Blaise Primary's rights respecting steering group dressed to raise money for children in Haiti and Mozambique

A BRISTOL primary school was presented with a unique piece of artwork, which highlights the issues of rights and responsibilities, as a special assembly this week.

Blaise Primary School, in Clavell Road, took  possession of the original artwork at their UNICEF assembly, held on the morning of Friday, February 5th.

The artwork has been created by Charlotte Leslie following a previous visit to the school to give a talk on leadership to pupils, under a scheme operated by local charity Ablaze. The charity seeks to help raise aspiration amongst pupils and to link schools up with people in business and leadership roles.

Charlotte discussed the schools “Rights Respecting” school status with pupils and was so impressed with their interest in rights and responsibilities that she created a piece of art for them to discuss.  The work comprises the word “Rights”, formed only by ’shadow’.  The appearance of real letters is an optical illusion.  The shadow is made up entirely of the word “Responsibility”, written over and over again.

Speaking before the assembly, Charlotte said:

“I was really impressed with the children’s understanding of rights, and their curiosity about the relationship between rights and responsibility.

“Over the Christmas break, I tried to put that relationship in picture form. The picture suggests that rights are created by collective responsibility, but it would be great if the picture could provide a basis for class discussions.”

Deputy Head, Nicola Austin said:

“We are very proud of our rights respecting agenda, and we’re pleased that Charlotte was able to take an interest in our work. We will be asking the children what they think of rights and responsibilities, and hopefully they will come up with their own thoughts.”