The Academy made its annual visit to All Saints’ Church, Holbeach for the Y7 Christingle Service on Friday 5th December. The whole of Year 7, plus musicians and readers, walked to the church for the service, which included musical performances from the Year 10 GCSE Music group, Mash Up, a Piano solo and Chamber Choir, readings given by representatives of each Year 7 tutor group, and a drama presentation.
In the morning, pupils spent time in their tutor groups exploring the meaning behind the Christingle tradition and also taking time to reflect upon the meaning of Christmas and consider for what they should be grateful. Pupils made their own Christingles, which consist of an orange with a red ribbon around it, four cocktail sticks with sweets and a candle. Pupils also rehearsed two songs, Shine Jesus Shine and Love Shine A Light, which they then sang during the service.
The service was attended by families of Year 7 as well and the was an extremely uplifting experience. The sound of all the pupils singing the songs was particularly moving and, if you would like to hear an extract of their voices, please follow this link: https://youtu.be/c6CW7pDTvT0
Our Level 1 & 2 Bricklaying students have been getting their festive on — building some brilliant Christmas-themed walls, and honestly… they nailed it! 🎅✨
From the start, with their festive designs, they showed skill, teamwork, and loads of Christmas spirit. They should all be super proud of themselves — we definitely are! 👏💪
Amazing work, everyone — you’re building the future one brick at a time (and making it festive too!) 🎁🧱
On Monday 15th December, we hosted our annual Presentation Evening, celebrating the achievements of our former Year 11 pupils, Sixth Form Leavers and Apprentices. We were honoured to welcome Alumni Pupil, Ben Harcourt-Sharpe as our Guest of Honour. It was a delight to have Ben return to UAH and inspire us all with his motivational speech.
Ben completed his GCSEs at UAH before progressing to the Sixth Form, where he studied A-levels in Law, History, and Politics. Throughout his time at UAH, Ben consistently demonstrated exceptional dedication and a strong work ethic, which contributed to his successful admission to the University of Oxford. He pursued a degree in History at The Queen’s College, graduating with First-Class Honours.
During Ben’s second year at Oxford, he was appointed a scholar of the Queens College for Academic Excellence. His undergraduate dissertation was awarded the Ali Prize for Outstanding Studies in the 18th Century. Ben was awarded a full graduate scholarship to continue his academic journey at Jesus College, Oxford. He is the first pupil from our school to be accepted at the University of Oxford and we are incredibly proud of his achievements.
The evening featured musical performances by some of our current pupils, the presentation of exam certificates, speeches from both Miss Paige and our Guest of Honour, awarding of shields to our prize winners and a photo montage celebrating our leavers’ time at UAH.
We would like to thank all parents, pupils, guests and staff for attending and helping to make the evening such a memorable and joyful celebration of our pupils’ achievements.
This year Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance invited local school and colleges to join the Helli-raiser challenge for post 16 students. Students had a seed fund of £100 and were given six weeks to be as creative and entrepreneurial as possible to turn the £100 into £1000 to support the running of LNAA. We accepted the challenge and three teams of business students got creative. They held carwashes, raffles, bake sales, decorate your own Christmas bubble competition, guess the name of the teddy, tombola’s along with other activities. A member of each team has had the opportunity to visit Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance to see the amazing lifesaving work they do and to learn about the costs involved in running the charity. Each team have done fantastically well with hard work, the support of the school, local businesses and the community and came second out of eleven schools and colleges to raise a fantastic £3,513.89!
UAH’s Year 9 – Live News Team Competition
Last week, a group of Year 9 teams delivered punchy, precise and very persuasive live news events. This oracy competition was part of our study in the art of rhetoric. The winners of this hard-to-judge media competition, was the team with top anchor-man – Bobby J! Props, sweet treat prizes, live audience participation and perfectly timed, pre-recorded audience appreciation, ensured that these top journos clinched the winning spot.
The Academy was, once again, pleased to support the Rotary’s Shoebox Appeal this year. This appeal asks for people to make up a gift box of toys and gifts for a child in need. The items can be preloved and we are reminded to not include items which may be of a sensitive nature, such as those which may be linked to warfare. Each tutor group in school was provided with a box and they were then invited to work as a team to decide on the age of the child for whom they wanted to create a gift and then plan and source the gifts for that child. The appeal was really successful with lots of very generous donations and many tutor groups also spent time and effort on designing the look of their gift box, making it even more appealing for the recipient to receive. It is an important part of pupils’ personal development that they are encouraged to think of others and to understand the value of doing things for charity, both through giving of items, but also the giving of time. We were incredibly proud of all the pupils who were involved in this activity, which will make a real difference to the lives of young people in very difficult
circumstances. We would like to extend our thanks to all families who supported this appeal
as well and to the tutors, who worked with their tutor groups on the project. Alan Rumsey, Spalding Rotary Club representative, who sourced all the boxes and collected them, was incredibly impressed with the generosity and time spent by pupils.
CIPHE learner of the year award
Matthew Oddie was awarded the CIPHE 2025 learner of the year award. Matthew is a 3rd year apprentice and has flourished throughout his plumbing apprenticeship with M. Yould and Sons plumbing and heating. Matthew always has a positive attitude to his work and the plumbing industry.
Founded in 1906, the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering (CIPHE) is the professional body for the UK plumbing and heating industry. The Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering (CIPHE) is a membership body for those involved in all aspects of the plumbing and heating industry. The CIPHE has members worldwide and is the only chartered, professional body for the UK plumbing and heating sector.
University Academy Holbeach is an approved CIPHE training centre.
UAH once again took time to pause and reflect upon the sacrifice made by those affected by war. Throughout this week and last, poppies were on sale at the ibrary, with some of our Prefects also going round to sell them to tutor groups. School Council created our annual window display, which this year also features crocheted poppies created by the Academy’s Knit and Natter group. Years 8 – 10 attended assemblies focused on the theme of Remembrance and Year 7 attended a special assembly in the Hall, which featured readers from the year group, music from Chamber Choir singing a setting of In Flanders Fields and the assembly was also attended by pupils from uniformed groups, including Army, Sea and RAF cadets, Scouts and Guides.The school observed the two minutes silence which ended with pupils listening to The Last Post. The school was really pleased to also send representatives to the RBL Memorial service at the War Memorial in Holbeach. Seven pupils who had visited the battlefields in Ypres earlier this term attended the service and were also invited to lay a wreath.
The Academy’s new Gardening Club, which has been meeting since September, has already achieved an award. The group is following the Royal Horticultural Society’s School Gardening Awards scheme and has already achieved Level 1. For this, the group has explored all the benefits of gardening, learned about health and safety and has, of course, started to grow things! The group received a selection of seeds, a gardening book and a certificate from RHS for their efforts and are now looking forward to the stage. The Gardening Club meets every Friday lunchtime in the glasshouse and is open to pupils from all years. This week, pupils planted bulbs in our nature area.
On Friday 3rd and Monday 6th October Year 11 GCSE Geography students completed their urban fieldwork in Peterborough. The trip involved visiting multiple sites around the city centre including Cathedral Square, Lincoln Road and Rivergate. Students completed data collection methods such as traffic and pedestrian counts, completing a land-use transect using city maps to show the ratio of chain to independent businesses as well as completing interviews with members of the public in Cathedral Square. Students represented UAH well, working quickly, safely and sensibly whilst in the city, even though one group had to battle the pouring rain! Now that students are back in lesson, they will use data to support their study of the Urban Futures topic, creating data presentations to display the results of their investigation.