Ardingly College

Awful school which only ever backs itself and the staff. Imagine complaining about the education you receive and blaming it on the students....The bright students realise the issues and want to leave at the end of Fifth form (Year 11) as there are better schools who can provide a stronger education. If you complain then you'll be targeted and grades will deteriorate. Don't waste your money and go elsewhere.

As a previous student student, my experience was agonising in my opinion. The school gave a sense of community initially. Still, as soon as the exams came, it became apparent that the school only cared about withholding their reputation and pushed for students to get high grades, ignoring their mental health. The school seems to only care about their reputation and a means of earning money rather than genuinely caring about the student body. If you're a student who achieves good grades, you'll be put on a pedestal, but the struggling students will not be provided enough help.

Dreadful place. Poor pastoral support and a culture of bullying especially under the former headmistress of the pre prep.

Horrible School, only invested in promoting students grades for their own gain and disregards the struggling students. Very casually homophobic and racist and clearly favours the richer people from a white background. Ridiculous punishment system that clearly don't work. They act as if they care about LGBTQ+ matters but in fact truly don't and just use it to also promote their school to seem friendlier on the outside however also allowing racist and homophobic students to continue at the college. Shocking pastoral care and they sacked almost all of their learning support department to save money. All they are is a business that tries to push for the extra money while forgetting that students can't learn without good teaching. I'd also like to add that if you don't get remarkable exam results after each half term then you are asked to continue at the school but not take GCSE's with them so that their average doesn't drop which speaks for itself. Don't send your children to this dreadful school unless you want them to suffer from mental and physical abuse.

Ardingly, a school with so much promise and yet lived up to none of it.

Trigger warning: Mental Health, Homophobia, Racism, Bullying, Misogyny

My experience with Ardingly started generally promising, when I first joined the school I felt a real sense of community and individuality. It seemed that the school really wanted the best for me and my peers, and we were treated like individuals, being taught that every one of us was valuable to the student body. This did not last for long, as very quickly the school morphed from making sure each student performed to their potential-to pushing each student into performing at stressfully high grades so that the school would look good. It was no longer about you, it was about the reputation and the money they could earn. The toxicity of the environment is indescribable, I and many other students being led to believe that we were never good enough. I'd like to add that I am not a low achieving student, and have done generally quite well across the board, however I never truly understood my smarts until I had left the school. The "gifted and talented" students are placed upon a pedestal, for all the other inadequate ones to watch. If you reached an A grade in a subject, you were told you should get higher. And if you reached an A*, you were expected to maintain that standard-not for your own benefit, but the schools. It was laughable that the school would hold mental health weeks and then disregard students struggling with mental health weeks later.

If mental health issues and crippling self esteem don't concern you, perhaps the schools intolerance and warn out traditional will instead. Recently, as an attempt to combat "rolled up skirts", the school enforced a permanent tights rule upon the female students. Even after the girls stopped rolling up their skirts due to the threat of after school detentions, and the introduction of trousers (that were far preferable to boxy skirts and uncomfortable tights), the tights rule still stood. Girls are expected in all weather conditions, to wear attest 60 denier tights. As you can imagine, this is extremely horrid in hot summer months. Despite also, the majority of female students creating a petition against the rule, it was ignored. An argument that some of the teachers used to defend the rule was that "boys will be distracted from their learning". Telling a girl that it is her responsibility to allow boys to concentrate on their work rather than feel comfortable in her own body is rather concerning. You are telling her by suspending and punishing her, that providing a distraction free environment for boys is more important than her own education. These are 13-18 year old girls who YOU are choosing to sexualise. Instead of shaming girls for their bodies, perhaps you should focus on learning that girls are not sexual objects or "distractions."

Now lets discuss LGBT+ issues, that were largely ignored by the school. Yes, they did do some performative days in order to help perpetuate the idea that they are a modern and progressive school, but underneath it all they had no idea how to make Ardingly a comfortable environment for LGBT students. I never had a lesson on LGBTQ+ people, and when asked about gay relations in a sexual health lesson, the woman giving the talk looked rather flustered and had not the slightest clue how to talk about it. Not to mention the many occasions where people from every year would be blatantly homophobic and racist using extremely offensive slurs, and the school would do absolutely nothing to prevent it happening.

Additionally, there were several racist and homophobic students that attended the college, who would display their views publicly, and the school refused to punish them for the hate speech they were spewing. Is it not concerning that a girl is punished for showing her legs, but a boy promoting violence against religious communities and sharing videos of genocides against different communities is not?

If you are bullied during your time at Ardingly, you will most likely be told to "just get on with it." I have a friend who was physically assaulted whilst in house, and he was expected to "just grow up and get on with it." This friend experienced severe mental health issues for his entire time at Ardingly due to the extreme bullying he was subjected to, that the school took no interest in solving. Equally, I had a friend who left the school, and after her departure individuals continued to barrage her with abuse. I remember one particular lesson where we played a Kahoot, and several of the boys nicknamed themselves with statements such as "her name k*ll yourself". All of this took place whilst the teacher watched and said nothing. Lovely.

Ardingly presents itself on the outset as a shiny school with perfect happy students, but under the surface it is a twisted and horrible place. If you wish to leave a school with emotional Trauma and a couple of mental health issues, this school is definitely for you! If you are a minority-stay away for you WILL be discriminated against in some way, and you can guarantee nothing will be done about it. Ardingly, you have a lot to improve on, I just hope that you can do something beneficial before it is too late.