Sir Roger Manwood's School

the school’s priorities are in all the wrong places. for example, every morning there are 1-2 members of the very disorganised SLT team waiting at one of the school entrances at random to make you make your uniform completely spotless and perfect. i understand uniform is important for schools because it means behaviour will probably be better with the students, but majority of schools at the same level as Manwood’s dont bother with it to this extreme. you will be given a lunchtime detention just from walking to a lesson for not having exactly spotless behaviour, for example not having the blazer on besides the fact you have a jumper on so its not even bright and obvious with just a shirt. in general, most teachers care about the students, like a head of department and lower level, but as soon as you get higher than that like the SLT they really dont care about the children. teachers have very clear favourites and its very irritating not getting the education or assistance you want because the teachers are busy with the kids they pay more attention to. the SLT also control way more than they should to be honest. back to the uniform subject, they do not allow you to wear a completely plain hairband on your wrist, because it is seen by the teachers as “jewellery”. they make you remove anything, even one small plain ring or a barely noticeable bracelet. these rules were all introduced by the SLT at the start of september 2022. the new phone rule was also introduced then, which is where students are not allowed their phone to be visible inside a building at any time. this never used to be the case because it quite frankly isnt necessary. parents and students disagreed with needing this rule in a survey, but the SLT put the rule in anyway which should not be the case and the parents and the students are the ones actually needing the schools service. even if it is raining outside and you need to go to your form because you have nowhere else to go, you are not allowed to use your phone. you just have to sit there and wait it out. they have noticed that the school has been slipping slightly lately, so they took it to all the wrong extremes to try improve its image. they’re extremely disorganised, with no announcements on what to do, say for an open night or a results day or where to go, and they also spend their budget in all the wrong ways. like spending it on a useless garden which is just a bit of grass and flowers and some benches which probably cost way too much, because they felt the need to ask parents to make monthly payments to the school, and also students have to pay for too many of their books than they should have to.
they dont allow their students to use the toilet during a lesson unless you have a special card from student support which lets you go, which is too extreme because theyre hard to get. this rule is awful because what if you have your period, or you just genuinely need to go? the humiliation if they didnt let you go and you wet yourself or something. its awful. they clearly dont think about the students health or happiness at all. just their image to make the school look good. if you have any issues, dont bother. they dont do anything with bullying or general SEN, the support room staff care a lot about the children but everything is controlled by the SLT, who dont care at all. if you are upset from bullying or say you want to move forms, the SLT wont care. they have loads of unanswered emails they dont bother with regarding students health, which just demonstrates how much the people who actually have power dont care. overall, its falling apart and i dont recommend you send your child there. theres other grammar schools they can go to if you want them to be happy at the same time as get good grades. the food is also way too overpriced for families to be able to afford, and shops are expensive too at the moment so often parents rely on school lunches instead of a packed lunch. they used to allow you to go into debt and then pay it off but now if you dont have enough money on your account they dont let you get food and youre left with no food for the day.

another thing, I've had 4 english teachers in 1 year and none of them even know my name, let alone teach me anything. They are so disrespectful, one of them didn't let a student go to the toilet, she explained how she was on her period and the teacher said "I don't believe you" and was forced to sit there bleeding. There is clear favouritism, aka, detentions for people who don't pay attention but if it's their favourite student they will get asked if they're okay?? most toilets are blocked or disgusting, and many girls have been asked to pull their skorts down even though they were designed to be short on purpose, and the boys are never asked to pull their shorts down even if theirs are even shorter. Our class has been called a disappointment because we didn't achieve the grade she wanted, even though she didn;t teach us the topic in the test. Just blatant disrespect to be honest, don't go here unless you're very smart and like being disrespected. Also, canteen food is ridiculously overpriced, and often has hair in it.

Some of the rules are ridiculousm we're not allowed to go to the toilet even if we start our periods. Also, some of the teachers are very rude and inconsiderate. The canteen food is ridiculously overpriced. We always do the same few sports in PE. Music department and art department is good. They don't care about bullying, and I have been told in the medical room that my symptoms after the HPV vaccine were "rubbish" and sent me back to class without asking how I felt. Very rude.

