Steve Macabee (00:00)
Welcome back once again to the P-Pod, the partnership podcast from the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. Now the SSCP, as with many partnerships around the country are always looking at new innovations to help safeguard children better and improve the systems within which we work. And I'm really pleased.

Steve Macabee (00:19)
to talk about this today with my colleague here, Stuart Wiffin from UNICEF, who has been leading regionally on the Rights, Respects and Schools Award. Now, if anybody hasn't heard of the award in a moment, we'll get into the details of what that is, but it's project that's been initiated within Somerset with funding from the Safe, Garden and Children Partnership, alongside funding provided by the Safe, Somerset Partnership to bring this initiative to schools within Somerset that we've been working with.

Steve Macabee (00:47)
So although we have done some work, a lot of work with Stuart and Stuart has presented on one of our foreign week webinars as well on the Rights, Respect and Schools Award, we thought what better to bring him along here to the P pod today to talk to us as well. So Stuart, thank you so much for joining us here. It's really good to talk to you again as always. How are doing?

Stuart Whiffin (01:03)
All good thanks Steve. Yeah, thank you for having me. Yeah, it feels like we've done quite a lot of work together now over the last few months. So yeah, really looking forward to today.

Steve Macabee (01:12)
Yeah, no, great stuff. Before we sort of get into the details of it, for anybody that's not heard of UNICEF and the Rights Respected in Schools Award, can you just give us a bit of background to it, sort of what it is and why it was created in the first place?

Stuart Whiffin (01:25)
Yeah,

Stuart Whiffin (01:26)
of course. So the Rights Respecting Schools Award or RRSA, it's often abbreviated to, is UNICEF's UK's whole school approach to placing children's rights as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child at the heart of school life. So its purpose really is to help create schools where every child feels safe, valued, respected and really able to thrive. Because us as UNICEF UK,

Stuart Whiffin (01:52)
We really support thousands of schools across the UK to embed the values of dignity, respect, non-discrimination and participation. And it's through this framework that we put together that schools work through that we'll get onto a bit later, looking at all aspects of school life really through leadership, curriculum and relationships. So the Rights, Respect and Schools Award was really created because when a school intentionally builds a culture,

Stuart Whiffin (02:19)
around rights. Research shows that significant improvements in wellbeing, engagement, and certainly relationships improve. It's not a bolt on, it's not something that it's just something to do on the side. It really is that whole school ethos that strengthens behavior, learning, and that sense of community that we want our schools to have. So yeah, it's a really great process.

Steve Macabee (02:43)
Yeah, no, I agree. it's interesting. I think when we talk about the UN conventions on the right of the child or the rights respecting schools award, as we're going to be talking about today, people initially might sort of think, well, I'm not, how does that really sort of connect with safeguarding? But really it's at the core of it, the heart of it, isn't it? Before we sort of get into the award itself, again, many people may have heard of the UN convention on the rights of the child. What is that, if anybody's not

Stuart Whiffin (03:06)
Yeah, of course.

Steve Macabee (03:06)
so familiar with it?

Stuart Whiffin (03:07)
Yeah, so in its simplest form, so the UNCRC, as you said, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, really underpins all the work we do. So there are 54 articles outlining children's sort of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights. And what that does, it provides a shared framework that shapes decision making, relationships and participation.

Stuart Whiffin (03:32)
across schools. But again, this is wide ranging across all different sectors as well. And again, we'll probably talk about that a bit later on. But that convention and that framework was really created to ensure that every child in the world, because it is a universal convention, has all of the things it needs to thrive. And I think that really sits at the heart of what we do. And UNICEF are actually the only

Stuart Whiffin (03:56)
charity that are named in the convention itself as the sort of proprietors of sharing this work, which is exactly why we've created the Rights of Specters Rules Award.

Steve Macabee (04:06)
And I think what really pricked our interest initially when we were kind of looking at sort of initiatives taking place, you touched on it moment ago about some of the evidence base behind it. And I think

Stuart Whiffin (04:18)
Mmm.

Steve Macabee (04:18)
that was something that was really, really interesting because again, when you look at it on the surface, you think, okay, well, a program for schools about children's rights, how does that really kind of fit into things? But I know there's been a lot of evaluation take place of the program itself.

Steve Macabee (04:33)
So what does that kind of research and that evaluation tell us about the changes that the Right to Selecting Schools Award makes, like things like safeguarding culture, attendance, exclusions, all these bigger kind of issues that people might not think about initially.

Stuart Whiffin (04:47)
Yeah, certainly. think, you I'm in a really privileged position that I get to speak to school leaders and young people themselves day in, day out. So I can see firsthand the difference this makes to all of those things you just mentioned, because, you know, no two days the same, of course, in this role. But when you are going into schools that have put this approach into practice, you hear lots of lovely anecdotal evidence just about the day to day building of relationships and improved

Stuart Whiffin (05:13)
sort of reduction in exclusions, et cetera. But what we've done, we're in a really strong position because we have over 5,000 schools now on the program itself. We've put together an impact report. So our 2024 impact report was the last one, which drew on evidence really from 190,000 pupils, 20,000 staff, inspection reports, evaluations from 600 plus head teachers. It was a really big pool.

Stuart Whiffin (05:40)
And from all of that, and it's available on our website if anyone does want to look at it, schools reported that children now know about their rights. And that's really, it's a big part of this process because as you said, lots of people perhaps don't know about children's rights or the UNCRC itself. But what we're really seeing through that impact and evaluation is that children now exercise their rights confidently.

Stuart Whiffin (06:05)
they feel valued, but really recognize the rights of others. And I think that's a key component of this as well. And then, you know, then when you're looking at the culture of respect, know, rights respecting, it's the sort of the clue is in the name, the stronger cultures of respect and really more meaningful participation across schools. And this, you know, this is this is wide reaching across our schools as well. It's not just through curriculum, but

Stuart Whiffin (06:29)
through everything we do. And that also touches on staff wellbeing being improved as well. But our independent evaluations echo this as well, which they always say there's a profound positive effect on things like behavior, the reduction of bullying, relationships, inclusivity. It feels like a big list I'm listing off, but this is what we now live day in day out because we've got this huge number of schools.

Stuart Whiffin (06:54)
who've been on this process for perhaps 15 years, some of them.

