KILMACOLM Primary pupils have shown they have the 'right' stuff by scooping up a top wellbeing award.

The local school was recently given gold status by children's charity UNICEF UK as part of its Rights Respecting School Award.

The special commendation recognises the hard work of pupils and staff to make sure everyone at the school knows and understands their rights.

Achieving the award has been a goal for the school for more than three years.

Their initial gold status assessment was scheduled for March 2020 only to be postponed by the pandemic.

Pupils and staff worked hard to ensure that standards did not slip and were finally able to show UNICEF assessors round their school in December.

Teacher Ailie Glover, who spearheaded the school's push for gold status, is proud of her pupils' hard work.

She told the Tele: "This has been a long time coming.

"Over lockdown we did lots of wonderful things to keep the work going, we had to approach things in a different way.

"The children did a lot of work to make it a success.

"When we had the visit they said they were so impressed with the grounds and the ethos of the school.

"It's recognition of what we knew we were already doing.

"The visit has given us some great ideas of what we can do going forward so hopefully its onwards and upwards."

The school's senior pupils played a key role in achieving the accreditation, with house captains leading UNICEF's representative on their tour of the school.

Pupil Hannah Boyd said: "We've helped make sure every single child in the school knows their rights.

"It helps everyone be happy and achieve together.

"We learned about how we have rights and also how people in other places might not get theirs."

The school's head teacher Simone McCredie says the award shows the commitment of pupils and staff to making the school a happy place to learn.

She said: "We're absolutely thrilled with this.

"Our aim is to make sure that all the children are really happy and that they feel safe, nurtured and valued.

"The assessor went round the school and saw that.

"Mrs Glover, the pupils and everyone involved has done a fantastic job.

"This is a great thing for the school to have, we had our doors shut for so long over Covid so it's lovely to be back and recognised like this."