FOR the fourth time this year, Ashlea Primary School has come top of the class in terms of its innovation and commitment to continually raise the benchmark for standards of pupil care and welfare.
On Friday the school officially received a Level 1 Certificate in the UNICEF Rights Respecting School Awards. It was the first time the school decided to enter the Awards, making the achievement all the more remarkable for pupils and staff alike.
School principal, William McElhinney, said he was ‘delighted’ to have received notification of the school’s success, and stressed the importance of including children in the democratic process of administrating the school.
“Our ethos within the school is a positive one, and in a way the Rights Respecting School Award gave us a mechanism in some ways to highlight that. We looked at the 42 ‘articles’ we had to meet, and when we got our heads around the documentation, we went round the school building taking stock, and we could see where we were already meeting the standard required and the criteria tied in with things that were happening in the school as a matter of course,” he said.
“We have systems in place for school ‘buddies’ with older pupils befriending younger ones, the Focus Group through which we consult with the children and guage what their sense of wellbeing was within the school and we then documented an action plan which we sent off to UNICEF.
“We then went through the assessment and were visited, and to be honest I was confident we would get it, and I view this as a benchmark for future development at the school. We are quite happy to open our doors and let peole in to form their own opinion of the work that is going on within the school. People are important and the whole social and emotional ethos of the school recognises that with rights comes respect, and you have to work towards this,” Mr McElhinney.
“The next thing we have to get our heads round is the idea of class councils and school councils and we are now looking at a formal mechanism for that, but in a small school you find that you have that kind of dialogue all the time, so it is a formality really to empower them and get them to sit round with staff members and tease out issues, letting them know their voice is valued,” he said.
The Rights Respecting School Award now occupies a special place beside the recently received Teaching Award, Health Promoting School Award and the Charter Mark, and the staff and pupils are now fixing their sights on a Level 2 Award.