Steve Macabee (06:58)
what really pricked our interest locally here is that that bigger ripple effect. you know,

Stuart Whiffin (07:02)
Mmm.

Steve Macabee (07:02)
initially, when we're looking at it, we're looking at responses to serious youth violence. And

Stuart Whiffin (07:08)
Certainly.

Steve Macabee (07:09)
actually, again, looking at the evaluations going, actually, this is not this is, you know, this has got a much bigger impact than just what you know, the thing that you might focus on originally of children within schools and like, say, rejection, that bullying,

Stuart Whiffin (07:20)
Certainly.

Steve Macabee (07:21)
but that that that understanding of

Steve Macabee (07:24)
of rights, but also with rights comes responsibilities. And it's understanding actually, actually that reduction in things like bullying and harassment. If I have rights, then also I have responsibility not to do that to somebody else. And I think that's what we really see sort of coming out from this. like you mentioned, this is not a small scale study. We're not just going to look at a couple of schools and how it's been nice for them. This is a huge study.

Steve Macabee (07:48)
and formal evaluation of the program, has been really, really successful, which is fantastic. And I think just on that basis, you mentioned how many schools have been involved with this, and I know it's been really successfully implemented for, like mentioning, a number of years now in other parts of the country. know that Sadiq Khan was so impressed with it that he launched the London Inclusion Charter

Stuart Whiffin (08:10)
Yes.

Steve Macabee (08:10)
and the rollout of the program to all schools in London.

Stuart Whiffin (08:13)
Mmm.

Steve Macabee (08:15)
What's that sort of implementation of it look like in other places and sort of what's worked and what's not worked or how has it evolved in places like Scotland and all sorts of areas?

Stuart Whiffin (08:24)
Yeah, definitely. So as you mentioned in London, our essay has been expanded citywide through the mayor's violence reduction unit. you know, touching on a lot of what you were just mentioning, especially on that culture of respect that we want to foster in our young people, especially because, like you said, when children know their rights, but then realize that their actions have consequences and then also the respect for each other as well.

Stuart Whiffin (08:50)
city. So in London, as you mentioned, so the violence reduction unit funds the award for free for all state funded schools. So I think there's about 700 and rising schools already participating. And again, that's part of the London Inclusion Charter, which was really created in response to steep rises in suspensions and

Stuart Whiffin (09:11)
persistent absenteeism. So yeah, that really has had a big impact so far across the city, mainly because you've taken away that funding issue that all schools struggle with. But that aside, generating these cultures of respect within schools is starting at grassroots. Because really, and I say this to a lot of my schools participating in the ward.

Stuart Whiffin (09:32)
We are preparing young people for the world that they're about to step into as adults. So if we can get into schools and create these cultures of respect, you then will hopefully have this knock on effect across the city, which will hopefully only improve things.

Steve Macabee (09:48)
and sort of getting into the award itself then, I mean, what are the sort of core strands of the Rights, Respect and Schools award? What do they actually mean in practice? we talk about sort of

Stuart Whiffin (09:57)
Yeah, of course.

Steve Macabee (09:58)
children understand their rights, but I know it's kind of the strands of that are bigger aren't they?

Stuart Whiffin (10:02)
Yes, certainly. So our essay uses a three strand model that reflects international best practice in human rights education. we work with three strands and they're named strands A, B and C. They're sequential and they are deliberately based this way because it's

Stuart Whiffin (10:19)
what we find the most natural way of introducing rights into any setting. So because we offer a framework of these three strands that then lends itself to whatever your situation or your cohort of children are, we've got a number of additional need settings on board with us as well. So this really does work in many different ways.

Stuart Whiffin (10:39)
because we have this one framework that, like I said, follows international best practice really for human rights. So to sort of break it down for you, so strand A, so where we start with our schools is learning about rights. Where really children, staff and families, because you know, this is outreaching into the communities that we work with as well, develop a shared understanding of the UNCRC and how rights can apply to everyday life.

Stuart Whiffin (11:06)
And I think this really is the foundation of what we do with the Rights Respected Schools Award. It's showing children what their rights are, exploring them in many different ways. There's no one size fits all, but what we want schools to do at the beginning is just learn about rights in however way that that fits for them. And we've got a wealth of resource on the website that will help you do that as well. And this to be...

Stuart Whiffin (11:30)
to reflect on my own practice, so I was a primary school teacher before this role, this was the most powerful part for me because I taught very young children for a lot of my teaching careers, sort of reception year one, year two. And when you teach children about their rights and what they're entitled to, there's a fear sometimes from schools that suddenly children will be stamping their feet and saying, this is what I wanted because...

Stuart Whiffin (11:57)
I have a right to it. And that is part of this journey sometimes. But what really opened my eyes to this was the sort of, you know, with my safeguarding hat on, the disclosures that came forward from those initial conversations, because for the first time in young people's lives, sometimes they are suddenly realizing that the situation that they're living in or something that's happening to them shouldn't be happening. You know, I often say children don't know what they don't know.

Stuart Whiffin (12:24)
So when you suddenly put this information into the hands of young people, and this is why I say to schools, safeguarding of rights sits hand in hand, which is exactly why this is so important that we talk about this today. A lot of children came forward with some quite big disclosures, but then also it had a lovely shift within the culture of my classroom where children were seeing each other differently for the first time.

Stuart Whiffin (12:48)
where suddenly they realized that they should all be having the same things or they should all be treated the same way, X, Y, Z.

Steve Macabee (12:55)
So initially, sort of your involvement in the Rights, and Schools board, was it as a teacher that was within a school? okay. And that's kind of what led you, you went, I like this, I've got to get more involved. I see.

Stuart Whiffin (12:59)
It was. Yes. So I was a

Stuart Whiffin (13:06)
primary school teacher in a city school, quite a challenging school, but you know, a fantastic school where we introduced this. So we were one of the first schools to adopt this in Wales. And that was sort of the catalyst to the biggest change we've ever seen in our school.

Stuart Whiffin (13:24)
because of the knowledge that we're giving our families and our staff and our children. So yeah, so Strand A, and I say this to schools all the time, it's the only new work that you're doing. So introducing rights is the difference and the new thing you are doing. I say new in inverted commas, the only new work. So that leads us then onto Strand B. So Strand B is about learning through rights.

