Clacton County High School

I am a former student of CCHS and have also been a part of their sixth form; Sigma Sixth Tendring.

My time at CCHS was a mixed bag, I started year 7 as a very troubled student who got into a few scraps and arguments here and there. The teachers tended to underestimate me and kept me in low sets, despite me surpassing any task that they gave me in ease. I believe that I was in either set 3 or 4 maths and they refused to move me. However, my teacher at the time was very supportive and said that they had tried to push me into the next set but the maths department did not allow it. The way that the school handled my behaviour for the first two years is something that I will forever be grateful to them for.

I then fixed up and grew up, improving my behaviour to the point where I received only a few C1s (warnings) from year 9-11. At this point, I began to be recognised for my skills and I was moved up to sets which suited my skillset. Despite this, I was very disappointed with how long this took to move up, and when I moved from Y band to X band due to some issues, the school did not account for my ability and threw me into set 4 in all of my subjects, forcing me to have to make my way up all over again. This was particularly problematic in maths and science, where I narrowly missed being forced into foundation paper, but was only stopped because I blew the year 9 tests out of the water, putting me in top set for maths and allowing me to pursue triple science. However, I acknowledge that other students would not have been as lucky as me and so would have been forced into foundation where they could only ever achieve a 5, which is far from what I ended up actually achieving (four grade 9s).

On the social side, CCHS faced a huge fundamental issue. My year group was probably the best behaved year group there, but even we had some awful bullies who somehow escaped troubled. Myself and many other students noticed that these students were very close 'friends' with the pastoral team and were allowed to do whatever they wanted, receiving infinite warnings. I faced a particularly bad bullying incident in year 11 which was neglected - despite evidence - and the two perpetrators were able to continue even though they had been kicked out temporarily many times in the past. I almost felt like the school themselves were scared of these kids and their parents. In other year groups, it was much worse. Supposedly, the behaviour in the school has become worse and more unstoppable since I left, which is likely true from what I have heard from staff and students.

The outdoor and indoor environments at CCHS were really good, with lots of places to roam. However, I disliked the fact that there were never any quiet spaces made for students, as the library seemed to never be open. Also, the toilets became a haven for borderline criminal activity.

Although CCHS has low achievement levels, I was grateful for my teachers, as most of them wanted me to do the best that I could and always made me aim high, especially when I was put into sets more suited to my ability. Despite CCHS having lower than average attainment, with what felt like only a small fraction of my year group even passing, it definitely trumps both CCA and TTC in terms of teaching quality.

Sigma Sixth, on the other hand, was much worse for me. Despite coming out CCHS being one of the highest achievers, I felt massively disadvantaged compared to other students, who were given more opportunities despite me having better grades than them consistently. Also, the VI6 program does the complete opposite of what intends to do, as it causes a split in the essential teacher-student relationship which causes it to be incredibly hard to contact your teacher, catch up and the possibility of attending any extra sessions before exams is diminished.

Also, Sigma Sixth made a huge mistake relocating to Jaywick, as many students cannot even reach the Sixth Form in ease, having to travel miles to get there each morning. This is even worse due to the unreliability of Hedingham buses which remains unresolved. Before you defend CCHS and say that the blame should be on Hedingham, it is equally Sigma Sixth's fault, as they have not bothered to discuss with Hedingham or allow for the return of the bus from CCHS to Sigma Sixth each morning.

The staff at Sigma Sixth, particularly the Pastoral Team were fantastic, helping me as much as they could despite me being a nuisance to them by coming to them often for support. However, the college seems to neglect the fact that it is plagued with toxicity between students, as students discreetly treat each other disgustingly, and having been a victim of this, it was partly the reason that I avoided the college like the plague at the end of Year 12. Although, I cannot argue with the fact that the teachers were fantastic, they helped me so much with the stressful time of applying to university and coping with exams, despite facing these challenges mainly at the hands of other students.

The outdoor environment in Sigma Sixth is solid, with lots of space to roam. However, the indoor environment is lacklustre, as you essentially have nowhere to go if you want to be alone, making it hard for students who may be exposed to bullying. Also, the quiet study rooms were taken over by loud 'popular' students who would intimidate anyone who entered and ruin the whole purpose of it being a 'quiet space'.

The food at both CCHS and Sigma Sixth was very good, the chicken and chips in particular were to die for. I have no issues with either schools' catering.

A lot of the activities that Sigma Sixth said would be hosted were often cancelled within a few weeks, this was not similar to CCHS, which at least seemed more consistent with their clubs. However, CCHS did not offer a good range of clubs, only really catering to those who liked football, netball or chess(?).

very good
diverse
popular kids literally rule the school tho
apart from that great

This school really isn’t the place to be (or if your choosing schools) not the one to go for. Most teachers are there just for the money or being able to have “power”.

The English department used to be very good in the great leadership of Miss Bailey. Since, Mr Duffy has taken over and displays no passion for English and all students who have him say the only reason they are “just about passing” is because of their other teachers.

