'Rights Respecting Schools GOLD Award' (Awarded by Unicef)
27th June 2025
County Hall, Truro – Keynote School Presentation at the UNICEF Rights Respecting School Conference -Article 12 Celebrations.
Our Steering Group representatives had the honour of presenting to a large and diverse audience at the UNICEF Rights Respecting School Conference. Speaking with confidence and passion, they shared details of our current project on food waste, captivating listeners and receiving numerous compliments and encouraging feedback on both their presentation and market stall that showcased their journey.
The children proudly displayed their work at the stall and even ran a food waste competition, where one lucky winner received a box of delicious eggs from our school chickens, laid just yesterday morning!
The day was both informative and enjoyable, and we are immensely proud of our amazing ambassadors — true changemakers who are making a difference today, with their eyes and hearts firmly focused on building a better future.
Go Team St Stephens Community Academy.
February 2025
Our UNICEF Steering Group Meets with Aspens Catering Team to Tackle Food Waste!
Our amazing UNICEF Steering Group recently took action to address an important issue—food waste and pupil choice at lunchtime! The children wrote to our catering team, Aspens, requesting a meeting, and were delighted to welcome Louise Nield (Aspin's Area Manager) and Louise Cridden (Regional Development Chief for the South West) to our school.
During the meeting, the children asked thoughtful and respectful questions, covering everything from reducing food waste to whether we could use produce grown in our class raised beds in school meals. The Aspens team responded openly, explaining how they create balanced meals, budget constraints, and how portion sizes are determined.
Thanks to this meeting and our food waste project, the kitchen team is now weighing food waste daily—including production waste, plate waste, and counter waste. This data is sent to the team for review, helping to find ways to reduce waste even further. As a Trust, we’re also introducing food-only waste bins, and our contract with Biffa will allow for food waste collection and composting. Plus, the children are leading a project to get a compost bin for our school!
The Aspens managers also listened to the children’s feedback about food choices, the salad bar, gluten-free options, and portion sizes. They’ve promised to take these ideas on board moving forward!
A huge well done to our UNICEF Steering Group for leading this important conversation. Their voices are making a real difference in our school community! Thank you to our visitors for their time and willingness to be part of this important project. We know this is a partnership that will make a real difference in our school community.
September 2024
We are delighted to introduce you to our new 2024-2025 UNICEF Steering Group. They were all elected by their classes. We were so delighted that so many children put themselves forward for this valuable and very important position @ St Stephens.
Today Mrs. Furber and Mrs. Hobbs met the group ...the first time they have all been together and wow what a fantastic team they are going to make. Each child put forward fabulous suggestions for projects that they could lead together that would make a positive impact on our community. Suggestions included creating areas for bike and scooter pods , establishing a closer relationship with a local care home , updating playtime resources and developing the wildlife areas in our school grounds including a super run for our chickens and safe ponds.
The first area they are going to lead is the Link to Hope Christmas Shoebox Appeal. Our UNICEF voice globally being actioned.
St Stephens Community Academy has met the standard for UNICEF UK's Rights Respecting Schools Award at GOLD: Rights Respecting.
We are absolutely delighted to inform you that we have received confirmation that we have been awarded the GOLD Award from UNICEF. This is the highest accolade given by UNICEF UK and as a school community we are so immensely proud of this achievement.
Our outcome was based on a face to face accreditation visit. The assessor wanted to thank the children , the Senior Leadership Team, Mrs. Hobbs our UNICEF Lead and staff for their warm welcome to the school, for the opportunity to speak with adults and children during the assessment and for the detailed evidence provided to support the process. Prior to the visit the school completed a comprehensive School Evaluation and a good collection of digital evidence.
The assessor said it was evident that children's rights are embedded across the school and underpin every facet of school life.
Strengths of the school include:
A passionate commitment from senior leaders to embed a rights-based approach, putting it at the core of the school's vision and practice.
Pupil voice which is highly valued. Listening to children is embedded in school practice. Children know their opinions are listened to and taken seriously. This was particularly evident in the way children engaged with, and empowered, to be actively involved in their learning journey.
A caring and inclusive ethos. All children are valued and supported to be the best they can be. Children's social and emotional needs are a priority.
A curriculum that is relevant, evolving and responding to current issues, encouraging children to be advocates for rights.
Our school certificate and banner will be arriving in the Autumn Term when we shall have a 'GOLD' day to recognise and reflect on this fabulous achievement at St Stephens Community Academy.
