Integrating children's rights in learning

At this school, education is shaped by learners and children’s rights are central to everything.

Craigdhu Primary School is a RRSA Gold primary school in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland.  RRSA Coordinator Helen Crossey shares their work on learning and rights. 

Getting started

​​We started our Rights Respecting journey by listening to the voices of pupils, parents and all staff within our school community. This was a really rewarding experience as it gave us the opportunity to do a deep dive into our school and look at the visions and values and whether they truly represented us. At that point we readdressed who we were and who we wanted to be as a school community. We voted for the articles that were most relevant to us and this formed our school charter.

Enquiry-based learning and rights

​​Craigdhu Primary School is an enquiry-based learning school. This means that children take ownership of their learning and can focus on aspects of the curriculum  they are interested in. The children get the opportunity to use an enquiry cycle to guide them through their learning and this has helped them to become visible learners. Each enquiry starts with a conceptual idea and this helps the children to tune in to prior knowledge and create questions related to the theme. Then they get the opportunity to research, create a final product and share their learning back in the form of activities like a science fair, assembly or drama. All of these learning festivals can be shared with parents throughout the year. The children are constantly reflecting throughout their enquires thinking about what skills they need to develop to become lifelong learners. We ensure as a community that the voice of our children is heard and valued though everything we do. 

Learning for Sustainability

Our children have the opportunity to shine in all areas of the curriculum. Learning though enquiry gives the children the opportunity to deep dive into subject areas over a period of 6-8 weeks so they can gain a depth and breadth of knowledge. The themes are related to the world around them and so they can see how the knowledge, skills and attitudes transfer into real life. There is strong focus on learning for sustainability within the school and the children understand the link that this has to the Sustainable Development Goals and their rights. Each enquiry has a sharing element, and this varies depending on the subject. During these sharing sessions the children get to showcase their learning, talents and ability. The children in Craigdhu are really motivated and engaged in their learning and have gained a growth mind set and independence to guide their on learning.

​​During lessons the children self and peer assess their own skills and learning experience and can confidently talk about their learning journey and progress within their enquiry. The parents are extremely positive about the way their children learn within Craigdhu and love coming into the school to share the learning with their children. The enquiries are responsive to the needs of the child and are adapted and differentiated to support and challenge them. Within P7 the children spend a week collecting their big ideas in a metacognitive diary. This helps them form the big ideas and explore what interests them. The children carefully consider which one of these ideas links with them and their community and from there develop their own enquiries. This runs over 8 weeks with a large exhibition at the end to celebrate their learning and skills development throughout their years at school. The Local Authority Pupil Forum ‘My Voice, My Choice’ has been another exciting opportunity for  P6 and P7 pupils, to not only feedback on our own school’s policies and processes but also get a voice at meetings when viewing Local Authority policy and processes within wider communities.

Advice for other schools

​Within schools there is the danger of pupil voice becoming tokenistic. It has been vital for our community to really listen and respond to the children’s voices. Hearing their motivations, curiosities and creating enquiries to really engage them to investigate the world around them. A change in the pedagogy and learning environment was necessary to facilitate our learner’s needs, creating equity for all. The impact this has had on our community has been phenomenal. It has been a mammoth task but a very worthy one. As a community we are working hard to get it right for every child and help them lead their learning to become life-long learners.​ 

School context: Craigdhu Primary School is a non-denominational school situated in Milngavie.