Quality Mark Reports
IQM Flagship School Award
Effective schools are inclusive schools that monitor, develop and devise strategies to improve the effectiveness of their provision to meet the needs of all students. We received our most recent reaccreditation of this award in December 2025.
External assessors 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.
https://iqmaward.com/iqm-flagship-school/
IQM Flagship School Award Report - December 2025
The NACE Challenge Award
“The many strengths of the school’s provision are clearly demonstrated within the self-evaluation which shows continued evidence of a commitment to improve both provision and outcomes for more able learners, and to embed high quality teaching and learning.” – NACE, 2026
We are proud to announce that we have successfully maintained our NACE Challenge Award re-accreditation, continuing our long-standing commitment to high-quality teaching and learning for more able learners within a culture of challenge for all.
The NACE Challenge Award recognises schools that provide outstanding provision for more able pupils, ensuring that every learner is appropriately stretched, supported and inspired to achieve their full potential. It celebrates a whole-school commitment to excellence, ambition and inclusive challenge across the curriculum.
We have proudly held this prestigious award since 2013, successfully sustaining it through re-accreditation every three years. We are also proud to be the only school in the local area to hold this accreditation, reflecting our exceptional and sustained commitment to excellence for more able learners.
Our ongoing development work continues to strengthen provision through approaches such as Active 8 learning strategies, Challenge Maps and a sustained focus on high-quality CPD. These ensure that challenge is embedded in every classroom, promoting independence, deep thinking, collaboration and resilience for all learners.
Click here to view the full report from our most recent NACE visit.
For more information about NACE and the Challenge Award, click here:
https://www.nace.co.uk/page/challenge-award
The NACE Challenge Award - May 2022C
The NACE Challenge Award - October 2017li
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.
https://www.unicef.org.uk/rights-respecting-schools/
BucksFreePress Article: Highcrest First in Bucks to Receive Gold RRSA Award
UNICEF UK Rights Respecting School Award Report - May 2018
The EQualities Award
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.
https://www.equalitiesaward.co.uk/
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