🎉✨ Sacred Heart is a GOLD Rights Respecting School! ✨🎉

On 7th July 2025, Sacred Heart was assessed for GOLD accreditation — and we did it! On 5th September 2025, we were officially awarded the GOLD Rights Respecting Schools Award by UNICEF UK. 🏆

We are especially proud to share that Sacred Heart is the very FIRST primary school in Sandwell to achieve GOLD! 🌟

This prestigious award recognises the incredible work of our whole school community in placing children’s rights at the very heart of everything we do. From the way we learn in class, to how we treat one another, to the projects we take part in — rights shine through in everyday life at Sacred Heart.

GOLD is the highest level of the award, and it reflects the commitment, kindness, and respect shown by our pupils, staff, and families. We are especially proud of the children, who live out these values every single day.

We celebrated this achievement on Friday 24th October. The celebration was attended by the Mayor of Sandwell, Councillor Steve Melia, and Cabinet Member for Children and Families, Councillor Jalal Uddin, who joined the special banner reveal and assembly performances conducted by RockSteady. Children designed their own GOLD UNICEF themed shirts, made gold leaves highlighting their GOLDEN moments and received GOLD chocolate coins to take home. 

💛 Thank you for your continued support — this achievement belongs to all of us, and we couldn’t have done it without our wonderful school community! 💛

What is the Rights Respecting Award?

“The UNICEF UK Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) supports schools across the UK to embed children’s human rights in their ethos and culture. The award recognises achievement in putting the UN Convention on the Right of the Child (UNCRC) at the heart of a school’s practice to improve well-being and help all children realise their potential. The award is based on principles of equality, dignity, respect, non-discrimination and participation. The initiative started in 2006 and schools involved in the Award have reported a positive impact on relationships and well-being, leading to better learning and behaviour, improved academic standards and less bullying.”

As a school, all adults are helping children learn about and access their rights.

Please look at the UCRC and find out all about children’s rights so that you can and support your child in helping them to understand their rights, and how to respect these in their home environment and in the wider school community.

How can parents help their children know about their rights?

• Spend time talking about the articles at home: https://www.unicef.org/sop/convention-rights-child-child-friendly-version 
•  Look at and discuss child friendly news e.g. Newsround; ask the children about Picture News (we watch this in school). These will often link with rights learning.
• Talk about and work through the ‘Article of the Month’ that are posted on this page.
• Discuss learning about rights and encourage pupils to relate rights to current issues.
• Join in with local charity events and school charity days.
• Take action for positive change in your local community e.g. litter picking and recycling.

Please support us on our continued RRSA journey.

Thank you.

To find our more information about this award, please visit the following website:

https://www.unicef.org.uk/rights-respecting-schools/about-us-new/