Awards

THE HIGHCREST ACADEMY AWARDS

All at The Highcrest Academy are extremely proud of the number of prestigious external agencies who visit us and recognise our excellence in a number of different areas of school life.

Achieving these awards is wonderful, but what always gives us most pride, is seeing our visitors leave with smiles on their faces, having found out for themselves what makes our Academy so special.

Eco-Schools Green Flag Award

“Earning an Eco-Schools Green Flag Award takes passion, commitment and a desire.”

Pupils at The Highcrest Academy have earned an international accreditation this academic year, recognising their amazing work in making their school more environmentally friendly and raising eco-awareness in fellow pupils. Eco-Schools is an international education programme that prompts young people to explore sustainability and climate change and take action.

Eco-Schools England Manager, Adam Flint, said: “Earning an Eco-Schools Green Flag Award takes passion, commitment and a desire to make a difference. Pupils should be proud of their great work. They’re an inspiration and it makes us feel heartened and positive about the future of our planet.” For more information click here.

https://www.eco-schools.org.uk/about/what-is-eco-schools/

Rights Respecting School Award

Highcrest became a Rights Respecting School in 2014 and achieved the Level 1 award in 2015. UNICEF moderators upgraded us to a Gold Award school after an inspection in 2018. Indeed, we were the first secondary school in Buckinghamshire, and only the fifteenth secondary school nationally, to be accredited as a Gold Award UNICEF Rights Respecting School; you can imagine how proud our community is of this award. The UNICEF articles continue to be at the heart of everything that we do at Highcrest.

The Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) recognises achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) at the heart of a school’s planning, policies, practice and ethos. As a rights-respecting school, we teach our students about their rights and model respectful relationships.

We look forward to our next reaccreditation visit. For more information click here.

https://www.unicef.org.uk/rights-respecting-schools/

BucksFreePress Article: Highcrest First in Bucks to Receive Gold RRSA Award

The NACE Challenge Award

“The school’s vision - Aspire and Achieve - permeates the learning environment and is regularly referenced in lessons by teachers and pupils, underpinning the curriculum and wider opportunities across the school.” NACE

The NACE Challenge Award provides national recognition of school-wide high quality provision for more able learners within a context of challenge for all.

We received our most recent reaccreditation of this award in June 2022. At Highcrest, we regularly engage with other challenge award accredited schools to ensure our students have equal opportunities.

Achieving the award means that we demonstrate good or outstanding provision in teaching and learning for students of all abilities. We have held this prestigious award since 2013 and have been re-accredited every three years since. We will continue in our journey to strive for excellence, undertaking a further re-accreditation in 2025. Click here for full report. For more information click here.

https://www.nace.co.uk/page/challenge-award

The EQualities Award

"Underpinned by its strong pastoral practice and reflective inclusive culture, the school has established its identity as a caring, versatile and safe educational establishment, serving the local community the best that the school can achieve in such a diverse residential community." IQM Flagship Assessor: November 2022

Although we currently hold the EQualities Award which recognises the academy’s commitment to treating everyone equally, we are currently working towards achieving the new Equality Quality Mark, awarded by EqualiTeach. This award provides us with support and guidance so that we can effectively promote equality, diversity and inclusion within Highcrest, and provides us with an opportunity to showcase our commitment to equality. As a richly diverse academy, we have always worked hard to meet our statutory duties, but we would like to go further and really ensure that our students receive the very best education in this important area.

The Award has been designed by a team of equality and education experts to allow the development of best practice around four main themes: Leadership and Management, Behaviour and Welfare, Teaching and Learning and Personal Development of Pupils. There are three levels of award: bronze, silver and gold. We are working towards the silver level, and we expect it will take approximately 12 months to achieve this award.

To support us on our work towards this prestigious award, we have begun to work on a programme to reduce identity-based bullying called Equally Safe. This programme is funded by the Department for Education and will help schools develop best practice in preventing and tackling identity-based bullying, and in developing tailored, whole-school approaches. For more information click here.

Equality Objectives

https://www.equalitiesaward.co.uk/

Flagship Inclusion Quality Mark

“The school prides itself on developing strong, positive relationships between adults and students. This is credited to the school’s inclusive ethos and shared belief that the school’s virtues are there to influence everyday practice and behaviour hence the culture of mutual respect of people and property. At The Highcrest Academy, the leaders make sure that inclusion pervades every aspect of school strategic planning …” IQM Flagship Assessor: December 2023

The Flagship Inclusion Quality Mark, is only achieved, if all students, of all abilities, are stretched to perform to their maximum. Schools who achieve this award are inclusive schools that monitor, develop and devise strategies to improve the effectiveness of their provision to meet the needs of all students. You can only imagine how proud this award we are!

