Waterloo Lodge School

I go to the school

Please don't send a child with additional needs to this school, no experience in dealing with behaviour, default position seems to be call parents to deal with problems. Poor communication, level of supervision seems very low and this creates problems with behaviour. Absolutely the worst decision I have ever made for my son to attend this school feel I have let him down immensely but not as much as he has been let down by the supposed education specialists, of special note is S W.

they cannot listen. the communication is nowhere to be seen and i have gotten almost nothing but disrespect in my time being there. if you are on the spectrum or on the very top floor, you are going to have to prepare to be infantilised and more. ive lost count of the amount of times ive been mistret here by students and mostly staff,
nothing ever seems to be done right. barely autism friendly. when i first started i was told by a staff member in a malicious way that 'maybe this isnt the school for you.' you dont understand how much that can effect a person (who
has also been told this their whole life) on top of all this, instead of educating their staff on neurodiversity, they have
tried to nudge students into doing it themselves. this isnt much of a problem but it is to me because i think its
completely unacceptable that we have to educate their staff because both parties have completely failed to do so
they should be educated and should know what theyre getting into when they apply to work at this kind of school. the amount of times ive been
digged at for autism traits are baffling because i shouldnt actually be digged at for that stuff at all. the staff are completely untrustworthy and only shine the school in a faker
good light when new people are looking around. ive been at the school for a little
over a year now and after nonstop begging and pushing, they have finally started to use my name even though it
was supposed to be used from me starting (which sounds beyond crazy on their behalf because it is, its literally my
name). yet they cant even spell it correctly despite me begging for them to let me write it down or tell them or show them that it is literally on all of my belongings. we went on a trip and one time they didnt even pack me a meal, the other time they gave me the wrong
thing despite asking me what i wanted and me replying, they also spelt my name wrong which made me very angry
because i have told them so many times. (this is quite minor but i thought to mention it) they have also given me something else i didnt ask for, they didnt come to me and ask what i wanted in the morning and i have also never asked for what they gave me, i will also add that the name was spelt wrong here too. there is so so quite abit more i could say but i cant be bothered to write it all down, im so glad to see the other one star reviews with comments theyre very true. during gsces the lower years werent focused on and would
barely get work given to them which doesnt sit right with me.
not a fun experience here.

As far as "special schools" go, this is the most special. They couldn't seem to comprehend that I could do stuff myself despite being special (crazy). But they would ignore what I said as if I never said anything at all. The majority of staff treated me like a child. Which believe it or not was extremely annoying and infantilising, but being treated like a child is nothing new.

They also barely spoke to me about my transition to college. They were doing college applications for me which I told them not to do. But not being listened to there happened all of the time. They constantly changed their mind on what I would do at college. I only visited college 2 times with them and 3 times on my own accord. (It's mental how I can do stuff by myself ) on the visits with this "school" they did all of the talking for me, not giving me a chance to speak and didn't give me any prior warning for when the visit would take place. Each visit with them was the same thing, just walking about and someone talking for me. The visits were about once every 2-3 months. They didn't teach me GCSE level work for 1 and a bit years which contrary to popular belief, you can't learn in 2-3 months.

The higher ups here are extremely ignorant, any meetings that you have with them will result in no changes, they can't keep a new member of staff for more than 2 months, which isn't surprising as they're on 17.8k-19k per annum.

The "learning mentors" are completely useless and only distract from you working who also treat you like a child (I'm starting to notice a theme here). The school also gets people to lie to Ofsted (uh oh). It's honestly shocking that the school hasn't been put into special measures yet. It will happen at some point. This school is a waste of time who are only in it for the money and it really shows.

They treated me like I was very special, despite the majority of things not bothering me.

TL;DR
it's a horrible school, they can't understand independence, barely anything gets taught, they won't listen to you, the higher ups are very ignorant, you'll get treated like a child, communication doesn't exist there. Also, sort out college on your own.