Stuart Whiffin (13:47)
So what we want to then do is look at schools, good practice that's already happening and start linking that to the articles that children have been learning about. Because we know that rights shape relationships, they shape the teaching and learning and decision-making in schools. And within Strand B, we look at a lot of different sort of areas of rights, such as looking at dignity, respect.

Stuart Whiffin (14:12)
participation, equality, non-discrimination, but it's about strand B, that learning through rights. So strand A, they've learned about what rights are, and then strand B is where they're starting to put that into practice, where children will suddenly realize that we have healthy meals at lunchtime because they have a right to it, or we're offered X amount of hours of PE a week because we have a right to...

Stuart Whiffin (14:37)
good quality health. So it's a lovely catalyst we see happening in schools where children are suddenly realizing that actually everything that's happening in schools are because of the convention, because that sits at the heart of everything we do in our schools. And you can drill down into any area of your school and you can link it to a right. So that's sort of strand B and then strand C, the final strand, which is my favorite one, but

Stuart Whiffin (15:02)
sometimes the one that gets a bit tricky to implement in schools. So, Strancy is learning for the rights of others. So, it's where children now have really learnt their rights. They've lived it through the experiences they're having in schools, but now they are looking at the wider community and globally, where children are exercising their rights and acting for the rights of others through sort of leadership and participation, advocacy,

Stuart Whiffin (15:28)
social action, because what typically happens is children will learn about their rights, they'll live them, and then they'll suddenly look out into the wider world, or just outside the front doors of that school and say, actually, litter is a really big issue, or anti-social behavior is an issue, or traffic is an issue, all of these sort big world issues. And children can then use their rights through all different ways.

Stuart Whiffin (15:52)
to really make the world a better place. So there's a lot of global citizenship that comes into our work, which is why, you we stress that this is not sort of an add-on. This is about a whole culture change within your school. So even though I mentioned Strand C can sometimes be the trickiest part, it's one that I really see the biggest impact when you get to it, because you've got very powerful young people who know their rights and suddenly realize that what's happening

Stuart Whiffin (16:19)
outside of the gates perhaps isn't conducive to them getting all of their rights. So yeah, so those are the three strands.

Steve Macabee (16:25)
It's interesting when you kind of, when you talk about it in that way, for me, what I'm thinking about is it's sort of context to life, isn't it? It's like,

Stuart Whiffin (16:31)
Mmm.

Steve Macabee (16:32)
know, strand one is the context of you and who you are and your life.

Stuart Whiffin (16:37)
Certainly.

Steve Macabee (16:38)
Strand two is then kind of expanding out to that slightly wider context of that sort of directly around you and within your family, your school, your curriculum, everything else. Step three is kind of that bigger global.

Steve Macabee (16:50)
Context of your life, isn't it? Actually, yeah,

Stuart Whiffin (16:51)
Certainly.

Steve Macabee (16:52)
like say outside of the school gates actually hang on This is bigger world out here where we have rights as part of that and responsibilities towards that on a might sound that sort of global scale

Steve Macabee (17:01)
My guess is some people listen to this might go. Wow, that sounds really interesting, but

Steve Macabee (17:05)
You know what, we've got so much to do already at the moment. We've got loads of our, know, with our curriculum we need to think about, our policies, our practice. This sounds great, but it's just well, way too overwhelming, not something that we could take on at this stage. I know as part of your role, you do provide a lot of support for education settings as part of this. And it's put together in a very manageable way. I think you mentioned very briefly earlier, we've got the bronze, silver and gold awards that sort of, you know, progress through as part of this.

Stuart Whiffin (17:30)
Yes. Yeah.

Steve Macabee (17:34)
I'm just thinking if somebody's listening to this and says, do you know what? This is great. If they wanted to start this tomorrow, what does that kind of pathway typically look like from sort of start to finish and how long does it take and all these sort of things?

Stuart Whiffin (17:45)
Certainly,

Stuart Whiffin (17:45)
yeah. So thank you, Steve. So as you said, there's a huge amount of support out there for schools. So my role is typically liaising with schools day in, day out and awarding schools with the bronze, the silver and the gold. So the first step of the award is bronze. And that's just about recognition that schools are wanting to become a rights perspective school.

Stuart Whiffin (18:05)
and it's purely a planning stage. So at the beginning, what we ask schools to do is think about creating a pupil-led steering group. Now sometimes schools will use their already existing school council or eco-committee or whoever you got in school. And then what we want schools to do is create a baseline audit and an action plan. So it's purely planning.

Stuart Whiffin (18:27)
We do not want rights introduced yet. We do not want it sort of up around the school yet. Bronze is, you know, becoming aware that they're going to become a rights respected school. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And so,

Steve Macabee (18:39)
kind of taking stock if you like. Where are we at the moment and actually what do need to think about to progress this?

Stuart Whiffin (18:46)
yeah. And so what we ask schools to do at Bronze is to write an action plan. So the three strands that we talked about a second ago, within those three strands, there are nine outcomes.

Stuart Whiffin (18:55)
So we have nine outcomes that we work across, then nine outcomes stay the same, bronze to silver to gold. So there are nine sections of this award. What changes is the content as you progress through the stages. But at Bronze, we just want you to look at the nine outcomes with your steering group and just think about are there things we can do, some quick wins, are we already doing a lot of this work? Because many schools say to me,

Stuart Whiffin (19:20)
Strand A is where we had to introduce a lot of the work, but then when you're looking at Strand B and Strand C, we're already very strong on recycling or we're already very strong on wellbeing, relationships, safety, all of the other things we look at in the award. So putting that action plan together and sending it to myself is all you need to do to achieve bronze. This typically happens within a term of registering for the award. So it's a quick step.

Stuart Whiffin (19:48)
And that document then, lots of schools worry about sending it over because they feel like they have to sort of do everything that's on there. What always happens, this becomes a working document. So we get sent it just to see your commitment to becoming retrospecting. The school is then awarded bronze. That action plan you've then written, you start working on, which is where we move towards silver.

Stuart Whiffin (20:12)
So yeah, so bronze is purely a planning stage. So to get bronze, you will not have to have started any of this work. You just want an action plan and sort of your pupil led steering group to be put in place. So we know who's going to be running the award in your school. We offer training as well for every stage of the award. So if when schools sign up, the first thing we say is to come onto bronze training where we go through the action plan itself. So you'll have everything you need to be.

