A village school has invited children, parents and councillors to a presentation of its work for human rights.

Blackawton Primary School has invited parish councillors, children and parents to a presentation on the school’s work as a UN Rights Respecting School. This initiative is sponsored by Unicef and encourages schools to place the UN convention on the Rights of a Child at the centre of its teaching.

The rights of a child are listed in the convention and include, for instance, the right to be alive, the right to live with your parents, the right to choose your own friends. There are 54 rights listed and each is limited by the proviso that the child must be accorded the right except to extent it could be harmful.

Council Chairman, Simon Rake, explained the thinking behind the venue for the presentation, “We are always keen to work with all sections of our community, so when the school contacted us about making a presentation on their work as a UN Rights Respecting School, we thought it would be a good idea to go a step further and hold a full Council meeting in the school hall”.

A spokesman for the school said: “The meeting will take place immediately after school ends, so we are hoping that lots of children and parents will be able to attend.

“The school has kindly offered to arrange facilities to look after younger children, who might find the intricacies of local democracy a little dull.”

This initiative builds on existing cooperation with the school, including a recent project which saw pupils clean and tidy the village War Memorial prior to Remembrance Day.

Councillor Rake continued: “Three of our Councillors are former pupils at the school and another three have had children there in the more or less recent past, so we are all delighted to be strengthening our links with this central part of Parish life.”

The meeting will take place on Wednesday, December 6, at 3.30pm in the Hall at Blackawton Primary School.