Children at Blackawton Primary School have been putting into practice the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and on Wednesday, December 6, three young pupils presented the charter to the parish council, parents, other children and their teachers. The parish council agreed to come to the presentation and hold their monthly meeting at the school after it, so that the children could have a live experience of democracy in action.

Tina Rodwell-Lynn, head mistress, said that the school had been implementing the charter over the last 18 months and teaching the children about democracy. All the children in the school were invited to come to see what the council does. She introduced three pupils: Ben 10, Delphine 11 and Jake 11. All three are in their final year at the school and will likely go to Kingsbridge Community College, next.

Ben, began the presentation, describing the author of the charter, Unicef, as an organisation set up after the second world war to look after children. Working in 190 countries, it looks after mothers and the families of children in danger.

Jake and Delphoine then spoke about the charter which has 54 basic rights for all children. They described how it is the most ratified treaty in the world and that it is needed as children are vulnerable to harm because they can get stolen, hurt, sold and made to work; that they can’t defend themselves and adults need to look after them.

They said: “At Blackawton, we have learnt a lot about our rights, and we have some favourites: Article 31 gives us the right to play and relax; Articles 28 and 29 give us the right to a good education; Article 36 protects us from violence and Article 42 gives us the right to be taught about our rights.”

Everyone at the school has had to learn about the charter, not just the children but teachers, staff and governors. Using meetings and leaflets, everyone has joined in to put the charter into practice. This meant that last year they won a silver award for their work on implementing the charter following a visit to the school last summer by Unicef.

The children said that they started to learn a lot more about the wider world and to get involved in global and local issues.

They raised money for their partner school in Birka Bukemsa, Ethiopia to get them books. It was raised by agreeing that their right to a voice was not used for two hours. They were sponsored to stay silent for two hours. The children said: “It was a quiet afternoon!”

When asked if enforcing their rights had caused problems, the children responded that the opposite was true. They had appointed their own playground mediator who dealt with disputes and teachers did not have to get involved.

Even the right to choose their own friends had not caused problems with their parents because the parents recognised that, if that friend or friends did cause their child to be in danger or suffer harm they could say no but ordinarily, it was a children’s right to choose.

They said that part of their responsibility was to become ambassadors for the charter and teach as many others as they can about it. The charter had become a central part of the school ethos.

The school has set an aim to become a centre of excellence for Article 12 of the charter, the right that gives all children the right to an opinion and have their opinion taken seriously.

The chairman of the parish council, Councillor Simon Rake complemented the children on their presentation before beginning the council meeting at which, the extraordinary 38 years of service given to the community by Councillor Chris Wills was honoured. It was marked with the presentation of a garden bench. Cllr Wills has been a Blackawton Parish Councillor continually since 1979.