"Pupils at The Highcrest Academy happily live up to the school’s motto of ‘aspire and achieve’." Ofsted
All who work at the academy, reference and reinforce our motto, vision and virtues, lesson by lesson, day by day, week by week, making them an integral part of our ‘Highcrest language’.
Our Motto
‘Aspire and Achieve’
Our Vision
We work together, in a happy, caring and inclusive community, providing for students of all abilities, backgrounds and cultures, supporting their well-being and developing their characters, giving them every opportunity to aspire and achieve their unique academic and personal ambitions.
Our Core Aims
To help our students to, ’Aspire and Achieve’ their ultimate ambitions, we aim to provide…
Quality of Education A fully inclusive curriculum, that challenges students of all abilities, helping to develop our students as independent and autonomous learners, who strive to achieve their personal and unique ambitions.
Behaviour and Attitudes An environment in which students work in harmony, respecting each other’s rights and supporting one another in times of need, forging positive relationships and celebrating successes together.
Personal Development Cohesive systems that support self-discovery and the development of character that ensures our students become healthy, confident and responsible citizens that make a valuable contribution to society.
Culture, Leadership and Management A diverse, safe and happy community, where staff love to work, students love to learn and all are given the opportunity to develop.
Our Virtues
At Highcrest, we have six virtues linked to the word, ASPIRE from our motto, Aspire and Achieve. These virtues are, Ambition, Sensitivity, Purpose, Integrity, Resilience and Eloquence. They help us build, develop and refine our students’ characters, whilst ensuring they are physically and mentally healthy, so that not only do they go on to become happy and successful members of our community, but also one day, happy and successful members of society. We embody, role model and teach our virtues at every suitable opportunity, helping us to develop characters, promote happiness and instill a culture of excellence that runs throughout every strand of our academy.
Click into each of the virtue buttons above to find out how students in each year group can develop their character.
On the table below we have mapped our virtues across every year group to ensure they are personalised and differentiated to both stage and age. This table, along with the differentiated year group displays (below), can be found within every student and staff planner and are positioned prominently in every classroom around our academy. This ensures our students fully understand how each virtue can be demonstrated on a daily basis.
To view the full size documents, please click on the images above.
Reinforcing our Virtues through our Curriculum
Our curriculum Schemes of Work have been updated to ensure that our Virtues are referenced, discussed and explored at every suitable opportunity, meaning that all students are able to ASPIRE!
Reinforcing our Virtues around our Site
As you walk around our academy, you will notice that our virtues are further reinforced through a range of professional signage, positioned above doorways, within the corridors, on windows and even along the driveway!
If you have these virtues, if you ‘Aspire’, you can and you will ‘Achieve’
Reinforcing our Virtues through Rewards
Our virtues are at the heart of all we do, after all our role is not only to support students in achieving their academic goals but also to help them become the best version of themselves in relation to their individual characteristics.
As part of our goal to do this, we actively promote and celebrate our virtues around school, rewarding students when they show them and highlighting what they can look like for those who need the extra help.
Our positive behaviour policy that used “R” (reward) points, links closely with our Virtues with all behaviours linking to one of the six virtues. Our virtues points lead to a wide variety of rewards which include:
Highcrest branded stationery for achieving certain amounts of virtue points
Weekly “Hot Chocolate Friday” with the Principal following nominations by Form Tutors and HOLs for 1 person in each year who has displayed exceptional virtues the previous week
Bronze, Silver and Gold reward scheme for students who are regularly awarded points for each of the 6 virtues
A phrase you may see or hear around the academy is “you are what you repeatedly do” (Aristotle); our virtues reflect and promote this.
