Rights Respecting Schools
in Scotland
Between May 2022 and April 2025, the Scottish Government provided funding for UNICEF UK to offer the Rights Respecting Schools Award to all state primary and secondary schools in Scotland.
At the end of the funding period 83 per cent of Scottish schools were engaged with the Award and 1040 had achieved Silver or Gold, where the impact of the RRSA is visibly recognised.
The grant from the Scottish Government had allowed schools to register for the Award and access all training, accreditations and support for free. This removed financial barriers and gave any school interested in becoming Rights Respecting the opportunity to do so, creating a lasting impact for children in Scotland. You can read more about the impact of the Award here.
From the start of April 2025 RRSA membership is no longer covered by direct funding to UNICEF UK from the Scottish Government.
The three year funding period has been incredibly successful, taking RRSA engagement in Scottish state schools to over 83%. In 2024 alone Scottish schools achieved the following:
- 313 Bronze: Rights Committed
- 238 Silver: Rights Aware
- 73 Gold: Rights Respecting
Moving out of the funding period many local authorities are choosing to cover the cost of ongoing membership for their schools so that young people in their area continue to benefit from a child rights education. This is great news and we hope more local authorities will make the same choice.
The following local authority areas are in the process of agreeing a Memorandum of Understanding with UNICEF UK which will mean that all state schools in the following local authorities are able to continue with membership with all its related training, support and accreditation until at least March 2026, without direct cost to the school:
- Aberdeen City
- Aberdeenshire
- Angus
- Argyll & Bute
- Clackmannanshire
- Dumfries & Galloway
- East Dunbartonshire
- East Lothian
- East Renfrewshire
- Eilean Siar (Western Isles)
- Fife
- Glasgow, City of
- Highland
- Inverclyde
- North Lanarkshire
- Renfrewshire
- South Ayrshire
- Stirling
- West Dunbartonshire
- West Lothian
If your local authority is not listed above there is no funding agreement in place and your school will now have to pay an RRSA membership subscription in order to access training and online events, support from our team, resources and progress to the next stage of the Award.
Please see individual school costs. To set up an invoice for payment please email [email protected] with your school name and postcode and the number of children on roll.
Every six months we produce a report detailing the difference for children in Scotland this funding is making. Read the latest report below.
The Rights Respecting Schools team provides support and a framework for Scottish local authorities to manage the RRSA programme within their education network. Facilitating schools within a local authority to take part in the Award provides an established framework to comply with incorporation and offer a child rights-based approach to whole-school improvement.
Our downloadable pdf guide outlines a framework for managing RRSA within a local authority, with support from UNICEF UK. Every local authority will have their own approach, so included in this guide are case studies from authorities that are already running RRSA.
Our aim, both with the guide and approach to partnership, is to empower local authorities to see that delivering child rights education is possible with some adjustment to staff roles at various levels and the setting up of new processes and networks. And that now, while funding is available, is a fantastic moment to commit to this work.
