Read before enrolling - An honest comprehensive review
Lord Grey Academy has from my eyes, not been the greatest experience, but it can educate none the less, from my last few weeks of the school I've grabbed up information and put it together to explain what makes the school good and what makes the school bad, but it's mainly negative. I have separated all the categories for what you need to know.
The Education and Learning
The school can teach, it's nothing too special, but you need to be lucky on what teachers you get, it is 50/50 whether you get a teacher that knows what they're doing and are making the lesson enjoyable or will give out worksheets every lesson, never being taught anything, just to be given "C points" (which are negative points) to students that don't learn from home. If you want to enrol your child into LG, be wary that they may get a horrible teacher for a year. I myself have gotten both amazing, mediocre, and bad teachers almost break even with each other.
Safety of Students/Staff
I forgot whether there is a safety department. The budget on safety is a low, students will never be in trouble, many kids will get their photo's taken without consent by other students. There has been a time as well where a kid had a video recording of them doing "self pleasure" in the school bathrooms uploaded onto Instagram with their name leaked. The school did nothing about this, even though this was being spread like wildfire.
Lines are very unsafe in the canteen, especially on Friday, where fish and chips would be on the menu, every time I'd see kids charge through and crushing people against the wall and railings, my chest has been in a lot of pain, and I have been barged into the poll because of charging people (one time almost being taken by the people running). All the staff would do is yell at the people to "Go to the back of the line" with no enforcement, and close the canteen doors for 2-5 minutes, making it almost impossible for all the students to obtain the food they need.
Staff of the School
As what I've stated previously, either the staff are great and amazing to talk to or will throw a tantrum yelling at a student that they're disrupting the class for 2 minutes for whispering a minor thing to a friend (true story). Just never speak to the bad teachers.
Food and the Canteen
Food prices are astronomically high nowadays and the food quality has been decreased drastically, there is also evidence about fraudulent activity being in place by overcharging students by as little as 10-20p up to over £1 worth of goods. When confronted by the school, they doubled down and banned the woman who confronted them from entering the property, declaring it would be trespassing to enter. I even saw this fraudulent activity active when the servers were down, being charged £2.50 for an item that is £1.70, reasons why I think they're allowed to do this is because its their "meal deal" but my items were not even a part of that, and I have been told explicitly by a canteen staff.
Also due to how unsafe the line is (as I stated before), it is almost impossible to obtain food if you are let out late by a bad teacher or are naturally far away. Luckily, there are two posts that allow you to get tiny snacks, however, all three of the places will not be enough to fill you up unless you spend £4-6 on food (£6 being the limit)
PLEASE READ ABOUT CANTEEN: ALL FOOD ARE DAIRY AND HAVE WHEAT AND SOMETIMES MEAT, THE ONLY ITEMS THAT ARE AVAILABLE IS A SMALL TUB OF GRAPES FOR £2.50 AND CHICKEN WINGS (bones included)
Other Amenities and Activities
I never really did any of the other activities but these were: D&D, football, netball, and other sports. From what I've heard, they are quite solid. But I wont give an excellent rating due to me not being in any of them.
School Policies and Punishment
The school has very strict policies that may seem too much, especially when I was in the school, DO NOT enrol your kid if you live far away, this is because if anyone receives a singular late mark they will spend 30 minutes in the detention room after school, which I will get onto soon.
As well, homework (or self-study they like to now call it) is an unfair system, allowing kids with financial superiority to be liked by the staff and head of years while having the kids whose parents cannot afford internet or digital technology be left in the dust due to everything now being digital. They attempt to mitigate this via allowing students every Wednesday after school for an hours and every Saturday for a few hours to do all of their self-study they have to do for the week, unfortunately however, these 3-4 hours a week are not enough (unless you rush through it without learning) since due to my counting takes 8-12 hours a week on average, if you were unlucky, 16-18 hours you were expected to do. There is one class where you send proof of you learning, the rest being website questionnaires, but this is flawed, since students are expected to do 45 minutes of maths on that website per day, no excuses.
Other things to note about the negatives:
I think you can be supplied a laptop if you don't own any electronic devices but I didn't include it in the main review since I am very unsure, I only sort of know this because of a parents evening with my English literature teacher in year 11.
Privacy is a zero in the school, and yes that is very good because it's a school, but apparently they had been caught having a camera in the boys bathroom, never heard of it since after word got out about it.