Stuart Whiffin (20:38)
you're just sort of ready for that bronze stage. The second part of the award then is silver. So the action plan you write at bronze, you start to implement throughout the school. So silver is where rights start to become visible across the curriculum, through your policies, like you mentioned, through the practice, the curriculum, it can be anywhere. So what we want to see is that at silver,

Stuart Whiffin (21:01)
schools are starting to put rights into areas across the school. Now I do have to stress we're never looking for done, we're never looking for complete. There are schools who have been on this process 10, 15 years, there are always new issues happening in the world. You will always have a new cohort, you will always have a new sort of situation that you're looking at with the old school, a new development plan. So, you know, this, we are never looking for the done and dusted moment. This is always

Stuart Whiffin (21:28)
and will always be a journey that you are on as a school. So Silver is the first time that we sort of come into school. All of our Silver visits are virtual and there are two hour sort of teams call where we come in, we chat to the head teacher and yourself about how you started to implement the award. We speak with a group of pupils about the rights that they've been learning about and how that started to make a difference in their school.

Stuart Whiffin (21:54)
And then we speak to some adults as well. So it could be a members of staff, it could be a governor, it could be a parent. And what we're looking at at Silver is that rights are starting to make a difference in your school. Because we're all about whole school change and impact. So we're looking for that early impact that is evident. So Silver is sort of the midway point. Then typically that's from Bronze to

Stuart Whiffin (22:21)
to silver can take six months to nine months depending on you. But once you have your bronze awards, it actually lasts for two years. We don't suggest that it's going to ever take two years to get from bronze to silver, but we understand schools are very busy places. We've lived it all ourselves. So, you know, we know, we know the score. Yeah, yeah, of course.

Steve Macabee (22:39)
I was wondering, before we get on to gold, do you

Steve Macabee (22:41)
find that there are any sort of common pitfalls that delay the progress or the start of it?

Stuart Whiffin (22:47)
Sometimes, you know, there's the view that this is an award to be achieved. We've all been in that position. I had teachers come to us

Steve Macabee (22:51)
So it's sort of tick box. Yeah.

Stuart Whiffin (22:54)
saying we'd love this award. Then when you look at it, you realize that, you know, it is a whole school program. you know, another thing we sometimes see, perhaps a newly met new member of staff has given this or an NQT.

Stuart Whiffin (23:05)
You know, we stress in our training that because this is a whole school approach, you know, it does need complete buy-in from your senior leadership team, because as we've mentioned, this does make changes across every facet of school. perhaps not enough support from SLT can sometimes be a stumbling point because, know,

Steve Macabee (23:25)
Yeah, otherwise

Steve Macabee (23:26)
it runs the risk of becoming tokenistic, I think, if you're not careful, isn't it?

Stuart Whiffin (23:29)
Yes.

Stuart Whiffin (23:30)
yeah, I think, and again, it's just sometimes fear of not doing it right or thinking that somebody is going to be coming in. You know, we are so scrutinized as a profession, but you know, we are all about celebration. So when we do come in for that silver visit, you know, it's not us coming in to check what you've been doing. It's to find out what's happened, what's worked, what hasn't worked. And then to celebrate you.

Stuart Whiffin (23:53)
the wins you've had so far and to give you a really clear way forward to gold. it's just to give you a really clear way forward to that fully retrospecting, which is gold, which brings us nicely on to gold, is, yeah, yeah. Which

Steve Macabee (24:03)
Hmm, beautifully living to go there. Yeah.

Stuart Whiffin (24:07)
is what we call our fully retrospecting. So.

Stuart Whiffin (24:10)
which is where rights are fully embedded and sustained. know, there's typically, again, once you have silver, you have silver for three years. Typically, schools will go from silver to gold in around 18 months. So we will come at silver, we will give you recommendations of things to implement, things to change. With support, again, there's silver training, there's gold training, there's all sorts of training that you could ask for, and we'll talk about that in a second.

Stuart Whiffin (24:35)
But at gold, we are coming in and looking that rights have made a difference in your school. They are fully embedded in all that you do. And there's a way of sustaining that in place moving forward. So like I said, it takes a bit longer to get from silver to gold, but a gold visit is usually face to face, but it can be virtual as well, depending on geography sometimes. But yeah, those gold visits are where we come in. It's a bit of a longer visit. So it's about three hours.

Stuart Whiffin (25:02)
But again, it's a celebration of all of the fantastic work that you've been doing. And these gold visits, we typically hear of the change and the impact and it can be really powerful. There's a lot of tears sometimes because I think staff sitting back and seeing the difference this has really made over the perhaps three, four years that schools have been on the program.

Stuart Whiffin (25:23)
It's not an end point. when you achieve that gold, you get that for three years as well. So what typically happens at the end of three years, you have a gold reaccreditation. So there's no further to go. There's no platinum. Lots of people ask us, but no gold is the, the sort of benchmark of where you want you to be. And when we come back at gold reaccreditation, it's not about ever have done it, have done more.

Stuart Whiffin (25:46)
It's just about sustaining it moving forward. Certainly.

Steve Macabee (25:48)
was going say it's about embedding it at that point, think within gold,

Steve Macabee (25:50)
isn't it? It's there and it's about embedding it, making it whole school and it's part of that culture of the school, isn't it? Yeah.

Stuart Whiffin (25:56)
Certainly. And typically at

Stuart Whiffin (25:58)
Gold schools, we see rights through sort of school development plans and policies, right through the curriculum. Lots of schools will do a right of the month when they start at Bronze. They might plan to look at one right every month. By the time you then get to Gold, that typically evolves into rights are just taught as part of the curriculum. So you'll have certain lessons where you'll have

Stuart Whiffin (26:22)
thoughts to rights, especially around sort of PSHE and a lot of different subjects where it fits naturally. But we hear of all different ways that this is fully embedded. There's no one size fits all. Those nine outcomes we use, if you look at the outcomes on there, you'll typically see what we're expecting. And again, we're not looking for everything to be done and dusted and finished. It is a continuing journey that we have.

Stuart Whiffin (26:48)
And then typically at GOLD we get schools that children, because they've become so empowered, you know, that's a word I hear lot, and confident children who know their rights and want to make a difference in the world. We see these fantastic campaigns coming out of schools around where they've changed sort of not just local communities, but some things globally. You know, one school I was working with had a focus on litter when they were at Silver. They were litter picking every week.

