Wey Valley Academy in Weymouth now holds UNICEF UK's Gold Rights Respecting award, the scheme's highest stage. It is the only Dorset school teaching to 16 on the Gold list.
Wey Valley Academy in Weymouth has been awarded Gold: Rights Respecting status by UNICEF UK. Gold is the highest stage of the charity’s Rights Respecting Schools Award.
The school appears on UNICEF UK’s list of Gold schools, dated July 2026. It moved up from Silver, which the Silver list records it gaining in February 2024.
The only Dorset school teaching to 16 on the list
UNICEF UK lists three schools in the Dorset Council area at Gold:
| School | Gold awarded |
|---|---|
| West Moors Middle School | May 2024 |
| Allenbourn Middle School, Wimborne | June 2026 |
| Wey Valley Academy, Weymouth | July 2026 |
The other two are middle schools. Wey Valley is the only one that teaches pupils through to GCSE.
What the award involves
The award recognises schools that build the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into everyday school life. There are three stages:
- Bronze: Rights Committed
- Silver: Rights Aware
- Gold: Rights Respecting
More than 5,000 UK schools are working through the scheme, according to UNICEF UK’s guide to the award. The charity says reaching Gold can take three to four years. A Gold accreditation lasts three years, after which the school has to be assessed again.
About the school
Wey Valley Academy is an 11 to 16 secondary on Dorchester Road. It had 994 pupils against a capacity of 1,020, according to the Department for Education’s Get Information about Schools register. The academy is run by United Learning Trust and opened under that name in June 2019.
What it means for you
For families at the school, the award is UNICEF UK’s outside check that the academy’s work on children’s rights meets its highest standard. It is not an Ofsted grade and does not replace one.
The Gold status runs for three years, so the school will need reaccrediting in 2029 to keep it.
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