There is clear bias against male students, especially during PE. For example: during a dodgeball with UV lights, the boys were forced to sit on the ground and let the girls sit on the benches because "we're gentlemen" but the men got in trouble for sitting on it. They then separated each other and make us sit on different benches because of the backlash.
Boys always have to do PE in the bad weather while girls go inside, I do remember the girls did trampolining while the boys did tennis in the cold, cloudy wind. It was so bad the girls thought this was biased.
Communication is very lacking, I do remember I was not marked in for tutor time and my parents were scared on what happened to me, it took two hours just for my parents to say "check what class he is in" and it took two seconds for a staff member to walk out of their room, walk into mine and say "Do you have _____ by chance?", I call myself up, then leaves. Worst part was I was marked in by the register.
THERE ARE CONSTANT FIGHTS
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The school has been clearly engaging in FOMO (fear of missing out) activity against students to buy tickets for prom, and randomly changed the requirement to being everyone is in but you can be banned to you need to be invited. No refunds if you are not invited/banned even if you are promised, many people have not been refunded even though they have been promised.
Examples can be seen when before a core exam one of the head of years alerted everyone that it was the last day to get prom tickets, while also constantly telling people that they'll be going off sale soon ever since the start of the year. They put them off sale in May and were on sale since September.
This also includes their hoodies, which were supposed to be able to be worn in school grounds, putting them on sale in September, then taking them off sale a few months later, then back on half a year later for around double the price. Then in April/May people getting them just for them to not be allowed to wear them in school after being promised.
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Positives about the school include:
There is effectively no discrimination throughout my time there FROM MY END (except for that PE stuff)
Very up to date systems
Place looks pretty nice for how old it is.
Few large quiet areas inside (and outside).
I very much hope that this gets read by the head of years or principle so they can understand how to improve the school.
The school has many flaws. All schools do. But the school tries to hide the flaws behind Propaganda and lies. Don't believe the school. Believe the students, Parents and Other people who review the school. The school is terrible and Any other school would be better. Please please PLEASE don't send your child here! 1 star. Would rate lower if I could
Excellent school. My child has had an amazing 5 years. Your child will get out of school what they put in! If a child is going to achieve at school a parent also needs to support them at home. It's all about balance.
I hate this school my daughter & son hate it as well there is naughtiness and rude behaviour please stop this school now immediately or else I will call the police my kids always get harassed no this is not a joke END THIS SCHOOL NOW!
The school is for bullying the teachers take up for the bullying Mrs hustle has a bad attitude against the children from other places she is a racist picking on children and taking the side of the ones with money I wouldn't send my dog to that school please look elsewhere for your child school it's not very nice school they promise they will look after your child they school is lying its run by bullying teachers and kids that smoke weed in the lunch and the teachers don't say anything about it,head of year 8 she has no respect for some children and doesn't listen to both side ,say no to lord gray
students were doing hitler salute in lesson and teacher decided to join in! How disgusting. a transphobic slur was shouted at a boy wearing a skirt infront of a teacher and the teacher laughed. Whilst my child was eating there food there was a pubic hair in it and by the looks of things also a toenail. SORT YOUR HYGIENE OUT!! girls acrylic nails were snapped off at the gate leaving the girl crying.
poo on the toilets. teachers are rude and racist. Children doing hitler salute in class and teacher disrespectfully joined in such a disgrace of a school! Also heard a child getting called a transphobic slur as they were wearing a skirt as a boy.
The SEN team are absolutely lacking in any form of understanding and qualifications to deal with students who have additional needs
Communication is disgusting and no help or support whatsoever
Unsure how they got good from ofsted
School is okay, but the sixth form is way better. Sixthform teachers are the best here.
Improvements the school should make:
-Lower canteen food price
- Have more enrichment opportunities for sixthform
- Have a debate team
- Sixth form leader ship for students e.g head girl/boy
Really lovely school, I would 100% recommend. All staff are very helpful and especially the head of years also. Lord Grey Academy does a lot to help students by supporting them with future careers and ambitions.
It was okay overpriced food
Very heavy on uniform no tolerance for school uniform being off teachers give c points to easily and consequences are unfair for how many c points you get
School food is overpriced, the uniform is stuffy and most school equipment gets stolen. Teachers can be weirdos sometimes and it left me mentally exhausted.
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