Cotham School

Hi. I am a year 9 student at Cotham School currently. It is bad.

No one cares about mental health and it takes forever to get the proper care. My friend has depression and has been waiting for therapy sessions in school for 3 months now.

The teachers are rude and strict. We are not allowed to go to the toilet in lessons and have to hold it. We have double lessons sometimes, and those lessons are hard when you need to go.

No period care. I am female and I hate this. There is one pad station in the entire school and its never fill. It costs one pound and i hate that we have to pay for care. They don't give you any painkillers or heat pads even if you are literally in so much pain.

The food is bad. They don't put effort into it and for pre-packaged meals they use ones barley on date. Most of the food is either sugary or oily, no nutrition values are considered.

A teacher was fired in 2023 for looking at indecent pictures of female students. That's just a red flag.

Cotham School does not care for its students education, behavior or mental health. Do not send your children here.

From, a Cotham Student

schull is very bad,hate it very much,very cery bad. scary scary bary jaory hairy. i got sexuality assutied by all the teachrs.ad buwwied by all the studens.no one caredx and i almost killed myself 10 times. :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

The school is horrid, a teacher spat in my food once because I arrived late to class. Like they fully opened my bag and spat in my lunchbox. There is also no privacy, if you want to use toilets there are public potties with no privacy. Like a little chair with a hole in it that you do your business in. The teachers also partake in bullying and vape in class. They sprayed a year 7 boy with water guns and locked him in a cupboard as punishment for talking in class. The teachers have also organised a betting pool for school fights, with the headteacher making £400 in one day just from gambling. In PE the changing rooms have windows so random people can walk past the children getting changed and take pictures. The windows are also open because people regularly pee all over the place so it smells, but a drunk man once jumped through the window into the girls changing room, while some of them were fully naked. The students are also strip searched to make sure they have no phones in class and the teachers make creep comments while doing it.

so terrible bad lessons teachers are gobby and always putting ppl on transfer would not go horrible

In my opinion, this school is what you’d expect a typical British school to be like. ( Lots of sagging, vaping, hiding in the toilets, drama etc) The learning rate is slow in subjects like music, drama, food tech AND ESPECIALLY LANGUAGES. I lost most of my knowledge in the language I was learning when I joined because the process is so extremely slow, and the teachers don’t provide students that are ahead with enough resources to actually learn, which is unfortunate in my opinion. However, there are less boundaries, especially in lessons like English and art, which provokes exploration of one’s creativity which is cool. Lessons like Maths and ICT are pretty well set out, in my opinion, inclusive and allows learning. Overall, I think it’s mainly the people that ruin this school, I certainly wouldn’t consider it a “safe place”. Some of the teachers are super kind and caring, but some really don’t care. Also behavioral expectations are so extremely low! I feel so bad for supply teachers since they get treated absolutely awfully and don’t know how to deal with it. This is why some lessons can be very disruptive. ( Actually most lessons are, unless you got into a class with good people. ) I mean, going here has increased my independence, however really crushed my self confidence. Also, it’s pretty hard to make friends. I also think the way opportunities have been set out isn’t very good or fair. Some of the organization can get pretty messy, ( especially in the languages department). Anyway, the uniform is pretty comfy, and you get to wear whatever shoes as long as they are black- but not high heels. The teachers barely notice though. To be honest I think my mental health has gotten worse going to this school, but it is a more realistic version of what life is ( I think ). The people here are really mean and it’s not very hard for someone to have been mean to you, for example for me random boys have approached me and some some real horrid things and I’ve been sprayed right in the face with a water gun. Real “day ruining moments”, if you know what I mean. Also the food isn’t very healthy at all and is overly priced, it’d be cheaper to bring your own. The school collects a lot more money than you’d expect from its students. I mean some of it goes to charity I guess. Mind how I said SOME. I’d say it’s a good school for people to have space to grow and develop. Because there isn’t too much pressure and barely and homework. It’s ok but a lot of improvements to be made.

I have mainly described it as bad, but I’d say one of the main upsides is you get to go home at 2:45, which is impeccably early. I mean it’s an ok school, I’m just going into details especially on the negatives to give you a real perspective and not to disappoint anyone.
So, yeah
Last thing I’d say is.
Good luck if you go here.

This school is a nightmare. The governing body and senior leadership should be dispensed with. The way pupils are treated is shameful and a complete safeguarding issue. Lies, cover ups, unlawful activity. I hope Ofsted wipes the floor with them but they won’t. Not when they have Ofsted inspectors working for them who can manipulate their way around this. I wouldn’t trust them to look after a dog let alone a child.

The head is a nightmare of epic proportion. You could make a horror movie out of the whole affair.

They don't care about our mental health. They expect us to be engaged and focused every single day even during a worldwide pandemic where people are dying.

They show no compassion or sympathy towards us students and personally led me to almost take my life from all the stress.

Obviously I won't name names, but one of the maths teachers is very clearly racist and favours white students over other ethnicities. He literally seats all white students at the back and others at the front so he can "keep an eye on the trouble makers", he also refers to students as 'types'. For example, because of the colour of my skin he took one look at me and said " I know what your type is like. I am going to put you at the front where I can see you at all times. I don't need more of you ruining others education. ' That is literal racism.