Surrey school strikes gold

Pupils and staff have good reason to celebrate as their school has been awarded a gold medal.

Frogmore Junior School has received a gold from UNICEF for its work in respecting rights.

“What a real delight it was to receive the email,”said headteacher Emma Rodziewicz.

The school, a member of the GLF Schools Multi-Academy Trust, went under the spotlight for its re-accreditation in the summer, and everyone was warned that the final outcome wouldn’t be known until later in the year.

“A massive thank you to the rights respecting group particularly, but also all the pupils and staff who create a safe and inspiring place to learn, where children are respected, their talents are nurtured and they are able to thrive,” added Mrs Rodziewicz.

“Frogmore has very articulate children who demonstrated good knowledge and understanding of rights.”

Rights Respecting Schools are recognised for creating safe and inspiring places to learn where children are respected. The award embeds the values in daily life at school and aims to give children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives and to be responsible, active citizens.

The accreditation sent to the school highlighted several reasons for it retaining the gold award, including the ‘caring and inclusive ethos’ which allows everyone to feel fully included in life at the school.

Strengths of the school included: “Very articulate children who demonstrated good knowledge and understanding of rights. They knew a wide range of articles and were confident in the concept of rights.

“The school’s work on health and wellbeing, in particular the consideration of mental health and emotions, was particularly strong.”

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is used as a guide and UNICEF works with  more schools in the UK than most other organisations. More than 1.6m children attend a Rights Respecting School and more than 5,000 are working through the award.

The award is based on principles of equality, dignity, respect, non-discrimination and participation and it started in 2006. A gold level is the highest level and can take up to four years to achieve.