Introduction:

What is RRSA?
The RRSA (Rights Respecting Schools Award) is given by a charity called UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) . UNICEF works hard to help children and families all over the world. It works hard to ensure that all children can enjoy their rights by upholding the UNCRC. We all have rights and they cannot be taken away from us.
 
What is the UNCRC?
UNCRC stands for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child.
It was created by UNICEF and it has 54 articles which outline all the rights a child has. It builds on basic rights a child has such as the right to:-

• Survival
• Develop to the fullest
• Protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation
• Participate fully in family, cultural and social life

There are four main core principals to our work:-

• Non discrimination
• Devotion to the best interests of the child
• A right to life, survival and development
• Respect for the views of children

Why are we a Rights Respecting School?
We decided to become a Rights Respecting School because we want TSM to become a better place for everyone. We want to teach children about their rights and we want them to understand how to respect each other's rights and develop the responsibilities they have towards each other. Rights Respecting Learning makes us think more about other people all over the world and how our actions and words affect them.

We would like children and adults to look at their own behaviours and see how it affects other people and how they would feel if they were treated in a similar way. We believe this is a very important skill for children to succeed in life and be happy.
 
How are we a Rights Respecting School?
As a Rights Respecting School we aim to teach the children that they have rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). From this starting point they also learn their responsibility to respect others' rights in the community. The ethos created in school works in unison with our mission statement as a Church of England school and demonstrates to the children the inclusiveness of being a rights-respecting school.

As a Rights Respecting School we do not have a set of rules to follow, rather we have Charters in place that support the philosophy of 'Everyone  has a right.....Everyone has a responsibility to respect these rights'. Every year each class makes a class charter. This charter is agreed and signed by the children and adults who work in there and details how we will show respect for each other's rights.

Across our school we have charters in place which reflect our ethos, for example a School Charter, a Playground Charter, a Lunch Charter and a Staff Charter.  These Charters are in place for everyone to follow.

At TSM we believe everything we do should be for the benefit of the children's development and their opinions can shape how we do things.

Representatives are elected from every class from Year 2 upwards to form the Rights Respecting    steering group.  These children are our UNICEF ambassadors, who work hard to help others in the school learn all about the important work of UNICEF.

We do lots of fundraising at TSM because we think it is very important to help out those who are not as fortunate as us; this is how we respect the rights children have to their basic needs.

At TSM we love our diversity, and because every child has their rights laid down in the convention we celebrate our diversity by learning about all the cultures, religions and celebrations that make up our great school. Our assemblies, PSHE and RE lessons are linked to the UNCRC.

TSM is proud to have been awarded Level Two of the Unicef Rights Respecting School Award (RRSA) in 2010; we were one of the first schools  in Wandsworth to have achieved this and it is something we are very proud of as a school community. This award is due to be re-validated this year and we are working very hard to ensure that once again we gain the Level Two award.