Stuart Whiffin (27:15)
And it was something they were really proud of. When they moved to gold, that then evolved because the children started to question, well, why is there litter in the community? Why do we have to keep litter picking every Friday or whatever it was? So what the children there did was locked into the community. They did a bin audit. They did all sorts of different things. And then they wrote to their council because they, as rights holders knew that they had the right to a clean environment.

Stuart Whiffin (27:43)
use the things they are frustrated with in the community as the ways to look at your rights and then really show them how to, you know, contact those leaders or put up posters in the community. Or, you know, we've seen all sorts of fantastic work around things like planning, you know, very peaceful, I should say protests, but showing adults.

Stuart Whiffin (28:07)
they have responsibility of making sure that children are getting their rights. And if that's not happening for young children, especially by the time you get to gold, children will want to do something about it. And I think that's what's lovely about equating that to adult life. Because the hope is for us that once children know their rights and they know how to go about solving a problem, when they are the next adults in the community, that culture of change should...

Stuart Whiffin (28:33)
push things on forward.

Steve Macabee (28:35)
I never think it's a bad thing to inspire passion in children. That's where it comes from.

Stuart Whiffin (28:38)
No, silly not. Yeah.

Steve Macabee (28:41)
But you can only get that passion once you have that understanding. then

Stuart Whiffin (28:44)
Definitely.

Steve Macabee (28:45)
like I said, actually, if you can use that passion in positive sense

Stuart Whiffin (28:48)
Mm-mm.

Steve Macabee (28:49)
to kind of move things forward in society and life, for me, that can only be a good thing, isn't

Stuart Whiffin (28:54)
certainly.

Steve Macabee (28:55)
it? We've obviously focused, the program is very focused on schools, as we've been talking about.

Steve Macabee (29:02)
But we've also talked about having that bigger kind of context to all of this. And I'm just thinking outside of those school gates, how can other agencies kind of support this? I'm thinking about social workers or youth workers or police or health professionals.

Stuart Whiffin (29:15)
Yeah.

Steve Macabee (29:16)
Is there a way that they can actively support that kind of culture?

Stuart Whiffin (29:19)
Yeah, I think rights are strongest when children experience consistent right to respect and practice across all agencies, from education, as you mentioned, social care, health, youth services, and policing. So using rights-based language in discussions with your children, especially as adults. And one of the things we typically see is a shift in language within schools, where we are

Stuart Whiffin (29:45)
using rights-based language to address issues that happen within the school, but then also for our external agencies as well. So, you know, when you've got, you know, case discussions coming up or assessments or multi-agency meetings, you know, ensuring that decisions remain grounded in the child's best interests. And that's something we think about quite a lot when it comes to children's rights, because central to all of this really

Stuart Whiffin (30:10)
is the concept of duty bearers. So under the UNCRC, for those of you who aren't aware, adults, so including teachers, leaders, multi-agency practitioners, anybody who acts on behalf of the government, I suppose, are duty bearers responsible for upholding children's rights. With children, as I mentioned before, are known as rights holders. So I think this shared terminology gives professionals a common language for collaboration.

Stuart Whiffin (30:38)
and it really clarifies the responsibilities and can keep decisions child-centered sometimes. So thinking back to my own teaching career, when I was in meetings with social services or lots of different multi-agencies that I worked with, the language I used shifted and then they would adapt to that as well. things like I'd be encouraging teams to ask,

Stuart Whiffin (30:59)
know, what does the child have a right to hear? Or what's our collective duty to uphold in this meeting? So yeah, using that duty bearer language really strengthens safeguarding, participation and consistency across services. Because, know, some young people that we work with will see many different people come in and out of their school who are perhaps making decisions without consulting them.

Stuart Whiffin (31:22)
So when we start using that language of duty bearers and rights holders with external agencies, it really does make a difference. So we used to have sort of the police would come into our school quite often to do community lessons about sort of safety in the community. And we would speak to our PCSOs before they came in, just to say to them, this is how we work in our school. This is the type of language you'll hear.

Stuart Whiffin (31:44)
and they really responded to that and it sort of had a knock on effect throughout other services that we were using in school as well. So again, that's just one example. There's lots of different ways as well.

Steve Macabee (31:55)
Yeah, no, but I think that's really important, isn't it? We always talk about the children act, the welfare of the child is paramount and we should be really focusing on what is in the best interest of the child. sometimes the child gets lost in the conversation. Sometimes

Stuart Whiffin (32:07)
certainly.

Steve Macabee (32:08)
it comes more about, we'd like to do this, but we don't have capacity as a service or whatever the services are

Stuart Whiffin (32:12)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Macabee (32:13)
there and what have you.

Steve Macabee (32:14)
we've kind of become more focused sometimes around what we're able to provide as opposed to what we should provide. And I'm not saying it's always easy, but like I bringing that focus back all the time. And I'm thinking as you're talking, you know, things like team around the family meetings, know, how

Stuart Whiffin (32:28)
Absolutely.

Steve Macabee (32:28)
do we ensure that the child is at the focus of that, at the center of all of that? And I'm just thinking particularly when I did manage frontline practice, particularly with new staff coming in, we used to do a lot around that.

Steve Macabee (32:39)
Okay, if the child or young person doesn't want to come into that meeting, how do we still keep them focused on that? And I saw some really creative, amazing sort of ways.

Stuart Whiffin (32:49)
And, know, when you think about sort of that pupil voice as well, it's such a huge part of the process. You know, one of our outcomes, our outcome eight is all based on pupil voice. And as we move towards sort of gold, you know, some of the questions we start asking are more about, you know, pupil voice groups are fantastic. You know, they are so valuable, but how is everybody's voice heard? So, you know, what infrastructure are you putting in place in your schools to ensure that

Stuart Whiffin (33:17)
Everyone has a say in what happens on a day-to-day basis, but also on a strategic level. So yes, it's really interesting when you put true pupil voice into the heart of a school, the difference that can make. And sort of a side note to that as well, we've recently launched new training around pupil voice because we know it's such a strong area of our schools. So we've got a strengthening pupil participation course that we now run.

