It's a world first

Earlier this year the Children’s Commissioner for England, Sir Al Aynesley-Green, said Andover was engaged in a trailblazing project, unique in the world, which was ‘truly exceptional’.

Already the project is well on its way with many schools involved in the Rights Respecting School Awards programme. The whole project was pioneered by Mrs Anne Hughes, headteacher of Knights Enham School, which became the first school in the world to achieve Level 2 status. And Harrow Way Community School launched its campaign to win Level 1 and then Level 2 status in December.

During Harrow Way's launch day they heard from two survivors of the Holocaust, Josef Perl and Walter Kammerling about the importance of respecting human rights.

Now the aim is to spread the idea throughout the whole town.

A small steering group was formed at a conference attended by Sir Al in October.

Mrs Hughes said that part of the aim now was to establish how far Andover had already moved towards becoming a rights respecting community.

She said: “Really it’s a very complex issue but I think we are not there yet in Andover.”

She pointed out, for example, that not every school was a rights respecting school.

Some businesses and other organisations may already be well on the way towards respecting rights and responsibilities, others might have some way to go.

Part of the process will be to establish the degree to which Andover is already a rights respecting community and then to establish when it has achieved that status.

“It’s the respect and responsibility that go with the rights that are the long-term drivers,” said Mrs Hughes.

Over the next weeks and months the steering group – which will be augmented from time-to-time by representatives from organisations throughout the town – will be constructing the framework and benchmarks.

One of the ideas to be developed will be the adoption and adaptation of the benchmarks used for schools.