Sir William Borlase's Grammar School

This school has broken me. The pastoral and SEN support is dogshit no one actually knows how to help they just tell you to sit in a room for 15 minutes to calm down then leave you there and never contact you back until you come running to them again and it repeats. fucking joke. all i wanted was ongoing support and reasonable accommodations but instead i fell into a long depressive episode that has impacted my grades and future plans because of not receiving the support i needed. all this whilst they yap in assembly about how great the mental health support is at this school and how lucky we are. i wish i could go back in time so i never had to go through what i have. and still, now, i am struggling because i am ignored and turned away from the support team. - A

I’m currently a student at this school. My first few years at this school have been incredibly enjoyable and I’ve never had any problems with the teachers, however, looking at the new uniform policy I cannot put into words how enraged I feel but I will attempt to conveign them here now. We are no longer allowed to wear anything that gives us individuality, for example, we are only allowed ‘plain black coats’, ‘no jewellery’, ‘no scarves’, ‘all rucksacks must be plain black’ and so much more. Not only that but there are now PE kit rules for indoor, outdoor, summer and winter sports and it is horrible to make people spend huge amounts of money on overpriced equipment (like studs for example) which the majority of students will wear for three lessons and never touch again (I wore them twice in year seven and I’ve never worn them again). I understand there have been problems with skirt length before however punishing everyone by enforcing such ridiculous uniform regulations is absurd and I disagree entirely. The punishments for disobeying these nonsense regulations are also far too extreme. The school itself is amazing and there are teachers that I genuinely love there and so many opportunities are available I just hate the uniform policy with every inch of my body because of how strict and unfair it is. The school would be an easy five stars if the policy was less strict; it’s a shame such a small thing can ruin my entire opinion of the school. Please change the policy.

I really like this schoooooolll.
It is goooood.
:)

School does well academically. Poor staff for handling mental health and overprivelidged rude students.

The pastoral support is both too good and not good enough at the same time - if you're on their radar, you're followed and watched like a hawk - always being stopped for "little chats" and "check ins". However the school is very dogged about reporting back to parents, which is both good and bad, as it can make going to a teacher about your problems harder, as you don't know whether they'll tell your parents. This makes it hard to get on their radar in the first place - you have to be caught having a panic attack or worse to get serious support - otherwise they will just ask you if you're okay, no matter the answer they'll probably not care enough to seek you out, unless you say you're s*lf h*rming or something.

Derogatory language is used frequently and not often dealt with; the teachers care more about skirt lengths than misogyny, PE kit than homophobia. I've even seen a few teachers take notice of the discrimination and not do anything about it, which makes my blood boil.

Although, you do get good grades because, well, it's a posh grammar school.

Also the canteen food is s*** lol