Stuart Whiffin (33:44)
And all of our courses are on Teams as well. you know, anyone who's signed up to the award can attend those as well. So, yeah, really interesting.

Steve Macabee (33:51)
Yeah, no, definitely. I know we talked to the start here about how we've been working with yourself for some time now and looking to implement the right respects in schools in the summer set. Can you sort of talk about how that came about? Sort of how that, you know, who you got around the table, what the initial aims were, what those conversations were, how we got some of the schools involved, that sort of thing.

Stuart Whiffin (34:13)
Yeah, definitely. know, Somerset is a bit of a unique situation for me, actually. So a lot of our work consists of schools, typically primary schools, being the drivers of this. And then that usually has a knock on effect into our secondary schools. So Somerset's approach really is different from the rest of the UK because of the unique funding model that is driving it as well.

Stuart Whiffin (34:36)
So obviously in February, the Somerset Safeguard in Children's Partnership and the,

Stuart Whiffin (34:42)
So we jointly launched a pilot with ourselves, UNICEF UK, offering our essay specifically to selected secondary schools. So like I said, this is quite unusual because right to respect and growth is typically primary led nationwide.

Stuart Whiffin (34:58)
But I think Somerset's funding recognized this particular need to strengthen rights-based culture during adolescence. So eight secondary schools joined together. It's become a really supportive network and it's a really nice way of progressing through the Rights, Respect and Schools Award collectively as well.

Stuart Whiffin (35:18)
I think that that program that we've put in place for Somerset is certainly the only one across the UK that has eight secondary schools coming on board. I think that's, that's exciting for us as a team because we're always trying to get more secondaries on board. So it'd be interesting

Steve Macabee (35:35)
Yeah.

Stuart Whiffin (35:36)
to see this, over the next three years to see if that has the same effect the other way, if that makes sense for your primary schools coming on board.

Steve Macabee (35:44)
Yeah, no, definitely. I know I've been sort of on the fringes of the organizing of it and what have you. It's really been down to my colleagues, Rebecca and Gemma have really been driving this forward with yourself. And

Stuart Whiffin (35:54)
Yes, they're amazing.

Steve Macabee (35:58)
I know the early conversations was sort of feedback from your experience saying that often, like I say, primaries are really on board and kind of really drive that work forward. But I think sometimes what you found is

Steve Macabee (36:09)
when people's progress on secondary, that's not been able to be followed through. So that's why I think we're really keen to go, okay, well, let's kind of look at this. And it's been great. You know, like I said, we've got eight secondaries involved with this, which we've funded for the award. it's, yeah, it's really interesting. I know, you know, there's been some really good outcomes of this already. it's just in terms of sort of what we've seen already. How long, you'll have to forgive me here. How long are we into the program now? Is it 18 months?

Stuart Whiffin (36:35)
So it was last, yeah,

Stuart Whiffin (36:37)
so last June we started. So yeah, so we're coming up to a year. So yeah, so we're already seeing some really extremely positive progress across the Somerset Secondary Network. So three schools have now achieved bronze. And that's really shows strong leadership, engagement and that whole school commitment. Because I will say it can feel harder sometimes in a secondary school.

Stuart Whiffin (37:01)
because of how secondary schools, because of the makeup of what a secondary school is. Primary schools are very sort of interconnected, whereas secondary schools can feel quite disjointed sometimes just because of the model of who they are. But that being said, secondaries that we have on board today have really taken it on board and have looked at creative ways of really starting this where it makes sense in each of their schools.

Stuart Whiffin (37:26)
That network that's been put together, I think is really key because it's a lovely moment where people can come together, share good practice, borrow ideas. But yeah, things are moving quickly. So we've got a few silver accreditation visits booked in for the summer too. But I think those, like I said, those regular networking meetings where we share good practice, I really help build a network together because...

Stuart Whiffin (37:50)
At the end of the day, people want to know they're doing it right. And I think when I come along to these and say to people, the nine outcomes are the nine outcomes. How you do them is up to you. And just to share good practice with each other and sort of just be in the room, it's a really supportive network. But yeah, I think, you know, I'm really looking forward to see where this goes in Somerset, because it's certainly the first of its kind across the UK where we just got eight secondaries.

Stuart Whiffin (38:17)
as a pilot. So I think there'd be a lot of learning and other counties perhaps looking in to see what difference it makes.

Steve Macabee (38:24)
And actually I'm going to say that that excitement around that celebration around it, it goes right the way through

Steve Macabee (38:29)
It's a real kind of genuine excitement about this, which I think it's so nice to see.

Stuart Whiffin (38:33)
Yeah,

Stuart Whiffin (38:33)
and it's great having, you know, Rebecca and Gemma are fantastic. And I think having people within the council that schools can talk to as well and think about where there's links to other initiatives that working alongside them. Obviously, rights respecting is his own thing, but there's so many links to other things happening in Somerset. And a lot of schools are saying to me, well, actually, can I use this questionnaire we're doing with the healthy schools as evidence? Or can we use, that's, yes.

Stuart Whiffin (39:00)
what we're looking for is that your good practice you're already doing is now underpinned with rights. That's the long-term aim. know, it's showing your pupils why you're doing things, but also realizing as staff, everything we're doing in school, all these initiatives that, as you know, mentioned before, it can feel very overwhelming to have so many things to be thinking about. But the beauty of rights respecting is it sits beneath them all. So,

Stuart Whiffin (39:26)
My program manager, program director uses this analogy quite often in that think of your school as a cake. So every different slice is something different in your school. So if it's curriculum, if it's healthy schools, if it's eco, if it's all of the different things we're expected to do, if it's parents' evenings, if it's all sorts of things, sports day even. So that's a cake. Right, so it's the cake stand that sits beneath it all.

Stuart Whiffin (39:48)
because you can drill down into any of these areas and beneath that is different articles of rights. So I think that's a really good way to approach this when you're starting out.

Steve Macabee (39:59)
Like you say, schools are busy, schools are under a lot of pressure

Stuart Whiffin (40:02)
Certainly.

Steve Macabee (40:03)
in a lot of different directions with things. And I think sometimes there's a risk where we start getting a bit of sort of project fatigue or initiatives

Stuart Whiffin (40:12)
Mm-hmm. Certainly.

