60 Seconds with...
Alison Lyles, a Parent Council Memeber at Newtongrange Primary School
Parent Council Member, Alison Lyles, has been a parent council member at Newtongrange Primary School in Newtongrange, Scotland, for 9 years. She shares how children at her school are now able to assert their rights in the world.
What does your Parent Council group do?
The Parent Council meets with the Senior Leadership Team quarterly and is a forum for parents to discuss things that are happening within the school – it’s an open forum for discussion but also an opportunity for the school leaders to share what the school has done in the last quarter and what they are going to be doing for the rest of the school year.
How do you, as a parent council member, find out what the school is doing on their Rights Respecting journey?
Our school achieved the Bronze Rights Respecting Schools Award in 2019 and then our Silver Award in 2024. Rights Respecting has been very present on the agenda of parent council meetings over the last few years, mainly for the school to discuss their journey with us. Pupil Voice groups are very strong in our school and they have pupils from these groups to meet and greet parents and carers at parents evenings – at one parent’s evening the RRSA group were showing a video they had made about rights to parents. When you go into the school, rights are visible, for example there are class charters on the walls. The school also has regular assemblies that are led by children with parents invited in to watch, and some of these have focused on rights and some of the shared learning events that the school has put on have had a rights focus. We also find out about the school’s work on rights through our kids – they come home and talk about it, or at least mine do!
How are you and the parent council involved with RRSA at your school?
As a Parent Council member, I took part in the RRSA Silver Assessment to talk about the school’s work on rights from the Parent Council perspective. I’ve also been involved in recruiting members of the Senior Leadership team and thinking about children’s rights has been a part of this. Some of the work we do as a Parent Council supports children’s rights, for example we have a member who has overhauled our school garden and has worked with lots of the kids in the school to plant food, to do some outdoor learning and this supports their right to health and wellbeing. We also help with fundraising, if pupils have ideas they sometimes come to us to ask for help to fund it.
What do you think are the benefits of being a Rights Respecting School?
What I can see in my own kids, and I’m assuming the other children in the school, is that they feel confident to assert their rights in the world. I think that’s a really strong benefit. There is also an openness to discuss rights and rights issues. And it’s good to know that your child is having conversations about rights issues at school. The rights agenda is really important and RRSA is a vehicle to push this. Our Parent Council were really proud when the school was awarded with our Silver award and the school was really proud – they held an event where everyone could wear something that made them happy to celebrate it. We’ve also recently had a school inspection and lots of the values that helped the school to achieve the Silver award were embedded in the report as commendations.