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St Albans Girls' School
Secondary · Academy · St Albans
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Think carefully before you send your child here
Think very carefully before you send your child here, especially if they have SEND. The lack of pastoral care and understanding of mental health in this school is staggering and bordering on abusive. The priorities here are academic results and conformity, which is enforced through a culture of fear and at the cost of wellbeing. Children who do not conform to the stags way are ‘strongly encouraged’ to find a new school so that they do not affect the schools image or results. This school needs an inspection urgently as it has been over 10 years; although I am sure they will work hard to convince any inspectors that they are nurturing and supportive of mental health, even though this could not be further from the truth.
dont do it
this school is the worst school in the uk, i would not recommend sending your daughters to this school i truly regret
Lollololpol
Don’t know what this is but I guess it’s bad
They don't care about people
Awful school, they don't care for students, all they care about is getting the data to 'stand out' as being the best school in the area without caring for the individual. The SLT and head are total psychopaths. There is not an ounce of pastoral support for the kids, and the teachers are treated appallingly. Avoid at all costs.
studabt
don’t go to stags
this school is literally bullshit. they say they care about ur mental health and really emphasize there care for it but when u go to a member of SLT they don’t do shit. and i mean they do nothing. what’s the point of consequences if there not gonna be given for valid reasons like bullying and sexual harassment. they focus too much on how your uniform looks e.g - rolled skirts, chewing gum, right socks , right colour tights etc. they have favourites for students because they could do something so bad and won’t even get a c1 for it like cmon now. i’ve received too many consequences in my 4 years at this school for my uniform but they can’t give one consequence to people who have bullied me in the past? they have a small chat and act like nothing happened and let it carry on because they just don’t care about u. don’t go to this school unless u want ur mental health absolutely fucked!! the food at this school is soooo expensive and they expect the less fortunate to pay those ridculous prices. it’s like £1 for a small pot of fruit. i could get a whole fruit for that price!! they need to sort this school out bro fr
terrible don’t send you child here please for their sake
teachers don’t care about you only the image of the school.Cares more about the length of your skirt than teaching you.Terrible pastoral team as well
St Albans Girls School
I quite liked it
😀😃😄🤣🥲😂😅😁😃😃😅😂😁
😀😃😄🤣🥲😂😅😁😃😃😅😂😁
Do not recommend
From a student who achieved good grades, an (almost!) clean record and attended stags from 2014-21, I do not recommend you go to this school. I wish that I could rate stags well, however the multitude of terrible experiences I (as well as my ex-schoolmates) had make me want to warn prospective parents.
Although the headteacher is certainly a skilled businesswoman for the school, I can’t say the same for her skills as a supportive or empathetic leader. To put it plainly, she has no passion, or even like, of children: instead she would rather make sure her school looks good from the outside. I also have nothing good to say about any members of the school’s senior leadership team. As a current teacher in training, it’s bizarre meeting teachers that actually care about their pupils!
I do however have some good things to mention about stags. The majority of my subject teachers were great and I enjoyed most lessons. In fact, I really bonded with some teachers however I don't feel as though I should name them as I genuinely think the headteacher would hold it against them. She is described by some teachers as a bully, one stating that she made them cry, another that the only reason they stay at stags was the other teachers.
Student sensitivity and support is a huge issue, an example being when a friend of mine brought in her grandmother’s death certificate to give as proof for special consideration for GCSEs: the librarian decided to start telling her off for a late book fee. You would also think that stags are feminist thinking, but no. They decided to search every pupil at lunch and line up any student wearing presumed fake nails in the foyer and shout at them in an attempt to embarrass them, as well as giving the standard 2-hour detention. One of the first things you learn when training to become a teacher is managing behavioural issues, maybe they need a refresher as painted nails is no reason for this punishment? In sixth-form, girls were told that they shouldn’t be wearing body-hugging skirts as it was “unfair for male teachers”. Why are teachers not being questioned for finding pupils bodies distracting?
Stags often like to say that they care about their students’ mental health, but ultimately they don’t. In 2020 my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the way the school dealt with me as a result was, in my opinion, absolutely disgusting. A week after I found out, I found from the school nurse that all of the teachers knew about it. When I asked how, she admitted to me that someone had seen it on Facebook. One of the teachers is Facebook friends with a family member and decided to tell everyone as gossip, even though I had informed my head of year that I didn’t want other people to know until I was ready. I also began to start doing my psychology lessons remotely in common room (this was during covid, so lessons were recorded) as I felt uncomfortable attending them due to my teacher consistently keeping me behind to ask about my well-being. She didn’t do this sensitively, so other students assumed I was being told off. As a result, my head of year took me to an empty classroom and shouted at me to apologise. When I became emotional, she told me to get some toilet paper and go back to class, leaving me to cry alone with no sympathy.