Steve Macabee (40:13)
of fatigue. hang on, now we're being told we've got to do this, but we've just been doing all this other stuff. Now here's another new thing that we've got to put on top of additionally to what we're doing. But actually...

Steve Macabee (40:24)
Like I mentioned earlier, when we look at, think the direction of travel with a lot of these things, like with trauma informed practice, as I mentioned earlier, you know, I always, I'm passionate about motivational interviewing, for example. Actually all of these things interconnect. It's not something different you've got to do. And actually like, I think you've said numerous times already, it's already there. It's just recognizing it. You know, I'm thinking about the curriculum. I know both my daughters are in primary school.

Steve Macabee (40:49)
They often come back and they'll talk about history and what they've been doing in history. And they'll talk about, you know, the, rights, the, civil rights movement in America and, and, know, sort of, all these kinds of things. It's already there. PSHE is a, is a natural kind of fit for these things. But actually

Stuart Whiffin (41:02)
me.

Steve Macabee (41:03)
when you think about, you know, everything we've been talking about, about geography, we think about the environment, it's all there already, isn't it? And it's actually just keeping that, that, that lens within that

Stuart Whiffin (41:12)
Mm, yep.

Steve Macabee (41:13)
and, and actually.

Steve Macabee (41:14)
recognizing that, like I say, rights underpinning all of that. So it's just about how we kind of keep that focus on rights throughout everything that we already do. It's already there, isn't it?

Stuart Whiffin (41:23)
Yeah. And you know, again,

Stuart Whiffin (41:25)
that you've hit the nail on the head that I was, I was at the school not so long ago who were talking about, you know, they typically taught the same history topic for five, six years. This year, now that they're a right to respect in school, the children took it in a completely different direction because they were, you know, mortified that children had to work. Well, what about the right to an education or what about the right to safety? Why did children have to go down the mines? All these different things that

Stuart Whiffin (41:50)
the children just didn't have that vehicle before to take it in that direction. So the school I was talking to there said, well, actually this is the first time that we've now had to change what we do and allow the children and work with them to create a new way of teaching history because now they have this knowledge and now they know it, they know it. So we'll never be able to do

Steve Macabee (42:12)
Yeah.

Stuart Whiffin (42:12)
that the same again.

Stuart Whiffin (42:13)
But the school was really excited by that because they thought finally

Steve Macabee (42:13)
Yeah.

Stuart Whiffin (42:18)
there's a vehicle to be able to explore these things. with that being said, the world is a scary place at the moment. So my daughter is 14 now, so she's in secondary school. And daily she's seeing things on her phone and sort of in the news. And it's at that age now where she's taking it all in. As a parent, I can now use rights to have these hard conversations with her.

Stuart Whiffin (42:40)
around what's going on overseas with war, with global warming, with natural disasters, with violence, know, everything I use my rights language now as a tool. And teachers say this to me all the time, that when children are coming into school with concerns about what's happening in the world, because they're so interconnected all of a sudden, you know, I never was. I knew what was on the news perhaps if I was allowed to watch it.

Stuart Whiffin (43:07)
but now so many children have mobile phones and sort of access the internet. We as staff sort of have to think of ways to approach this because children need to, you know, we can't shelter them from everything, but if you've got that rights-based language, you've got a vehicle to be able to explore that in a safe way. So yeah, I think that's really key.

Steve Macabee (43:27)
my approach to this personally is actually what we need to be able to do is educate our children

Stuart Whiffin (43:33)
you

Steve Macabee (43:33)
for them to make informed decisions about these things. And I'm just thinking, you know, there's a big emphasis and a growing emphasis on things like, you know, online influencers and I won't name certain names, but I think we will know, you know, having these really negative impact on, you know, misogyny and all these sort of things. Whereas actually,

Steve Macabee (43:51)
A lot of that, if you can help to educate somebody about actually this is the bigger context of this, these are the rights of

Stuart Whiffin (43:57)
Absolutely.

Steve Macabee (43:58)
women, these are the rights of, you know, actually then they're in a position to make informed decisions around it as opposed to just being sort of fed different influences from

Stuart Whiffin (44:07)
we

Stuart Whiffin (44:07)
have conversations like this day in, day out with staff because staff want to be able to explore the bigger, scarier topics sometimes. It's not about, well, we just, don't teach that here. If a child is coming to you, if you're looking at true participation and true people voice, if they're concerned about something and want to talk about it.

Stuart Whiffin (44:24)
as staff, can be, it can be scary because you think, how am I going to approach this? But when you've got rights as your vehicle, I think you've got that, you've got that key language. And again, that takes time, but it, but typically when you've got schools at gold, you know, we've got so many schools that the whole ethos has changed because of this. and yeah, I know it sounds really cliche, but it truly does change, change a school.

Steve Macabee (44:48)
Yeah, definitely. it's really exciting. think, so looking forward and in terms of the Rights, Respect and Schools Award nationally, you know, you've got

Stuart Whiffin (44:56)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Macabee (44:56)
loads going on. any kind of anything in the pipeline for the next sort of six, 12 months or anything, what's happening with it?

Stuart Whiffin (45:01)
Yeah,

Stuart Whiffin (45:03)
there's always something new. Yeah, so we continue to expand, perspective, with new resources, sort of learning, local authority partnerships, et cetera.

Stuart Whiffin (45:12)
So we've got a new resource called Rights Around the World.

Stuart Whiffin (45:16)
Talking about that global citizenship piece. Rights Around the World is a new resource where every month we look at different country around the world and where children have been able to overcome difficulties because of knowing their rights. It's a really wonderful resource. Lots of great feedback we've had off it so far. It's available on the website as well.

