St Edward's Church of England Academy

As a student at the school, I have first hand experience with teachers, teaching strategies, various styles of teaching and changes too.To begin, I believe that ,due to recent events, that St. Edward's is under a tremendous amount of pressure as they are considered a 'coasting school', but mostly due to the trauma over the new head after the sorrowful departure of Mrs. Clarke; this has further lead to the induction of our new official head, Mr. Hutchinson. Now, I am in a convinced state that this is where St. Edward's began (despite Mr. Hutchinson only being the head for a few months) a downward spiral that needs to be put to an end and sent back up.
This outrageous proposal ,that is official, of replacing forms with houses is ridiculous. The school is well organised, and needs no change to that. In fact, the idea is even rejected by various teachers as well. Keeping names and dates anonymous, I overheard two teachers discussing the matter and saying that it was 'confusing' and that the system was 'fine as it is'. As the key role in the school, I suggest that a head listen to the opinions of their teachers to carry on improving and maintaining the school's reputation.
Furthermore, the two teachers also discussed the new six-lesson-days instead of five-lesson-days too. I can not ,unfortunately, talk about what they said as the identities of the two teachers would become apparent; however, I recently came across another teacher giving their opinion on the new six-lesson-days. They made it obvious that they were firmly against the idea because it would 'limit' their teaching and give students less time to learn everything so they would, as a result, be 'rushing' the topics. I completely agree with this view because some lessons are already rushed to complete topics in a good amount of detail, limiting our education which is the most valuable variable of any school. It would also apply a lot more pressure on us students due to the higher demands for the same amount of work, with a higher quality, in less time. I know, from previous experiences, that too much pressure can reduce the quality of work. I feel that quality is something St. Edwards would want to maintain considering it is a 'coasting school' due to the SAT's results.
Continuing, I also feel that teachers are ,like the students will be, being pressured too. I understand that a lot is expected from them because they teach us, so our future is directed by them. However, by pressuring them to fit all our topics in even more detail into smaller amounts of times, is a challenge of utmost difficulty. Their teaching level will also be hard to maintain because of the large amounts of pressure; this will affect all teachers in different ways as everyone has a unique method of teaching such as long, detailed explanations to guarantee all pupils understand fully. In my opinion, this is the best way to teach but, with the new lesson design in place, this will be much harder to continue, causing further stress for teachers. Again, teachers are the base for our future ,so, should be given the freedom to build that base in a way they feel best.
In conclusion, I hope that my criticism is taken into account and is appreciated despite its direct tone. I apologise for any offense taken too.

-Gracie Cotterill

Would give this place 0 stars if it was an option - do not send your children here unless you want them to come out mentally damaged! The absolute worst four years of my life, and completely destroyed me as a person. No child deserves the torment of some of the teaching staff, who clearly couldn't care less about the pastoral care that the school prides themselves on. I would homeschool my child before sending them here, don't do it.

Dreadful pastoral care, zero interest in the welfare and best interests of the students, a culture of favouritism and institutional bullying whilst preaching empty worthless holy virtues. Expect your child to be stripped of their individuality and self confidence if you send them there. Robot teachers teach by numbers and are largely incapable of nurturing interest or enthusiasm. I'd be amazing if a pot plant could survive a week, never mind an impressionable youngster survive 4 years with their mental health intact. I am required to give one star in order to post.

To start off, don’t bring your child here. There is so many teachers that don’t care about your children’s education and will say everything they do is bad and bring them down until they can’t be brought down anymore. They will come home acting happy but they truly are crying inside. I have friends who were forced to eat in a toilet cubical because they were not allowed to eat within the dinner hall. The food is made of paper, well tastes like it anyway. OFSTED reviews say it all, they always get bad and unsatisfactory reviews. Overall it is the worst possible middle school to be sent to

Awful. Care about the uniform more than they do students. Don’t particularly do anything about bullying either or deal with things properly so it gets to the point when you don’t want to come into school because of it. 5 lessons a day were better than 6 because it’s rushing the topics and loosing education time with is the most important throughout school. Some teachers just go way too far.. completely honest I left with no self confidence at all. Bullying takes a big part in it and so do the teachers, the teachers do nothing about it. Plenty of times I was different teachers and they did nothing about it! Never got believed until finally it got to the point it was happening to more people than just me until they actually took notice of it. No offence taken in this but some teachers value more students than others. Often times where teachers wouldn’t like me and I’d get pointed out from everyone else for no reason.. happened a few times. Just made me feel like I wasn’t apart of the school or the ‘family’ as they call it but everyone’s supposed to feel like they belong there? I trired and nothing got done about some of the problems I had so no people don’t always feel like they belong there but don’t bother saying anything because nothing gets done about it. They say talk to someone and the teachers don’t help but when you get a parent or parents to come into school about it many times they’ll say something will be done and it never happens. Often many times I’d go to a teacher about something because it got to the point where I didn’t want to come into school and I’d speak to a teacher and the other people would go in after me and try to say it’s me making things up when I had no reason too I’d walk out and I’d hear off the teachers ‘don’t worry I believe you’ you can’t take sides. Some of the students have to deal with not feeling like they belong and they go round saying they believe other people and not you, it’s not right. They try to do something and speak to someone and nothing gets done. Some aspects of the school are good, I agree with that but in my opinion a lot needs to be done about it.

More bothered about uniform than the education side to it? 🥴 would ofsted be happy about the whole situation about banning breaks for incorrect uniform?If it’s already been put down as “needs improvements”
Not changes to make it worse as a school and bullying, ppl say stuff to someone else and come back and say “it’s just words” “you’ll be fine” but when parents go in about it u make yourselves look good and say “we promise we will sort it, it’s not right” brings ppl down honest 🥴🤯 Never really learnt anything with lessons times changing to being 50 minutes so they could add an extra lesson on which has just made lessons get rushed most of the staff r too busy for 5 minutes of the lesson by telling students to “walk on the left” or half way through the lesson wanting to go to the toilet or photo copy work so they get another teacher to watch their class which is then disturbing 2 lessons and not just one

Rubbish they don’t care about the pupils at school the reason I have anxiety

To sum up my time at this school: horrendous. My brother was bullied for having a condition he couldn't help. He was physically, verbally and bullied online. another thing about this is that I was bullied for being related to him, The teachers simply don't care about the pupils, as we asked time and time again for them to do something but they didn't do a thing. The only good part of this school was the waffles at break.