Rights Respecting School

Newsflash - Beaver Road has been reaccrediated at Gold level RRSA !

In Partnership With UNICEF

In June, 2022, Beaver Road Primary School was reaccreditated and once again, awarded Gold status as a Rights Respecting School. This means that we place the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the values of dignity, justice and respect at the front and centre of all that we do – we live and breathe the convention! Our vision is eloquently expressed by the children themselves who created the following headline statement for our school:

Education is the first step on the path to wisdom. We can create a better future for us all by championing human rights, welcoming difference and diversity, and looking after our planet’s resources. Each person on earth deserves to be treated with respect and dignity , not to be discriminated against and to be valued as part of our international family.

Beaver Road children are passionate advocates for the rights of other children and champions of the seventeen global sustainability goals. In the true spirit of Article 12 – respect for the views of the child, we welcome and encourage children to be informed and enthusiastic campaigners having led several protest marches including the megaphone-delivery of protest poetry in Manchester City Centre, headlining conferences such as the ‘GM Get Moving’ event at the Etihad Stadium, alongside Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, and as part of Manchester’s Pupil Parliament, our focus on gender equality has led to a visit to see Parliament in London and work with a number of politicians and social change-makers. As a highlight of our recent summer term, the Y6 children held a Global Goals festival in the woodland area of our Junior School. We invited our families and members of the local community to take part in our festival challenges, learn more from conversations and information prepared by the children and celebrate the collective vision for affecting change in unique and creative ways.

As active participants and consultants, our pupils are consulted on policy input and change and have been responsible for sharpening the focus on relationships in our Relationships & Behaviour policy and working to update the Healthy Eating programme and working with our business manager and school council. The children give regular and comprehensive feedback to the governing body and understand that all adults are duty bearers and are duty-bound to help all children enjoy their rights.

We explore a focus Article from the UNCRC each fortnight through a lead-assembly and follow-up work in the classroom. Children often create and lead their own assemblies and share a powerful message about e.g. non-discrimination (article 2) , freedom of expression (article 13) or the right to play (article 31). These themes are threaded through the general curriculum and the children often offer their own connections – e.g. looking at which Rights Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate characters were not enjoying….or how our in some contexts, children cannot claim their Right to a say in all matters that affect them.

Please talk to your children at home about the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Global Goals and what it means to be ‘rights respecting’. You will find that our children are passionate, informed and eloquent about their aspirations for making the world a better place and responding to global challenges and contemporary issues. Our children are our future trailblazers and change-makers and the inspiration for everything we do!