Parkstone Grammar School

The headteacher does not care about funding and has been mentioned by teachers to be highly against it which students wouldn't have a problem with if it wasn't for the four expensive cars he owns. About a year ago a car crashed into the backgate and if you ask anyone including teachers they will say how long it took to repair due to the lack of money put into the school. For a school that wants to be seen as above state schools the state of the campus is appaling- all the money was put towards the new school uniform and the new bell. The new bell sounds like a prison escort alarm rather than a bell and has been non consistent and changes every other time it rings. This is a disappointing use of money that could've been used elsewhere such as maths textbooks when the old bell was perfectly fine. Linking back to maths textbooks there are not enough for Year 11 students and students are not allowed to take them home for revision- which is needed for Year 11. The school puts all its funding and attention into the sciences and neglects the creative subjects- this is seen by how little money and teachers are avaliable in these subjects- this school only has two art teachers rather than other schools which have been recorded to have five. Quite a lot of teachers have been leaving over the years which is a major concern and something parents should be looking out for as quite a few classes have been covered by substitute teachers for as long as a term. The pastoral care and avaliable therapy is only avaliable for those in the extremes or are diagnosed. Even then if you are able to get care it is only temporary and once they deam you 'stable enough' sessions are discontinued. However even in therapy students do not feel comfortable sharing anything as they have an obsession to include the parents even when the parents are the issue- this is a major safeguarding concern. Also the therapy sessions are a list of questions for 30 minutes which can be answered with a simple yes or no. These therapy sessions take a year to get and even then those students have to email teachers multiple times to get that support. One example is a student asked for support as her family had been evicted from their house and it had severely affected her and she was about to do her year 10 mocks however the teachers only emailed her back with a 'sorry to hear that'. The technology and cybersecurity in the school is underfunded and its own weakness. The excessive blocking means that some school resources have also been blocked which can be a major inconvenience. The lower school library laptops all died and have not been replaced this means that GCSE students cannot use laptops for revision and are not allowed to use sixth form laptops even when on numerous occasions none of them are being used- students then have to use the slow ipads which are a new purchase and cannot support things like teams, outlook, seneca or cognito. The new uniform has been an excuse for teachers to become more excessive with the comments on uniform for example a student was told to roll down her skirt by a head of year when her skirt was not even rolled she just had long legs and this entire interaction as the teacher was not budging and kept asking even when shown it wasn't rolled caused the student to be late for her lesson. Another example was when students were walking into assembly a teacher was telling most students to roll their skirts down and told a student who was wearing trousers to roll their skirt down showing that sometimes teachers just assume you are breaking the policies rather than with actual proof. The exam stress and attitude to subjects is again excessive with teachers saying if you are confused to ask however when that student then asks they are mocked infront of the class with the teacher saying 'well if you had been listening you would understand this simple task- a year 7 could do this' even when that student has not been talking.
Overall most of the problems are simple fixes but have been neglected and the image of the school is put heavily above the student's well being.

i mean maybe parkstone is okay if you are smart quiet rich pretty white cis and straight but if you aren’t then it WILL damage your mental health and the mental health support at parkstone is appalling they just tell you parents and then tell you to have a cup of tea and a bath. the teachers will not listen at all. they don’t care about mental health they just care about the work and your shamed for struggling with the work. you are also constantly sexualised and i would guess around 50% of the students at parkstone have had, will have or currently have an eating disorder, depression and anxiety or both and the school doesn’t give a flying fuck. the teachers also don’t care if you have special educational needs and will just pretend you don’t. lastly girls are horrible to eachother and the work load is super overwhelming.

I am currently in my first year and have experienced harassment. The male teachers constantly sexualise you and stare at your ass and tits. You will get yelled at for wearing a tight top if you have big boobs but not if you have small ones same you get yelled at for your weight the whole school is corrupt