What is the Rights Respecting Schools Award?
During academic year (2018-2019) we worked towards our Gold level Rights Respecting Schools Award. This page provides updates on our progress.
September Assemblies – Article 29
Respect assemblies delivered across all Houses in partnership with the Senior Student Council and RRS pupil reps. This focused on our school value of respect and Article 29 – the right to an education that develops talents, personality and respect for others.
World Peace Day – 21st September
The Firrhill community took part in designing peace cranes for World Peace Day in celebration of care and tolerance of others.
October – World’s Largest Lesson
S1 pupils took part in the World’s Largest Lesson thinking about how they treat others including refugee pupils and pupils from different cultural backgrounds.
October – World Mental Health Day
Senior RRS pupil reps discussed and designed an assembly to promote the importance of mental health as part of World Mental Health Day, and where to access support. Firrhill staff also had a ‘Tea and Talk’ lunch to raise money and awareness of the Mental Health Foundation.
Duty bearers and Rights Holders
In December we launched new classroom posters highlighting the role of adults as Duty Bearers who help to uphold the rights of young people (Rights Holders). Improving understanding of duty bearers and rights holders is an important part of Firrhill’s action plan towards Gold level. Click on the poster to find out more. 
December Right of the Month Article 6: All children and young people should be supported to live and grow.
Throughout December Firrhill has been focusing on raising awareness of Article 6 from the UNCRC and an important community issue – foodbank use. The Firrhill Senior Student Council and Rights Respecting pupil/staff groups launched Firrhill’s Festive Foodbank and collected many food/non-food items which were then delivered to Edinburgh South West Foodbank.
Each morning during the 2 week collection, register classes were able to find out more about the importance of foodbanks for people in the local community, through a daily foodbank fact:
Some of our Firrhill pupils were involved in collecting, sorting items, packaging food/non-food items, and delivering the items to the foodbank. During the visit they were able to hear about how local people can access the foodbank supplies, where they go to chat about their needs, and other supports they can access.
February 2019 – Rights Focus Week
We launched a Firrhill Rights Focus Week during February 2019 to provide a child right’s lesson focus across all year groups.
February – LGBT History Month
During February we celebrated LGBT History Month with the RRS and GSEA pupil groups leading assemblies that focused on advocates and supporters of LGBT rights. We also hosted the annual Firrhill Purple Friday bake sale with proceeds going to LGBT Youth Scotland.
RRS display boards updated!
The RRS pupil group have spent quite a bit of time updating RRS related notice boards and displays around the school.
International Women’s Day – 8th March
The Firrhill school library celebrated International Women’s Day with a fantastic display of books!
March – Unicef Gold assessment visit
In March 2019 we welcomed Unicef assessors again at Firrhill for our Gold level assessment visit! A very supportive visit and a brilliant opportunity for pupils and staff to showcase how children’s rights and the UNCRC is embedded at Firrhill.
