Glen Burke, new Principal of The Highcrest Academy in High Wycombe, talks about taking over as head of the school where he has worked for 15 years.

It was a huge privilege in September to take over as principal of The Highcrest Academy and follow in the footsteps of Shena Moynihan who retired last summer after leading the school so brilliantly for so many years.

I have been at Highcrest since 2001 and witnessed how Miss Moynihan, with the support of the numerous staff who have worked here over the years, transformed what was then the failing Hatters Lane School into what is now a thriving over-subscribed academy.

Exam results have significantly improved over the years and our strong Ofsted rating last March reflects just how much progress has been made.

Here at Highcrest, we believe it is crucial, not only for there to be an established culture in which all pupils are able to achieve the highest possible academic success, but that there are also opportunities for them to grow into thoughtful, articulate, confident and responsible members of our community.

To help us do this we ensure that our curriculum is personalised and enhanced by numerous community and business projects, national and international competitions and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Indeed, we recently made the news after being named the UK winner of a major European project, the Entrepreneurial School Awards.

One of our senior teachers, Gaynor Weldon, was flown to Latvia to collect the prize – which was a reward for the incredible amount of entrepreneurship and enterprise work seen at Highcrest.

Furthermore, every year Highcrest selects and supports a local charity partner. After much deliberation at the end of 2016, our students chose to back the Thames Valley Air Ambulance and I very much look forward to seeing how this progresses.

In fact, we have several events planned to help us raise money over the next few months, starting with local supermarket bag packs later this term.

Meanwhile, we support a number of other regular fun but very worthwhile events at Highcrest. For instance, Children in Need, Race For Life, The Poppy Appeal and Red Nose Day.

These days always generate a great deal of excitement and activity. The Holocaust Memorial Day is also a regular feature in our calendar.

However, there is so much more to our students’ community work than simply raising funds for good causes. Every year, our students and staff organise Summer and Christmas parties for our local senior citizens which are hugely popular.

I love to watch how our pupils engage so well with the older generation, who also enjoy visiting the school on these occasions.

We have links everywhere in the local community, and have donated 15 PCs to Wycombe Sound, the new local radio station, to help them start up. Indeed, I am always so impressed at how determined our students are in their work to support both local and wider community projects.

I now want to build upon these successes during the next exciting phase of our development and I know that we have the team of teachers, support staff and governors to make this a reality.

I may have been here for 15 years, but I feel as excited now as I felt on my first day at this wonderful school.