Grange Park Preparatory School

5 days ago
New
Don’t be fooled by the five star reviews from years ago. This school is a failure unfortunately with a previous head teacher Mrs Rizzo who’s motto was “bums in seats”, meaning as long as there are students in her school paying fees she was careless of their grievances.

The previous year 6 class was an utter failure in terms of their offers, not due to unintelligent children but simply because the school failed to provide a suitable education to pass the 11 plus exams. Bullying is rampant in the school and senior staff members did not care to address the issue as so long as they continued to make money.

In my daughter’s year group parents pulled out their children one by one, with very little remaining in the class, and unfortunately as stated above, those students performed badly. There was also an incident on the second day of us attending the school where I was subjected to racism from a staff member which unfortunately spiralled into several other incidences as staff were comfortable being openly racist.

The bullying starts from senior management and is echoed by staff and the children alike,with one incident where another child was punched in the face in the play ground resulting in a bloodbath leaving other children crying in fear, a teacher was also rugby tackled by a student with no cause of consequence as the child’s mother was friends with the then head teacher. The staff are unprofessional and do not even try to hide it either. If you are a parent looking to provide your child with the best education then this school is not an option. Any child with even the most reasonable of results has achieved that due to being tutored outside of school, which completely defeats the purpose of sending your child to a prep school.
Parents mostly do not realise their child is failing until about Year 5 when it becomes apparent that they are not academically fit to sit competitive exams, which unfortunately by that time is too late. There are state schools within the area such as St Paul’s with better academic outcomes and offers than
this school and that’s a fact. Two years previously the head teacher called all the Year 5 parents into a meeting and point blank told them that their children aren’t prepared, that’s how shameless this school is.

The pastoral care is non-existent with the lead for pastoral care being mostly unseen and no where to be found when required. Let’s not forget the time they made my daughter and her peers practise so much for the end of year show a student went pale and fainted and my daughter ended up in hospital due to being prevented from breaks and drinking water which led to exhaustion and dehydration, I cannot make this up as it’s recorded in her medical files.

After senior staff encouraged and participated in bullying my child including racially targeting her this school with no shame are now trying to extort fees from me. Our experiences is just one of many, a school with very little feedback online is a school anyone should be weary of, and this is definitely applies to GPPS. The only positive thing I can say is that the chefs really do care about the children and would put great effort into all the meals which my daughter enjoyed. The PTA also did a good job too at housing great events at the school, which was also a pleasure to attend, however it is not a restaurant nor a PTA club so in terms of ticking the box for an outstanding school, it just doesn’t.