Rightly Proud!

What a wonderful, memorable experience for our young people – Arwen, Thomas, Alma, Luis, Eilidh, Isaac, Eamon and Rachel – to have an opportunity to present their Together Alliance UNCRC mural of Children’s Rights at the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday 13th December, hosted by Deputy Presiding Officer Linda Fabiani MSP and with a presentation from Maree Todd MSP, Minister for Childcare and Early Years.

P7 Sciennes pupils with MYSPs Joel, Suki and Thomas and Maree Todd MSP

Juliet Harris and Liz Millership (Together), Maree Todd MSP and Linda Fabiani MSP

2017 State of Children’s Rights in Scotland published today

We were all rightly proud of our pupils’ fantastic artwork and their confidence in presenting to such an esteemed group of adults, gathered Together to launch the 2017 Report into the State of Children’s Rights in Scotland. It was a delight to see their artwork feature in the newly released publication and a joy to see Arwen find a picture of herself when she opened the booklet.

Thank you very much to Juliet Harris and Liz Millership from Together for looking after us so well and making everyone feel welcome and at ease. Particular thanks to all the parents who accompanied and supported the children’s participation in this very special event.

Rightly proud pupils and parents

P7 explain the journey along the seven panels of their child rights mural, from ‘The Policy Factory’ panel where children’s voices are excluded to ‘The Meadow of Rights’ panel where “everyone can be who they are” and have their voices heard.

Cathy McCulloch (Director) and Chelsea Stinson, Children’s Voices Project Manager from the Children’s Parliament (based at Summerhall) approached us last year with this very exciting opportunity to work with Together – the Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights.

http://www.togetherscotland.org.uk/resources-and-networks/the-uncrc-in-scotland-seminar-series-2017

As part of a seminar series on children’s rights in law, practice and policy, Together and the Scottish Universities Insight Institute worked with international delegates to ensure that children and young people play a key role and that key messages from the seminars are accessible to everyone. Together commissioned artists Joanna Boyce, Yonnie and Lyver to work with our then P6 pupils to present key messages in a creative and engaging way. Three young people who had attended the seminars (Joel, Thomas and Suki) interpreted the key messages and themes then our P6 pupils (now P7) worked closely with the artists to visualise the imagery suggested, for example ‘rights in the clouds’, ‘a policy factory’, ‘a meadow of rights’ and ‘connected Together in a daisy chain.’

Having adopted the name ‘The Clan of Children’s Rights’, this group of pupils will continue supporting and developing our rights based learning at Sciennes (particularly in the Year of Young People 2018) and we sincerely thank all involved in this project for helping them gain the confidence, understanding and enthusiasm to take a lead role within our school.

Article 42

All adults and children should know about this convention.

Article 12

You have the right to an opinion and for it to be listened to and taken seriously.

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