Ralph Allen School

School doesn’t care really about mental health in students and the whole moving everyone’s lessons and splitting friend groups up for ‘team building’ ends up with unhappy students

Pastoral support in lower school was underwhelming, left to teachers who should not have had to deal with a student population on the brink of crisis, however this picked up in sixth form. Racism, homophobia, xenophobia etc. was critically and consistently ignored when pursued further than a detention. Feels like some of the supply teachers should have been fired decades ago, but school funds were so mismanaged that it wasn’t affordable to hire people more qualified/stable. Policy encouraged students/pupils to discuss grievances with relevant staff members, however in practice these were always the students being penalised and made an example of. I thought the rat infestation was a nice touch, and really set the scene for a sixth form with a completely mundane set of rules and regs that barely impacted a student body with a developing resistance to the constant barrage of inescapable disapproval - kind of disheartening honestly. Raising concern about treatment of students by staff was not dealt with professionally, if even dealt with at all. The English department was Ralph Allen’s saving grace. Always felt bad for the few poor staff members passionate about making a difference, rarely are they recognised. In contrast, the impact of overhearing higher-ups jovially mock individuals they deem as not having the capacity to attend university, as opposed to providing options and putting their ambitions first really speaks volumes. Nobody asked for rented pygmy goats, we wanted school supplies that weren’t coming out of the teachers’ own pockets, and comprehensive support for an ongoing mental health crisis, but I suppose that’s probably a bit much to ask in a school that consistently undermines the people it’s paid by the government to serve.

It sucks. Full of chavs and horrible people. Pretty nice teachers scattered about, however theres a computer science teacher who is very anti LGBTQ, a pe teacher who's Facebook got leaked of pictures of him naked in the shower and a supply teacher who is just very overly strict and nit-picky when shes in a bad mood. Others are bearable, but dont understand students' mental health (*** *****). In an exclusion meeting, she kept demanding eye contact even though shes informed of me having anxiety. I have a lot of respect for certain teachers, but I just think it should be normalised to have more understanding than negative people teaching a young, influential generation. They also disregard bullying & the nurse is no help.

Um,generally nice teachers but refuse to get rid of the ICT teacher who set up anti lgbt conferences around the uk,mrs Calvin makes me want to cry and generally just insults students when shes in a bad mood.Bullying is a massive issue and half the teachers deny it even happens.English department are a lovely bunch,the head teacher is nicer then people think and generally cares about everyone,umm and half the pe teachers need to be put on a list...Teachers complain they cant afford glue sticks and books and then the school installs a petting zoo and buys 250 copys of the "you are awesome" book(bad investment)...priorities are weird,dont know many mentally stable people and the school puts results >mental wellbeing. Dont go near the pasta unless you want to get food poisoning,,,cookies are the only acceptable choice.But the sixth forms alright.Also weird and unnecessarily strict uniform.