footballs

It was a really interesting film ~ we talked afterwards about all the people we could speak to about it.

We decided it would be best to split into 2 research teams next term, so that we can find out as much as we can about Fairtrade chocolate (to present in February) and Fairtrade footballs (to share in May) and try to do something to take action on both!

 

02.10.19     Different Families, Same Love Assembly

UNCRC Article 2  (non-discrimination)  The Convention applies to every child without discrimination, whatever their ethnicity, gender, religion, language, abilities or any other status, whatever they think or say, whatever their family background.

UNCRC Article 18  (parental responsibilities and state assistance)
Both parents share responsibility for bringing up their child and should always consider what is best for the child.  Governments must support parents by creating support services for children and giving parents the help they need to raise their children.

UNCRC Article 20  (children unable to live with their family)
If a child cannot be looked after by their immediate family, the government must give them special protection and assistance. This includes making sure the child is provided with alternative care
that is continuous and respects the child’s culture, language and religion.

This afternoon, pupils from our group presented a Powerpoint and read a Twinkl ebook called “Part of the Party.”  These helped us to recognise the similarities and differences between different families.  One of the things that all the families had in common was that they all loved each other.

 

18.9.19     RRS Group Meeting

This afternoon we discussed the #Activate Your Rights campaign.

“Young Scot, Children in Scotland and The Scottish Government want to work with a group of children and young people to take the lead in helping to promote their rights and shape the way Scotland understands and supports the rights of the child.

In November 2019 it will also be the 30th anniversary of the UNCRC being created so this is a fantastic time to get involved with this exciting project! That’s why we’re recruiting volunteers for #ActivateYourRights – a children and young people’s rights team that will help promote the The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) for children and young people in Scotland.” 

https://young.scot/get-involved/national/activateyourrights-promoting-the-uncrc-across-scotland?dm_i=LQE,6H9UC,HOR7AW,PPMIU,1  18/09/2019

Several P4-7 pupils were interested in applying for this.  The closing date is Monday.  The official website (including the application form) is here: Activate Your Rights Campaign

We also started to prepare for our next assembly, which we will deliver on Wednesday 2nd October.  We listened to and discussed a Powerpoint presentation called “Different Families, Same Love” and then an E-book called: “Part of the Party.”  We decided to use them both in the assembly.  Five people will present the assembly.  A group of P5-7s looked at the UNCRC articles which the story ties in with.  A group of P1-4s started to make colourful lettering to update our RRS Group noticeboard in the hall.

Miss Mullin will meet with the presenters again tomorrow, so that we are all happy with what we are going to say and read!

 

18.9.19     European Day of Languages Assembly

UNCRC Article 2  Every child has the same rights regardless of their race, colour, sex, language, religion, politics, nationality, social class, place of birth or disability.

UNCRC Article 30  Every child has the right to practice their own culture, language and religion.

This afternoon, we co-presented an assembly with the Celebrations Committee.  We explained what, when and why we are celebrating the European Day of Languages next week.  We were really impressed with the number of different languages that people can say “Hello” or “Good afternoon” in.  Lots of pupils have already decided which European flag colours they are going to wear for our school sponsored walk next Monday afternoon.

Our assembly is here: european day of languages assembly 18.9.19

The official website is: European Day of Languages 2019

 

9.9.19

Look what arrived today!  We’re very proud to display our certificate and banner after all our work towards achieving this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

28.8.19     RRS Group Meeting

Miss Mullin welcomed our new committee group members.  We played team building games to get to know each other better.

We are going to present an assembly on the European Day of Languages in 3 weeks time.