We received our most recent reaccreditation of this award in December 2023 and have now held flagship status for an incredible 10 years! The external assessor examined the school as an inclusive environment, looking for every child gaining access to every activity in school. The Inclusion Quality Mark covers absolutely everything in school, from students with special learning needs to the most able and those needing more help with literacy and numeracy. The IQM award certifies that both the curriculum and extra-curricular activities are accessible to all at The Highcrest Academy.

The assessor's key findings were as follows:

The Highcrest Academy sees itself as an educational establishment to serve its community by providing the best possible education for all, “giving them every opportunity to aspire and achieve their unique academic and personal ambitions”. The Highcrest Academy achieves these goals by constantly reviewing and improving on its offer.
The school prides itself on developing strong, positive relationships between adults and students. This is credited to the school’s inclusive ethos and shared belief that the school’s virtues are there to influence everyday practice and behaviour hence the culture of mutual respect of people and property.
At The Highcrest Academy, the leaders make sure that inclusion pervades every aspect of school strategic planning, e.g., School Development Plan (SDP) and operational practice. This attitude translates to the school creating a physical environment and atmosphere where staff and pupils feel valued and want to do their best.
In line with the national trend, the school is obliged to admit each year more students with complex needs, consequently, they must expand their current Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision. To address these demands and cope with pressure in the right way, the school uses IQM projects as an opportunity to marry the emerging needs with the established good educational practice.
The Highcrest Academy has been creative, e.g., to set up a new provision for an identified group with an alternative curriculum that follows a primary model of teaching the core subjects by one teacher. This experiment has been successful and increased the students’ motivation and attendance because they felt safe in a small space and were able to access the curriculum at their pace and level. This model has been created on the advice of a local special school enabling the students to continue education without the need to be moved to an alternative provision. The parents of those students are delighted with the service and are supportive of their children's education and their personal social and emotional development. The SENCo and leaders of the Academy have professional knowledge and experience to know what the students need to succeed and they have the courage to take risks and implement drastic changes like the one described above; this makes the school effective.
Other pieces of evidence of the school offering the students tailored and effective pathways are the case studies.
They meticulously capture all steps of provision and students' progress enabled by professional interventions. One of the cases summarises such support, “gradually through all of the pastoral support highlighted above we have seen the students confidence grow; her peer relationships improve and as a result, her attainment and attendance increased dramatically”
During the visit, an IQM Assessor was presented with tangible evidence of the school making life-changing differences to its students. Monitoring systems and expanding a team of staff with direct responsibilities for attendance. A lot of work has been done already (workshops for parents, intense communication, making students aware of the impact on their learning) to change the culture of acceptance of minor illnesses as reasons for missing school. The school has identified small groups of students (evidenced by data) as vulnerable and has planned relevant action to combat this weakness.
Apart from the views of staff and students, an inclusive practice of the school has been commented on by visitors and Governors. In the Governor Visit report, the author summarised by saying that, “the visit has demonstrated a significant effort from staff across the school to provide challenge for all, including through pastoral interventions, learning strategies and differentiation. I was impressed with what I saw and would like to send a massive thank you to everyone I met and spoke with today.”
Students of The Highcrest Academy are the best ambassadors for the school either for the reasons of their academic achievements or gaining broad education and life experiences that allow them to progress and achieve their ambitions. In a conversation with the IQM Assessor, they felt free to speak their mind and showed that they are aware of the current emphasis of the staff on attendance. They echoed a central message related to attendance by saying, “it is important to be here every day to receive a good education. Teachers want us to learn, they push us and say to try our best. If you are not here, you miss also socially because you do not see your friends.”
Students displayed mature attitudes and a good understanding of rules and procedures with which they are comfortable. The recently introduced one-way traffic has met with their approval because they see the changes it brought; the school is calm; people are safer and there are fewer opportunities for conflicts due to physical proximities. When listening to the students’ views and opinions, there was a clear resonance of the school’s aims and values, which proves that they are very much part of the culture and everyday practice.
The Highcrest Academy is committed to the inclusion agenda which permeates leadership strategic planning and staff daily practice.

Click here for the full Assessor’s Evaluation for the IQM Flagship Project - December 2023. For more information click here.

https://iqmaward.com/iqm-flagship-school/

Buckinghamshire Careers Hub

At Highcrest, we believe Careers Education Advice Information and Guidance (usually abbreviated to CEIAG) should equip young people with the knowledge, skills and confidence to plan and manage their individual pathways through learning and work on a lifelong basis.

Highcrest is a proud member of the Bucks Careers Hub. This is an association of selected schools in Buckinghamshire who have a strong commitment to careers education and support. Careers Leaders from these schools meet regularly to share best practice, develop shared projects and resources to support students and build links with employers. For more information click here.