Rights Respecting School Group

We Are a Silver Rights Respecting School! 

We are absolutely thrilled to announce that Park Primary School has officially achieved the UNICEF UK Silver: Rights Aware status!

This is a massive milestone for our entire school community in Oban. As a key part of our School Improvement Plan, we have been focused on learning about the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) and helping all our pupils understand their rights. Achieving Silver means we are successfully putting those rights at the heart of our school’s policy, practice, and culture.

 

Rights in Action: What We’ve Been Up To 

Our journey to Silver has been packed with learning, collaboration, and student-led action across all year groups:

• – Fortnightly Assemblies: A huge thank you to Mrs Rossiter, who has been organising brilliant fortnightly assemblies for P1–P4 and P5/4–P7. These sessions have allowed us to explore what rights look like, how they apply to children around the world, and what “rights in action” truly means.
• – Climate Action Week Collaboration: Our student Rights Steering Groups have been working incredibly hard, joining forces with the Eco Committee and the Children’s Parliament. Together, they collaborated on developing a Climate Action Week specifically for Scottish Schools.
• Because of this amazing work on Climate Action Week with the Children’s Parliament, Park Primary has been asked to be featured in a special Education Scotland short film.

Becoming Champions for Change 

While we are celebrating our Silver award, our journey doesn’t stop here. Next year, we will continue to deepen our learning about rights. We will be shifting our focus to global and local citizenship, considering what role we can play in championing children who do not have access to their rights. We want our pupils to ask the big questions: Why is this happening in our local community, and why is it happening globally? We want to empower our young people to be a strong voice for others.

 

What’s Next? 

To reach the final stage—the prestigious Gold: Rights Respecting award—a school must fully embed child rights into every single aspect of school life. To get there, we will be working on:

1. – Total Integration: Explicitly adopting the child rights approach across all school practices, ethos, and culture so that it becomes second nature to everyone.
2. – Rights-Respecting Language: Ensuring that rights-respecting language and attitudes are thoroughly embedded among all children, teachers, and adults in our community.
3. – Global Ambassadorship: Empowering our pupils to play a leading role in driving progress, shaping school decisions, and acting as true ambassadors for social justice and fairness both at home and abroad.

You can read all about the award standards, find family resources, and track our journey framework directly on the UNICEF UK Rights Respecting Schools Award Website.