Honours Evening 2025 – A Celebration of Excellence

A huge thank you and well done to everyone who took part in our Honours Evening on Wednesday 9 July.

This prestigious event is a key part of our traditional end-of-year celebrations and offers a wonderful opportunity for the Uplands Academy community to come together and recognise the outstanding progress, achievements, and approach of our students across all areas of school life.

We would like to congratulate all 160 nominees and finalists who attended the evening, and extend our heartfelt thank you to the parents and carers for their continued support.

The evening featured a wide range of awards, including:

• Platinum Plus Awards
• Conduct Awards
• CKA Awards
• Subject Excellence Awards, including Creative Arts, Sports Person, Mathematician, and Linguist for each year group.
• Recognition of our Inspire Oxford Programme students for their dedication and achievements over the past year

A special mention goes to the following students for receiving our highest honours:

• MARK Values Award (KS3): Florence, Year 9
• MARK Values Award (KS4): Chloe, Year 10
• Kids’ Lit Quiz Award: Nell, Year 8

Before the awards ceremony, guests were treated to beautiful performances by our talented pianists Ella and Olivia (Year 10), and flautists India and Harry (Year 9) and Ophelia (Year 10) entertained the audience during the interval.

We were honoured to welcome Chris Terry, co-founder of Kent's leading digital marketing agency, Tale Digital, as our guest speaker. Chris gave an inspiring talk about his career journey and emphasised the value of kindness and adaptability as key ingredients for success. 

This year, Mrs. Richardson, Deputy Headteacher, introduced a very special new award in memory of a much-loved member of our school community-Woody. The award will recognise a Year 10 student who consistently demonstrates the core values at the heart of Uplands Academy; Manners, Acceptance, Respect and Kindness. Woody embodied these values every day. He was kind, inclusive, respectful, and a friend to all. This award will be presented annually in his memory to a student who, like Woody, leads with kindness, treats others with respect, and makes a positive difference simply by being themselves.

Finally, a big thank you to Mrs. Underdown, Head of History, for her organisation of the event and making the evening such a memorable success.