Like another person described, the school is a trainee teacher playground, especially in science, teachers are mostly inexperienced and cannot control a class nor teach. The few experienced teachers that they do have are mostly sport science and rely on students reading the textbooks. Plus their retention rate is atrocious. They also only have one teacher qualified in teaching physics at the school which left some revision sessions for mocks with over 60 students in a class with a teacher because they didn’t have another teacher to teach in it. I may add that this teacher, Miss Pettit, is an extremely good teacher but even the best teachers can’t help a class of that size enough.

Computer science, PE and business are probably the only good departments in the school which have teachers with a passion for the subject they teach.

Computer science head (Mr Burfoot) was always eager to have the best for his students and would spend any time he had trying to find ways to make his lessons great for learning and fun for students. Mr Doherty was also a great teacher for computer science and he always developed a good teacher student relationship within the class. They also both have great communication with parents and students.

PE: the teachers have a passion for teaching and are in the whole experienced in their role. They will push students the right amount to get the best grades in their exams and coursework. Most students within the school look forward to doing PE if they have it as a subject. Mr Horsewell and the rest of the faculty have it mastered.

Business: If you get Mr Crabb you’re so lucky! He’s easily the best teacher in the entire school. His lessons are fun, his presentations are engaging and people look forward to his lessons. Using his teaching students are capable of receiving outstanding results in their exam and coursework. Mrs Everett, Mrs Mcloud are also good teachers and will get students to provide great quality work. Shout out to Mrs Everett for pushing me to work hard on my coursework in year 11 when I got behind as it ended up allowing me to get a D* with her and Mr Crabbs marking and fast feedback on my work which allowed me to improve and get the best grade possible.

Now while this sounds amazing, please don’t be fooled. Don’t send your children here. Like I have already explained about how poor English and Science are. Maths isn’t much better, it’s by now means as bad as them subjects but I’ve found it to be very hit and miss. Personally I was very fortunate with my teachers for the most of it. But most people were not. I had one maths teacher in year 9 who refused to teach maths and would have rather taught us about conspiracy theories about how we all living in a computer simulation. Saying that Mr Blanes and Mrs Matthews were very good maths teachers. I do have hope though that Mr Masters who took over the maths department last year will help to develop and improve the department as for the time I was there and so we he, he massively helped sort any issues found by students and would regularly drop into after school revision sessions to help out when free and he taught me a way to very quickly solve questions which required me to multiply quadratics that no over teacher had done.

Honesty for me though, I think the other subjects really let it down for me, considering we spent 11 hours 15 min a week (2 days and one lesson worth) in science and English you’d really hope you would be able to receive a “half-decent” education. Last year only 23% of students got a grade 5 (C) in English and Maths, that is way below the national average!

Finally, I would just like to mention the senior leadership team.
One of their assistant head teachers Andrew Martin is there to abuse power, most students have a strong dislike towards him and students who had to have him as a teacher knew the sciences departments texts books as Martins textbooks as most of his lessons consisted of sitting there and reading a textbook and then answering questions in the book, he was only really there to take a register and make sure everyone sits there and reads the textbook. You can’t call it teaching!
Mr Graves, probably the only good leader and teacher within the senior leadership team. He is a PE teacher and an Assistant head teacher. He is a great teacher and really pushes to motivate his students. When the English department had a teacher off for over a month and had a teacher who couldn’t control the class turn up, had no experience teaching English and was allowing students to rip up books and throw glue, she just watched and let it happen even when alerted to it. After a few attempts getting SLT to do something, Mr Graves stepped in as soon as it was alerted by students directly to him and managed to arrange one lesson towards the end before a mock exam with an English teacher, and he or the head (Mr Taylor) regularly visited the class to enforce behaviour while we sat and worked in a booklet with no teaching in and a teacher who still didn’t seem to care. Saying that, Mr Graves was the 3rd SLT member to be notified and was the only one who acted on it and it hadn’t even been communicated to him from fellow leaders.
Mrs McCarry was a good assistant headteacher when it came to motivating students and allowing them to believe in themselves and when I had her for English, her lessons I found were too easy but she had to teach a mixed ability group ( students who were just trying to scrape a D/E to students wanting A/A*), so she was trying to do the best for what she had. The head of English hadn’t even attempted to organise sets for students. Once again, another let down from Mr Duffy. But she was a leader which students felt they could approach.
The head of school Mr Taylor was very visible around the school and students could also speak to him at almost every break and lunch time. He tried to follow up with students when there’s been an issue and he’s had to solve it. But there’s an issue here as I’ve had lessons where teachers have make comments to another teacher when they’re complaining about the senior leadership team to be rude to them where it’s got the point a teacher responded “it’s CCHS, you’ve been here a few years, are you not used to their arrogance and rudeness yet”. In no school do I think this should happen. How are teachers supposed to care when they get no application and are just looked down on.

There was also regular drug dealing activity seen in the toilets.

If read all this, please just remember that statistic I used earlier. This school has a 23% pass rate... please do your child a favour and send them elsewhere.

Most teachers don’t give feedback or ever mark work. Whether they wish to reply or communicate with students or parents is very selective from staff and senior team. Overall a bad school in my mind, it’s a trainee teacher playground