St Mary Magdalene Academy Sixth Form

Beautiful park Bird singing in the morning beautiful songs clean Natural awesome 👍

Went there when the sixth form first opened in 2009. They knew I'd wanted to study maths when I applied. They also knew that the only teacher qualified to teach it at that level was planning to leave halfway through the academic year to take on a cushy job at an independent school. Naturally they didn't bother to tell her students about this until after it was too late to leave. My class was left in chaos and everyone else dropped out of HL Maths as a result. The next year they found a permanent replacement for my maths teacher - a creep who just refused to teach anything at one point.
And they stole my artwork! It was the subject that I scored the highest in because it was the only one that didn't depend on a teacher's input and those psychos stole it all. Prior to studying there, I'd gotten 12 A-A*s at a different secondary school. The grades I left SMMA with weren't even good enough for a bad university. Typically (with one notable exception) those who overcame the problems with the management of the sixth-form were from fairly comfortable backgrounds or had consciously chosen "softer" subjects. The more working class students were often encouraged to drop-out or had to repeat a year at what seemed like disproportionate rates. Ultimately, anyone who succeeded there did so alone. They succeeded in spite of the school and not because of it.
From what I could tell, the secondary school was also a horrible joke. While volunteering I discovered that many of the younger students had practically turned feral because they were forced to attend extra curricular classes that they'd expressed no interest in. Those clubs would have been *fun* at other schools but at SMMA they were used as a form of torture for all involved. The teachers weren't encouraged to be educators in that secondary school - they were wardens.
In the short time I studied there, I learnt to despise the educational system and distrust the teachers who uphold it. If you have sensitive or creative children - children who need engaging lessons and real guidance - do not send them here!