At Strangford Integrated College we are delighted to have achieved our Gold UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools Award.

A Rights Respecting School is a place where students feel safe and confident in the fact that their rights are being advocated for. We are a school that has fully embedded children’s rights into our school ethos. We believe that students and staff working together and respecting each other’s rights will result in the following being improved:

• Learning
• Self-esteem
• Well-being
• Confidence
• Appreciation of community

By achieving our Gold Award, we are acknowledging that across the world, some people do not have access to their rights. We are using our voices to help the wider community and beyond;working towards the Global Goals as seen below.

 

Governments should make sure children can get good quality health care.

Governments should make sure children have nutritious food and a clean environment so they can stay healthy.

Article 24 of the UNCRC says that healthcare for children and young people should be as good as possible, and also goes further than this by saying children and young people have the right to be both physically and mentally fulfilled.

Among other things, this implies that children and young people:

• should have good enough nourishment from their food
• should be able to live in a safe and healthy environment
• shouldn’t be in danger at work.

Article 24 also says that children and young people have a right to information about their health. They should have a say in how they get this and be able to say what they like and dislike about the information they get.

 

We were delighted to be awarded our Gold Rights Respecting School status in March 2022.  Gold Rights Respecting is the highest level of the Award and is granted to schools that have fully embedded the principles of the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child into their ethos and curriculum.  We are one of only three post primary schools in Northern Ireland that currently hold the Gold accreditation and the only integrated post primary to currently have the Gold Award.

Our assessors made the following observations about the College and our wonderful students:

⭐️Students were very articulate and demonstrated a good knowledge and understanding of rights. They knew a wide range of articles and were confident in the concept of rights.

⭐️Learning about rights is embedded across all faculty areas, ensuring all students receive a rich curriculum linked to articles of the CRC.

⭐️ A strong commitment to children's rights and to RRSA is evident from leaders at all levels and is tied into the
vision and values of the school. Quality training and support for staff has been sustained.

⭐️An ethos that places positive relationships based on mutual respect and trust at the heart of  school life.

⭐️A school with inclusion at its heart, where pupils feel safe and secure and are articulate about the importance of knowing about children's rights, the difference this makes to their livesand their desire and determination to help realise these rights for others.

⭐️Very confident students who know that their views are taken seriously.