Outwood Academy Bydales

When I first came to this school I thought it would be a step up from primary school . It gave me a lot more freedom and I thought I would be able to be the best version of myself. Year 7 and 8 was amazing it was probably the best years for me there . I was doing well with grades and I was happy. When I got to year 9 that’s when it started to change, at the start of the year I began to become targeted for being weak and autistic . Certain people would try to trip me in the hallway, take my stuff and call me names that made deeply upset . At this point after a few months It was every week something would happen to me. It got to the point I began to not want to go to school at all and my grades started to drop because everything that happened all the names I was being called and the bullying broke me and it caused me to become severely depressed . All the pain took a toll on me and I decided I didn’t want to be here anymore . One day after school in 2022 I wanted to end my life after being bullied again. I ran into the woods with no intention of coming out and if it wasn’t for the people who helped me through it all I wouldn’t be here. Year 10 was the worst year of my life . Every week I was still being bullied weekly , targeted in the hallway and during certain lessons such as sports, football especially, I was targeted with everyone trying to snap my legs and injure me . School is supposed to be a place where I can be safe and learn but when your being called names everyday , targeted for no reason and all this just makes you feel like nothing. Every time I would tell the safeguarding team they would say things like ‘they are just joking’ or just ignore them’ . the people who are supposed to look out for you and help you and prevent these kind of things but all they do is nothing . It makes you feel alone and it makes you think whether anyone wants to help you . Eventually one incident I finally decided to say something and stand up for myself. The next Monday I am attacked and become seriously injured. I was taken to hospital and when I returned home I discovered that someone had recorded the cctv footage on their phone and had sent it all around the school . The police ended up getting involved and they sorted it but seeing that video made me feel worthless . This school say they have one of the best safeguarding team but then the cctv footage gets leaked and now I’m being slandered by everyone saying how pathetic I was and how weak I am it makes the school look like they truly are helping with the situation. In march 2023 I wanted to end my life again but I felt so worthless I couldn’t bring myself to do it. After that I was barely targeted whatsoever . Apart from a few little incidents I was fine for the rest of the year. Some of the incidents that happened were sometimes my fault but that’s only because I retaliated because the teachers would only step in and do something when the situation was at its worse. This would leave me with no choice but to retaliate and then they would say it was my fault as well and even when they did something it was minimal and barely anything at all. In year 11 I thought this would be the year where I could finally be free from all the pain I went through . At first everything was ok no serious incidents were happening and everything was going well with revising for my GCSES. When the revision classes were introduced it gave everyone a chance to revise for the exams . This is where some serious incidents took another massive toll on me. In science, pens were thrown at me repeatedly and nothing was being done . Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore so I threw a pen at them . I was then sent out to another classroom to be moved away from them even though i had done nothing wrong . I had thrown a pen but I only did it in retaliation. Why was I getting sent out rather than the people who were throwing stuff at me. In history 1 hour before my GCSE exam, I had glue sticks thrown at me and pens thrown at me while I was revising for my exam . Our usual teacher wasn’t in so someone else came in and watched us and they were sitting at the front of the classroom on his phone instead of watching his class. He was on his phone while I was being hit by glue sticks . I passed all my exams despite all of this . My time at Bydales can be summed up with: teachers who don’t know how to keep a child safe . I’m in college now and I’m still recovering from a number of the incidents and I still have very bad anxiety issues . Some of the teachers were amazing at helping with the incidents and it’s the reason why history and drama was my favourite subjects. Why am I writing this? Because I want to share what I went through and it makes me think and worried that people who attend this school could go through the same pain I went through . Whoever’s parents read this I want u to see this and think what if this was your kid . I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through I want everyone to be able enjoy secondary school life and not live in constant fear like I did . If it wasn’t for my family , amazing friends and other people in my life who helped me I wouldn’t be here writing this review . Thank u

My son has neurodiverse needs. Other than one teacher, he had no support. He was bullied and lashed out and was excluded. They didn't look at his semh from primary and my son struggled. We managed to overturn the exclusion but his mental health was not good for a very long time. I would not recommend this school.

Did not help my son with semh. Did not even look at primary school handover. Did not address bullying and did not follow processes. The governors do not know processes and their views are archaic. Hopefully the new headmaster will be better than the last.

Absolute shambles. There are a select few staff who are actually nice, the bathroom taps run so fast you'll come out of the toilets looking like Aquaman, the GCSE options are designed so that they can brag about their 'full e-bac' so you get one option in the creative arts, the learning environment is neither calm or safe so you can guarantee that, at least twice a week, a year 7 will have a sausage roll pelted at their head moving faster than an F-16 Fighter Jet. As soon as you enter the building, you will absolutely hate it.