I am currently a student-teacher, doing well. It was motivating to encounter such atrocious attitudes to teaching/safeguarding at this school, so that I now know what NOT to do when I have my own class in the future. I do believe that the next Ofsted check will reveal a lot- last time they visited with notice: the head changed everything she could, to the point of changing menus and adding banana leaves for display. It’s laughable and makes me wonder if they would still be an outstanding school after being inspected a decade later than the last. During open days the changing rooms are locked so that parents cannot see how grim they are, they change the house point counts and more.
I hope that this review is helpful- there are certainly other great secondary schools in the area.
Although the headteacher is certainly a skilled businesswoman for the school, I can’t say the same for her skills as a supportive or empathetic leader. To put it plainly, she has no passion, or even like, of children: instead she would rather make sure her school looks good from the outside. I also have nothing good to say about any members of the school’s senior leadership team. As a current teacher in training, it’s bizarre meeting teachers that actually care about their pupils!
I do however have some good things to mention about stags. The majority of my subject teachers were great and I enjoyed most lessons. In fact, I really bonded with some teachers however I don't feel as though I should name them as I genuinely think the headteacher would hold it against them. She is described by some teachers as a bully, one stating that she made them cry, another that the only reason they stay at stags was the other teachers.
Student sensitivity and support is a huge issue, an example being when a friend of mine brought in her grandmother’s death certificate to give as proof for special consideration for GCSEs: the librarian decided to start telling her off for a late book fee. You would also think that stags are feminist thinking, but no. They decided to search every pupil at lunch and line up any student wearing presumed fake nails in the foyer and shout at them in an attempt to embarrass them, as well as giving the standard 2-hour detention. One of the first things you learn when training to become a teacher is managing behavioural issues, maybe they need a refresher as painted nails is no reason for this punishment? In sixth-form, girls were told that they shouldn’t be wearing body-hugging skirts as it was “unfair for male teachers”. Why are teachers not being questioned for finding pupils bodies distracting?
Stags often like to say that they care about their students’ mental health, but ultimately they don’t. In 2020 my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the way the school dealt with me as a result was, in my opinion, absolutely disgusting. A week after I found out, I found from the school nurse that all of the teachers knew about it. When I asked how, she admitted to me that someone had seen it on Facebook. One of the teachers is Facebook friends with a family member and decided to tell everyone as gossip, even though I had informed my head of year that I didn’t want other people to know until I was ready. I also began to start doing my psychology lessons remotely in common room (this was during covid, so lessons were recorded) as I felt uncomfortable attending them due to my teacher consistently keeping me behind to ask about my well-being. She didn’t do this sensitively, so other students assumed I was being told off. As a result, my head of year took me to an empty classroom and shouted at me to apologise. When I became emotional, she told me to get some toilet paper and go back to class, leaving me to cry alone with no sympathy.
I am currently a student-teacher, doing well. It was motivating to encounter such atrocious attitudes to teaching/safeguarding at this school, so that I now know what NOT to do when I have my own class in the future. I do believe that the next Ofsted check will reveal a lot- last time they visited with notice: the head changed everything she could, to the point of changing menus and adding banana leaves for display. It’s laughable and makes me wonder if they would still be an outstanding school after being inspected a decade later than the last. During open days the changing rooms are locked so that parents cannot see how grim they are, they change the house point counts and more.
I hope that this review is helpful- there are certainly other great secondary schools in the area.
School wtf
Awful place
It’s genuinely horrendous, the school doesn’t care about anything more than appearances. All they want is good statistics and rankings, they don’t actually give a shit about the students whatsoever. They prioritise fake useful advancements like building a new dance studio (literally a portacabin??) and more science rooms, when in reality all they’d done was waste money on a building almost identical to the previous one, and replace one of only two art rooms with yet another science lab when there were about 8 already. They wanted extra money from promoting “women in stem” but sacrificed valuable and extremely limited creative space to do it.
Not impressed
My daughter is in Y8 and so far am not impressed with the school as a whole and think it is resting on its laurels on being an outstanding school. The school has doubled in size since that review. My impression is that the teaching is indifferent, most work is self-marked, work books are not reviewed to check that notes are being properly taken down (or that there are no ingrained spelling errors!!! Shakespear written down multiple times with no correction??) , teachers do not respond to emails expressing concerns, detentions and consequences are thoughtlessly handed out, homework is minimal. In parent teacher consultations am left with an impression that some teachers have no idea who your child is. Canteen food is inedible and my daughter mourns her primary school menu - even though that school had an equal number of pupils. There has been no attempt to foster a community feel - even though this might be due to lockdowns, am aware other schools have tried harder in this regard. Other schools have continued their swimming curriculum in spite of lock down, STAGS no. STAGS appear to have taken lockdown as an excuse to completely step back from delivering a proper education, scrapping science experiments, refusing to mark work due to 'infection' risk etc. My daughter has gone from someone who loves school to not wanting to go at all. After school clubs are extremely limited. Is it too much to ask that a school imparts excitement in the acquisition of knowledge? In a nutshell, could do better. By a wide margin.
Don't send your child here
I left Stags a while ago and felt it was time to explain how awful this school is.