Really good environment, enhanced by the town around, which is a very peaceful, tranquil and clean place.
The teaching staff are in majority very good and the systems in place are well thought-out. Opportunities are rife if you work hard, and most subject departments are supportive to all students. Furthermore, homework, although frequent, is not generally overwhelming.
The main issue to raise is a seemingly unnecessary focus on the sciences (with a mandatory 12 lessons out of a total 50 per fortnight at GCSE level), however needless to say this may be an attraction.

Overall, with a positive attitude to learning it can be a great school.

although there are some teachers that are amazing, most are not. i have had countless teachers be rude and disrespectful to me, especially those higher up in the school who seem to think that the world revolves around them. the style of teaching is also quite out of date due to the age of most of the teachers and even certain ones thinking that it is okay to be horrible to students. it is quite obvious that the school only cares about the grade you get so that they can keep up their reputation which is not acceptable and also quite selfish. i know of teachers who have made several students cry and no action whatsoever was taken towards the teachers as it seems that their staff is a lot bigger of a priority to the school than the students themselves. there are only a few members of staff who seem to listen to and respect the pupils, although there is always favouritism even among the best teachers. overall the school is okay, but i would not recommend it to anyone who doesn’t have thick skin and doesn’t want to be treated like a 4 year old even up to year 11.

Ok so it's a pretty good school. They handled covid mostly well but there are problems. People who are bullied do not get enough attention whatsoever, don't expect to get get the issue fixed. Pretty much all of my teachers are older than 45 and you can see that in their teaching. The food is pretty naff ngl, it's very overpriced but they have options. The art department is great but I think there should be more sports in pe,not just hockey, netball, basketball, rugby etc. Most of the teachers will not help you in spare time so if you struggle in a particular subject then you will probably have to learn it on your own. The school is very grade based rather than improvement based so there cam be a lot of pressure, especially after covid with all the tests as soon as we come back. I like all of the outside space at break and lunch except the "comfort break" is pointless, and the portable toilets for year 8 and 10 are usually dirty. So overall, I recommend the school for people who get decent grades and want to continue getting high education, because if not then you will probably struggle quite a bit.

Vintage looking school, just plain outdated once you get in though. The school asks you to donate money to keep the school going but will happily spend hundreds on a 'wellbeing' garden nobody has been allowed to use. If you get bullied here you are on your own. Good luck with your grades as teachers don't really want to help after school hours. Although your grades are likely to be high here don't expect it to be a good school. Sixth form options are horrendous and you are thrown in with the kiddies so I didn't even choose to do it. Would go if you're smart but if you just wanna get by don't go here. Trust me.

Average, good departments, especially in history and art. However PE classes lacking, teachers showing clear favourites which wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t pick on anyone but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Headteacher seems a bit estranged, students rarely see him unless for assemblies. Some basic requests by students are often overlooked and often those being bullied aren’t listened to of helped as much as the school claims to. Canteen food is often much more expensive than it’s worth, and students aren’t listened to a lot when bringing it up with teachers. Overall a decent school, I guess they get results at the end of the day and students are usually happy, but could be improved.

All the teachers are really old, and at the start of covid they handled it well but there is no distancing whatsoever, at least in year 8. The people who get bullied don't really get the attention they deserve.

it makes me cry like A LOT however the history department is ok but english is just a failure

academically it’s alright but you only get some form of respect when you get into sixth form. as for the covid situation they’ve handled it terribly in my opinion. they’ve given each year group bubbles and areas they’re allowed in and not allowed in and each bubble has allocated toilets to use. for the year 12’s our bubble is on the far side of the school and the allocated toilets and study area are on the complete other side of the school! it takes about 5 mins to get to the toilets on a quiet day and they’re the ones by canteen - a place all year groups use at lunches !!

made me sad made me cry alot

The teachers are all quite old and the school standards are very old fashioned too. The buildings are ancient and could do with upgrading. Clothing rules are also very old fashioned too. Overall, the school desperately needs bringing into the 21st century.