As a school, we have worked towards achieving
Unicef UK's 'Rights Respecting Schools Award' (RRSA). We are currently a Silver Level Rights School but are currently working to achieve Gold Status (2022-2023)
We are delighted to confirm that we have now achieved
GOLD STATUS . July 2023
JUNE 2023
On 13th June we were delighted to welcome Jilly Hillier, an assessor from UNICEF, to review our application to hold a Gold Rights Respecting School Status. Jilly looked over all our evidence, spoke with the children including our Steering Group, had a tour of the school, and met with staff, parents, governors and directors. A report will now be written and sent to the UNICEF Accreditation and Standard Committee.
We will confirm the outcome as soon as the decision has been made, usually after about three weeks, but would like to say we are very happy with how the assessment went and the expected outcome.
We are immensely proud of Team St Stephens and being able to share our school vision and values in action is a privilege. The following was written by Jilly in our comments book...
"How lovely to be back in a Rights Respecting School and being inspired by children and adults who are committed to children's rights. A fabulous visit. Thank you."
A special thank you to Mrs. Hobbs who has led the UNICEF journey and collated all the evidence to be submitted.
21.01.2023
Sustainable Citizen Character Competition
Children's' Rights , Article 24:Every child has the right to the best possible health. Governments must provide good quality health care, clean water, nutritious food and a clean environment so that children can stay healthy.
A HUGE well done to everyone who has entered the competition set by our UNICEF Steering Group. We are delighted that children across all ages have submitted their ideas . As a school we recognise it is our responsibility to care for our planet and as a school community we are working hard to plan lessons into our curriculum offer and to identify ways we can make a real difference in a practical way.
As a school, we are committed to reducing our waste of paper, food, plastics and energy. Incorporating intelligent heat usage and heat loss prevention, paper reduction and online communications and recycling.
We already raise awareness of climate change within the school and local community through our weekly SMSC, assemblies and events.
As a school, we promote walking and cycling where possible to reduce excess pollution and energy usage.
With the help of the community, through the UNICEF steering committee and staff we are committed to research in order to improve and evolve our response to climate change. This is an ongoing and continual process.
The winner will be announced in our whole school assembly on Monday. The winner's 'Sustainable Citizen' will be used on all our displays and paperwork linked to this very important area of the curriculum.
January 2023
Today in our Key Stage 2 UNICEF Collective Worship all the children sat in their class groups and discussed their 'Rights'. They then had to agree which rights they felt were the most important in their class. Each class has nominated two class member to be part of the 'UNICEF Steering Group'; the Steering Group make sure that the pupils' voice is heard and respected across the school. As you can see from the photographs it was a lively and positive experience with the children confidently involved and willing to have their voice heard. Well done to the Steering Group members who recorded and shared their class' decisions. The chosen 'rights' go alongside the class charters and our whole school 'Rights' Charter. We felt the new year was a perfect opportunity to reconsider what is important to us and what our responsibilities are. The children in our school have the responsibility of being the 'Rights Holders' and all the staff have the responsibility to be the 'Duty Bearers'. The staff are proud to respect, protect and fulfil our children’s rights.
Some of the rights that the children discussed which link to the UNICEF Articles are:
Article 28: We have the right to learn and have an education.
Article 12: We have the right to be heard and listened to with respect.
Article 6: We have the right to be treated with kindness.
Article 17: We have the right to get information in lots of ways so long as it is safe (e.g. online)
Article 29: We have the right to use resources that the adults think will help us learn and develop our personalities in the school environment.
Great team work and advocacy Team St Stephens.
What is the 'Rights Respecting Schools Award'?
The 'Rights Respecting Schools Award' is based on principles of equality, dignity, respect and non-discrimination. It seeks to put the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) at the heart of a school’s ethos and culture. A Rights Respecting School is a community where children’s rights are learned, taught, practised, respected, protected and promoted. Children learn about their rights by putting them into practise every day.
A quick guide to Unicef UK's Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) is available below.
What is the 'United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child'?
In 1989, governments across the world promised all children the same rights by adopting the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention says what countries must do so that all children grow as healthy as possible, can learn at school, are protected, have their views listened to and are treated fairly.
A child-friendly summary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is available below. There are 42 'Articles' or 'Rights' in the summary and we will be focusing on teaching, practising, protecting and promoting these rights within our school.
Chicken Charter
Our school charters do not only apply to pupils and staff. Our Steering Group also created a Chicken Charter which outlines the rights of our school chickens!
The chicken charter is in place on the chicken house on our school grounds.