Douglas Rochestown Educate Together were presented with a Gold Award by UNICEF Ireland, represented by Lydia McCarthy, for the great work done by their students on Children’s Rights.
Hi everyone,
This is Giacomo and Belle from Student Council here at DRETNS. We are going to explain what the UNICEF Gold Children’s Rights Award is and how our school earned it.
The UNICEF Gold Children’s Rights Award is an award given to schools in the country who learn about, promote and protect the rights of children both inside and outside of school. Over the past three years, we have been awarded the bronze, silver and now gold (becoming the second primary school in Ireland to achieve this to date). Our whole school has been working very hard for 3 years and it has been a huge team effort achieving this. We are extremely proud of our whole school community. Here is what we did to earn it.
Every class has been involved and have played their part in showing our commitment to children’s rights. Here are a few examples:
- Second class made a board game to educate pupils on children’s rights
- Senior infants made a movie focusing on their rights to share with their families
- Our new school building was decorated with posters and signs that are inclusive for everyone, teachers and children alike (e.g braille, colour coding, languages)
- We have posters and books in a variety of languages spoken by students in our school (e.g. Arabic, Romanian, Polish, French, Italian…) We plan to grow this library further in the coming years
- Last year, the Student Council organised a summer sale and raised €1286 for Barretstown
- This year’s Student Council hosted a postcard fundraiser for refugees coming to Ireland and raised $726
- And much more
On our Gold Celebration Day we were visited by Lydia McCarthy from UNICEF Ireland and Deirdre Forde, Lord Mayor of Cork. Sixth class students, with the help of the Student Council, made speeches about our children’s rights journey. The whole school sang songs and celebrated the special occasion together. The Student Council were even interviewed for the newspaper and radio!
We are so grateful and proud of our school community.
Giacomo and Belle