Stuart Whiffin (45:36)
so, you know, lot of our, all of our resources are actually available on the website. Nothing's sort of hidden behind passwords. So, everything's downloadable. But what that does is it really shows children that rights are universal. So they're for all children across the world. and it's a really positive piece around how other children in different countries all have different issues and how they've to be able to overcome them, using their rights as well. So that's, you know, that's something that,

Stuart Whiffin (46:02)
has been our sort of drive for this year, but yeah, lots of different resources about to come out. But what we've also got as well, which will support a lot of schools, if you're starting to think in this process, thinking back to that bronze stage when you're planning how you can introduce rights into your school. That's, like I said, is the only new work and it's the one I get the most questions about. We've got a lovely resource on the website called Article of the Week. Now, Article of the Week was born for the pandemic. So we sort of

Stuart Whiffin (46:29)
went into lockdown, schools were closed, and schools were asking for something that we could use initially for home learning. That then evolved over three years. And so what we've done is we've taken every article and we've created a PowerPoint pack around each one and how, so within that pack are activities that can be used from early years right up to the end of secondary. So if you are thinking about introducing a right of the month model,

Stuart Whiffin (46:56)
What you could do is look at your, you know, sort of 10 months across the year that we're in school, choose 10 articles. All the workers are there. All the resources are done for you. You can just send them out to your staff and just say, have a look at this this month, try out one of the activities. And we look at this one article across the whole year. Another resource that that evolved into is a

Stuart Whiffin (47:18)
a rights calendar. So what we've also done is put together a whole calendar events that schools would typically celebrate or observe throughout the year. know, Anti-Bullying Week, Online Safety Week, Holocaust Memorial, all these different things. And what we've done is put resource packs together which help you to link all of these things you will typically do to rights.

Stuart Whiffin (47:42)
So again, we do not want to add any work to your workload. Everything is on that website. So I think that's another key sort of resource. If you are thinking of starting this, that's probably the easiest way to do it because as a new member of staff to this, I didn't know about rights. I had to learn as I went. The training is invaluable for that, but we want to give all the resources that we can to make this as...

Stuart Whiffin (48:07)
sort of a smooth transition into the program as possible. So yeah.

Steve Macabee (48:10)
No, definitely. I know, and obviously we talked about how there's been some funding within Somerset for the secondary schools involved with this, but that's not it, is it? And I'm just thinking, if anybody's listening to this and thinking, do you know what? That's for me. I really want us to get involved in this school. And you mentioned going on the website, having a look, but what would be the kind of first steps if anybody listened to this, not just within Somerset, but nationally, thinking,

Stuart Whiffin (48:35)
Yeah, of course.

Steve Macabee (48:36)
I'd love to get involved. How do I find out more?

Stuart Whiffin (48:38)
Yeah, of course. So we operate as a membership program. So the majority of our schools sign up to an annual subscription. It's linked to pupil numbers and then your fee gets reduced as soon as your school gets to gold. As part of that membership, so you get all of the training and support workshops for each stage of the awards that I've mentioned.

Stuart Whiffin (48:56)
There is also an e-learning modules for all staff. So there's, we've got an e-platform, e-learning platform, I should say, which has got a full catalog of CPD that any member of staff in your school can sign up to. You will receive a starter pack of teaching resources, which is a lot of our posters, some of our sort of games and sort of packs around starting this in your school. So you can get that as part of signing up. You'll get a tailored annual support call.

Stuart Whiffin (49:24)
with myself or whoever your professional advisor is in your area. So we're a regional team, but all of our information can be found on the website on our contact us page. And then you'll also get regular teaching and learning materials, including things like article of week that I was just talking about, rights around the world. We send them out to all of our member schools. And then the accreditation visits that I talked about. the silver and the gold visits, they're all included in your membership.

Stuart Whiffin (49:49)
And then of course, ongoing phone and support emails from myself and the wider team then as well. So on the website itself, so the easiest way to find our website is just to Google the letters RRSA. Lots of people try to go on the UNICEF website and find us, but we are a separate website for UNICEF UK. So yeah, Google RRSA and right at the top, there's a sign up button in yellow. That's, we'll have all the information you need.

Stuart Whiffin (50:14)
if you're thinking about joining us. can give my email address out if people want to have questions before signing up, they're more than welcome to give me a call or drop me an email and I can go through what that would look like to your particular school, of course. So yeah.

Steve Macabee (50:31)
Well, probably the easiest thing if you're happy with this is we'll stick it in the description for the episode

Stuart Whiffin (50:35)
Yeah, of course.

Steve Macabee (50:36)
and yeah, if anybody is interested I can't recommend it enough. I really can't and I have to say and it's not just I'm talking to you now Stuart, but I have to say that know the support from yourselves and I'm sure equally from from all your colleagues across the different regions of the UK is brilliant. You know, this isn't something you sign up to and you've suddenly got to do all of this stuff and you're on your own and then somebody comes along and

Stuart Whiffin (50:55)
No. No.

Steve Macabee (50:57)
inspect you and wags a finger

Stuart Whiffin (50:58)
No.

Steve Macabee (50:59)
to say you haven't done this in that it's not like that at all it is very very supportive process and and i've got to say stuart that the the amount of support and work that you've put in know certainly from somerset's perspective has been fantastic so yeah so thank you very much for the all

Stuart Whiffin (51:12)
Thank you.

Steve Macabee (51:14)
the hard work you've been doing to date and there's plenty more to come i'm sure so

Stuart Whiffin (51:16)
No problem. Yeah. And I think the

Stuart Whiffin (51:18)
beauty of our team is most of us have lived this through schools or all have sort of either been ex-teachers or have been in the education sector. So, you I think you hit the nail on the head there. It's not, we're not inspectors. You know, they have their place, of course, but we are about celebrating with schools and, really supporting you to drive change and make a difference for your young people. Because, you know, that's our key goal through all of this. It's that change that this brings.

Stuart Whiffin (51:44)
to our schools.

Steve Macabee (51:45)
What a better way to finish off than that. So Stuart, thank you so much. for joining me here today as well. And I hope that's been useful for people listening to this to get a much better understanding. And as I say, we have done a webinar with yourself, Stuart, a while back about the Rights to Respect in Schools Award. So if you wanted to watch that as well, plenty of information there for you. yeah, if you are interested, I can't recommend highly enough just...

Steve Macabee (52:06)
picking up the phone, maybe having a conversation with Stuart and just finding out a little bit more about it. So

Stuart Whiffin (52:10)
Yeah. Thank you.

Steve Macabee (52:11)
thank you so much. Thanks for coming along today. Really appreciate it. And it's always good to speak to you, Stuart. And yeah, I'm sure, well, I know that we will be continuing our conversations in the background as

Stuart Whiffin (52:20)
Cindy.

Steve Macabee (52:21)
the award rolls forward. So thank you so much.

Stuart Whiffin (52:23)
Thank you. Thank you very much.

Steve Macabee (52:24)
All right, take care. Bye bye.