Shena Moynihan, Principal of The Highcrest Academy, tells of her pride in her students and staff after the school in High Wycombe won a series of accolades.

Every student at Highcrest is unique and special. I believe that at Highcrest our role is to help each child achieve their full potential and to give them the confidence, knowledge, skills and resilience to celebrate their individuality in a vibrant and safe environment.

I am therefore delighted that our mission to achieve all of this has been recognised in quite stunning fashion this year on the national stage.

Last Friday, we were joined by MP Steve Baker and Mayor Mohammed Hanif, amongst other guests, at a ceremony to celebrate being the first school in Buckinghamshire to achieve the national EQualities Award.

Our commitment to giving every student from every background the best possible chance to succeed was perhaps best summed up at that ceremony by Head Boy Joe Yan who only arrived in the UK from China four years ago. He couldn’t speak a word of English but now hopes to study at Cambridge. It was humbling to hear the way he thanked his teachers for the huge support they gave to him.

However, I am pleased to say the EQualities Award is just one in a long line of accolades we have received. A few weeks ago, we were also awarded the British Council’s prestigious International School Award for our work to bring the world into the classroom. This is a badge of honour for schools that do outstanding work in international education. This commitment to developing our pupils into global citizens received glowing praise in the assessor’s report.

Only a few months earlier we were recognised as a UNICEF Rights Respecting Level 1 School. The UNICEF recognition was a massive honour in itself. It means we put the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child at the very heart of our ethos.

Meanwhile, we were also honoured last year when we were upgraded to a national Flagship School for Inclusion.

At the time, we were just the 12th secondary school in the UK to achieve the flagship status. This followed a two-day inspection against a nationally-recognised framework called the Inclusion Quality Mark and means we share best practice with other schools. It is also proof that inclusion is at the heart of everything we do here.

But awards are not everything. The most important thing is that our students are happy and successful, and I will leave you with this testimonial from Head Girl Olivia Sutherland who said on Friday: “A strong sense of community is apparent here and that is something that I love about Highcrest. I know that I can smile and say hello to anyone. We care about one another here.”