PRESS RELEASE

29th October 2025

Musselburgh Burgh Primary School in receives prestigious UNICEF UK Gold Award

Musselburgh Burgh Primary School in East Lothian has been awarded Gold by UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting School programme.

UNICEF is the world’s leading organisation working for children and their rights. The Rights Respecting Schools Award is granted to schools that show commitment to promoting and realising children’s rights and encouraging adults, children and young people to respect the rights of others in school. Gold is the highest accolade given by UNICEF UK and shows a deep and thorough commitment to children’s rights at all levels of school life. There are over 600 schools across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales that have received Gold.

Headteacher of Musselburgh Burgh Primary, Jon Doyle, said: “I am absolutely thrilled that our school community has received this important award in recognition of our strong commitment to promoting, respecting and celebrating the rights of every child. We are very proud of the fact that the UNCRC is firmly embedded within our school culture and that children’s rights underpin every facet of school life at the Burgh. To have this recognition from the RRSA is important to us because it acknowledges the great work that has been done by everyone in our community to realise this vision for our school, while highlighting the good practice that is happening here every day. I am especially keen to thank Mrs Emily Macdonald and her team of Burgh Believers for their fervent and passionate efforts in driving us to Gold and bringing this wonderful award to the Burgh.”

The Award recognises achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child at the heart of a school’s planning, policies and practice. A Rights Respecting School is a community where children’s rights are learned, taught, practised, respected, protected and promoted. UNICEF UK Rights Respecting Schools Programme Director, Martin Russell, said: “We were very impressed with the extensive knowledge and understanding of rights amongst children and how awareness has been raised across the whole school community. Rights principles are clearly helping to shape the school's caring and nurturing ethos, and helping to empower pupils to make their voices heard in school and in the wider world. Musselburgh Burgh Primary School has fully embraced the Convention on the Rights of the Child and we are very pleased to accredit the school with Gold: Rights Respecting.”

The UNICEF UK Rights Respecting Schools initiative is aimed at schools across the UK, including those in an early years setting. Currently, it works with nearly 5,000 primary schools, secondary schools, schools for children and young people with special educational needs and pupil referral units across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Schools have reported a positive impact on pupil behaviour, relationships and wellbeing by enhancing pupils’ self-esteem, leading to less truancy and bullying, better learning and improved academic standards.

We relaunched our work on this at the beginning of last session and have been learning about the rights, through the rights and for the rights across all areas of our curriculum.

This ensures our pupils are aware of their rights and how duty bearers (adults) help them to access these rights.

Our hard work has now been recognised by UNICEF following a virtual school visit earlier this week and we are delighted to announce that we have been awarded our SILVER Rights Respecting School Award!

You can read our Silver Accreditation Report from the Rights Respecting Schools Association here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QhwKlraoo3hkdhruaLhASEgF7l5cWo0z/view?usp=sharing

While this has been a collective effort involving all of our pupils, their families and our staff, extra special thanks must go to Mrs Macdonald for all of her hard work in leading the Burgh through this process and making this vision a wonderful reality.

We look forward to continuing and building on our work in school and with our wider school community.