Kings International College

It’s fairly good here, I joined in year seven during Covid and it was rather chaotic, i feel it could have been handled better but they did the best they could. During year seven [when we got back to school] I was pretty badly bullied/harassed by a girl, i still struggle with what happened but the school really helped me through it and offered counselling for what I experienced. The students are dreadful [at-least in year 9] but the teachers do what they can. There are fights, though they are quickly stopped. I feel safe here and am comfortable with the environment despite the incidents that occasionally happen. The school is supportive of the LGBTQ+ community and are supportive with mental health, with in school counselling given as-well as numbers for various mental health lines to call if needed. They bring different people in for assemblies and overall the school is really good! The students can be a pain but other than that all is okay here, and teachers are perfectly fine if you need to speak to them about anything, head if years [mine at least] are always open to be spoken to and encourage students to speak up if they are being bullied, discriminated against or other such things. They also provide sanitary products for girls along with heat pads and pain medication.
Overall I enjoy my time at Kings when the students aren’t being chaotic and i would recommend it to any friends or just others in general who are looking for school.

I moved to this school at the beginning of year 10, bam smack in the middle of GCSES after fleeing bullying and abuse from my previous school. From the rumours of kings, I expected a terrible environment and bad teachers but this was far from the truth. I only had one year at Kings but every second I wished I had gone there in year 7 and skipped the trauma of attending an Ofsted 'Outstanding' catholic school that ruined my self esteem and discriminated against me and other students on the daily. Kings, instead, was a warm and welcoming school. For the first time since starting primary school I wasn't bulled, teachers didn't single me out, detention wasn't used a weapon against the students, staff genuinely cared about every student and I was offered a lot of 1-2-1 support to catch up before GCSES started. Prom was fantastic and I was sad to leave. If it wasn't for Kings, I was well on my way to failing my GCSES despite being an A grade student, just because of the lack of support in my previous school. Instead, I achieved, made friends and got to experience a kind and learning focussed classroom for a year. I am so grateful to Kings. They don't get enough credit for all they do to help students. Don't be so easily fooled into thinking a school is good or better just because it is labelled 'Outstanding'. Or that a school will be kind and loving when it's catholic either. This 'shitty state school' turned my life around and gave me a chance to enjoy education for the first time. Now, I'm off to Russel group university to study my dream degree, all thanks for the grades that got me into college. Thank you Kings !

Teachers weren’t supportive at all and they didn’t support anyone that was being bullied.

I am in Year.11 currently and have been there since Year.8. It is a better school than what I was in throughout Year.7. The staff are wonderful, they’re some teachers that really let the school down but doesn’t ever school have those types of teachers. We have frequent fire drills and lockdown drills. The SENDCOs are brilliant and they keep most information confidential unless there is a risk to your life or someone else’s life. The staff change over is quite minimal which I assume means that they have a strong staff system. Punishment is dealt effectively with detention, isolation, exclusion and this works because I have only seen one child get expelled. They could be more precise over telling us syllabuses for the years and what topics we are on or finishing. Again that is already being done by some teachers but others not so much. But overall Kings International College is a great school but it does need some improvements to get it up to excellent. This could be done through the Cafe, where the food is nice on the Monday but as the week goes by, the food gets slightly more like hospital food. Bearing in mind this school was a required improvement school at one point so does have quite a low reputation from other former students.