Ripon Grammar School

I left Ripon Grammar in June after five years at the School. To put my high school experience in a nutshell, I was subjected to constant bullying and homophobia by both fellow peers and staff members. I’ve probably just outed myself but oh well, I need to shed light on what was undoubtedly the worst five years of my life.

You may find that some teenagers you know enjoy Ripon Grammar. I found that people who fit gender stereotypes, for example a boy that plays rugby or a girl that plays netball, seemed to enjoy going to school. I am in no way discrediting people who fit gender stereotypes, but I think it’s important to raise awareness when only those who fit gender norms can thrive. It says a lot about the environment of the school. To put it bluntly, individuals with querks or differences are squashed at Ripon Grammar.

A noteable low point for me was in year 10. The weekend prior to that week at school, I had been subject to physical assault by a boy in my year because I was gay. He had been throwing cooking apples and rocks at me whilst shouting the f slur. I had to go into a convenience store to avoid being attacked- this was obviously a very scary situation for a 15 year old boy and it’s something that I’m never going to forget. My mum obviously contacted the school, because this was a boy I’d see on a daily basis. My head of year told me it was out of her hands because the incident took place outside of school, so I needed to get the police involved. Somehow, word had spread that my family wanted to report this boy to the police. I was interrogated by several of my peers and told not to take the matter further, the aggressive nature of the interrogation completely squashed me. I also felt scared, because he had already tried to attack me before so how was I supposed to know whether or not this would happen again? Because of this, when I was interviewed by the police I refused to say the name of this boy. As I look back at the situation a few years later, I believe I was really let down by Ripon Grammar. Me and my family were left to deal with a very serious situation on our own, and because of the school’s negligence I wasn’t able to receive any sort of justice. As you can imagine, I felt very upset and frustrated when Ofsted wrote that, ‘staff deal firmly with very rare instances of homophobic language.’

A combination of bland, recycled lessons and teacher absences made the quality of my secondary school education mediocre at best. Most of my lessons between year 7 and 11 had been used for several years, I recall realising this at the time because lots of PowerPoints that my teachers used had specific dates on them. I distinctly remember a PowerPoint in a ks3 English lesson that dated back to 2012…I attended the school between 2019 and 2024. More importantly, for the majority of my GCSE English literature and language course I didn’t have a teacher. This affected the grades that I left the school with. I only got a grade 5 in lit and a 4 in language, but I scored 6’s and 7’s across the board. I will always wonder what I might have been able to achieve in a school where I was happy and taught by teachers who went above and beyond for their students. From my experience at Ripon Grammar, teachers do not strive to help students fulfil their potential. Instead, enormous pressure is implicated on exam students. There is an extreme culture of academic validation at Ripon Grammar that needs to be eradicated- just because you don’t achieve the grade that a computer says you should it doesn’t make you any less of a person than someone who is excelling academically. From what I recall, this culture was promoted by members of staff. I was once told by a Biology teacher in a parents evening that, ‘I pretended to be good so that I could be lazy and this is why I was under performing.’ I was in year 8.

However, a small cluster of teachers are very kind. Most notably for me, I was able to hide from what was going on in the Music block (further outing myself on this anonymous post.) The music education is really good and that’s rare at a state secondary school. In my third year at the school, a counsellor was employed.This helped me get through my time at school, but it still doesn’t make my school experience a good one. School for me became about surviving not thriving.

Take from this account what you like, but I think it’s important that parent’s who are considering the school see different perspectives of Ripon Grammar. In my opinion, the school should focus on fixing problems rather than covering them up.

The school really only care about your child if they can reflect something exceptional onto the school or if they are the offspring of the great and the good. Most of the children try hard, get As and are well behaved, but they are just nothings, the 'also rans'.
Most of the staff are great, but there are some very noticeable exceptions who are out and out bullies, make fun of kids if they get something wrong.
Your child will do well, but the price they pay is immense pressure, and often feeling worthless. Your choice

Pushy, all they care about are grades, do NOT care about child welfare, the pressure on the children and their mental health.

During my last year there, a boy in boarding attempted suicide by cutting his wrists and a girl in boarding took an overdose.

Most of the boarders hate it there, nothing to do after school. Food is awful. Housemistress doesn’t care and is never there, when she is she just shouts all the time.

Certainly don’t let your child board!