Sherwood Park and Barrington Primary Schools working together to become “Gold” Rights Respecting Schools

Sherwood Park and Barrington Primary Schools working together to become “Gold” Rights Respecting Schools

It is great to see schools working together to achieve a common goal as this is partnership in action, so we would like to share how Sherwood Park Primary School and Barrington Primary School are working together in the hope of achieving the Gold Award for being a Rights Respecting School.  

A Rights Respecting School (RRSA) is one where children rights are taught, respected, protected and promoted and a number of schools in Bexley have already achieved Bronze, Silver or Gold Award status. Sherwood Park achieved the Silver RRSA in June 2022 and were keen to strive to achieve Gold so Mrs Olenka (RSSA Lead at Sherwood Park) reached out to Miss Taylor (RSSA Lead at Barrington) who were in a similar position and decided to work together. Louie French (Conservative MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup) was also keen to join a meeting with the School Councils about how they could tackle the issue of recycling in schools and communities and this took place on 27th September 2023. 

Becoming a Rights Respecting School has had a positive impact on the children at both schools and Mrs Olenka shares that “it has been lovely to watch the children’s confidence grow, allowing them to take ownership of their time at Sherwood Park. For example, their playtime – by suggesting ideas for equipment and lunchtime clubs, charity work that we are involved in as a school and running enterprises such as tuck shop on a weekly basis. The children have fantastic ideas that they action during our school council meetings when it comes to fundraising for both local and national charities. Children’s voice at Sherwood is huge and is at the heart of all the decisions being made. “ 

Miss Trayers, Head Teacher at Sherwood Park also shares that “being part of RRSA is allowing us to continue to strengthen our culture and ethos at Sherwood Park. Our children are developing an understanding of being part of a global community and have a better understanding of the impact that children can have on creating a positive future.  We are proud of the children’s involvement in projects such as ’save our soil’ and ‘shoe share’ campaigns. From these opportunities and experiences, the children have realised that they can have an impact on global issues when they get involved and use their voices together. “ 

The children at Barrington have also been very positive about the impact of being a part of this project, with Emily and Adam (Yr 5 at Barrington) sharing “We enjoy being Article 12 representatives because we want a better understanding of ways in which we can make our environment better inside and outside of school.  We want to be involved in helping other children and to work with Sherwood Park and Louie French to support Bexley in helping climate change”.  

Arham, Leo, Molly, Abdur-Raheem and Henry (Head and Deputy Head students, year 6 at Sherwood Park) also shared that “We enjoy being the voice for our peers at Sherwood Park during our school council meetings.  We feel that our ideas and opinions are listened to by the adults and they take action based on what we say.  We were excited when we were told we would be working with Barrington this year, as we both work towards achieving the Gold Award in Rights Respecting Schools”.  

Involving other members of the community has also had a positive impact and Louie French attending the join School Council meeting and afterwards commented that “It was really fantastic to see the passion that students and teachers from Sherwood Park and Barrington primary schools have for the environment and improving our local area here in Bexley. I am confident that this project will have a positive impact on both the children’s education and our wider community”. 

We look forward to hearing more about the impact that being a Rights Respecting School is having on our amazing pupils in Bexley!  

If you would like to find out more about becoming a Rights Respecting School, please visit https://www.unicef.org.uk/rights-respecting-schools/