This school never handed bullying properly at all. If it wasn't pyhsical, they didn't handle it. From someone who had to deal with bullying, it made the first couple years unbearable.
When it came to mental health, again they didn't care. If you were suffering with a mental illness or things were bad at home, they didn't listen. They just said to breathe in and out, have a bath and listen to music. Whenever you said that method doesn't work, they just sent you back to class and didn't even try to make you feel any better.
The school cared more about your uniform, than your health. If you wore trainer socks, detention. If your skirt was too short, detention. If you wore a coloured hair band, detention. If you didn't have: black or white socks for PE, detention.
One time, the head teacher got a ruler and measured our skirts.
The school constantly bragged about being equal: femenism, LGBT, race. I once got sl*t shamed by a teacher. The amount of biphobic remarks I got at school by students were un-called for and the teachers did nothing about it. The racism was just disgusting and again, the teachers did nothing.
The amount of times they told us that having our ankles on show shoulders on show, our knees on show, was inappropriate. Ridiculous. They said it "distracted" the teachers. If my skin is distracting a teacher and they couldn't "control" themselves, why are they a teacher?
I remember when it was winter. Teachers would be wrapped up warm in their: coats, gloves, hats, scarfs at break time. The students though, we would be in a extremeley thin blazers, no coat or anything. We were freezing cold cold and it would be around -3 degrees outside. The canteen and hall wasn't big enough for a 1000 students and we weren't allowed to sit in our form rooms either.
Alos, PE in Winter. Again, teachers wrapped up in layers of clothes but us students weren't allowed to wear leggings because they were too "see through" why are you looking at my butt anyways?! And we weren't allowed to wear thermals either. If we forgot trackies or a jacket(PE uniform regulation) you had to just wear shorts and a t-shirt. These skorts and shorts, were tiny. I was allowed to wear these clothes that practically had my butt hanging out of them but I got an hour after school detention for rolling up my school skirt once and I'm sitting down, it is barely noticeable
My sister has hyperhidrosis (you sweat more than the average human). One time she was playing hockey in winter. Her hands started sweating and some of her sweat got onto the hockey stick and it was so cold, it turned to ice. Why were we allowed to play in weather that cold and not in doors?
This school says it was world class, most eco- friendly. This school is far from that. I remember they told us the inspectors were coming to check how eco-friendly we are. Obviously the school was cleaner than usual and got called most eco-friendly. The moment they left, rubbish all over the school. Wrappers everywhere, bottles all around the place, bins barely changed. Even the recycling bin was filled with food waste, instead of paper.
About grades. If you were failing classes, the teachers never bothered with you, a waste of time. They would choose favourites. if you weren't a favourite, well classes were horrible for you. I remember Yr11 science. Brand new teacher, first lesson. I had completed all of my work and I didn't read about the history of the atom, she said I was going to fail all my GCSEs. That really put my self-esteem down and I dreaded every lesson with that teacher, she was horrible.
Safety in this school was appalling. I remember being told there were some Yr8s walking home and a guy in his van were following them home, they reported it to the head teacher. She genuinely asked them "Were your skirts above your knees". They were 12 or 13 years old and instead of calling the police to check students were getting home safe and checked they were okay, she asked about uniform. It always came back to the uniform, she didn't care about their safety at all. Absolutely disgusting.
In class, if you ever needed the toilet, most teachers didn't allow you to go. If I need the toilet, I'm going. I have a right to go. When I started my new job, I asked my manager if I could go to the toilet, he was confused why I asked, I didn't need to. Stags made me believe I had to ask, when it's a basic human right. Even if you were on your period too, they didn't care.
They spent money on the most ridiculous stuff. For years we asked for a roof over the pool, they never bothered. They'd spend 1000s of pounds on rubbish we didn't ask for nor helped us out. They spent 1000s on the new canteen (or as they called it, a restaurant. Genuinely, if you called it a canteen, you'd get a detention), our old canteen was yes grubby but it only needed a deep clean and some new paint, not 1000s on new stuff that wasn't necessary.
Also, talking about the "restraunt". The food was disgusting and over-priced. If you got free school meals because your parents couldn't afford lunch. You could buy a hot meal or a sandwich. It was so embarrassing asking my friends if they could buy me a drink or something because I couldn't afford it and the money the school gave didn't cover it either. The pressure they put on the students when to came to exams. They would say if you failed your end of year exams, you failed at everything. I was 11 believing I failed at everything because I didn't pass a couple of my exams. They made you believe they were the most important thing in the world. The same with h/w. Again the pressure they'd put on you. They'd expect us to do 50 pieces of homework, revise, write 5 essays, all in a night. They say if you haven't completed a piece of homework in let's say half an hour, don't carry on with it. Then you'd tell them that and still get a detention. I remember staying up till 3am many occasion completing h/w. I once missed one question because I didn't understand the question and got a detention because it was incomplete. I would get around 2 hours of sleep a night because I was spending hours doing h/w I barely had time to see friends or family. They'd complain so much if you forgot to do the h/w that wasn't even relevant to the class. We have other pieces of h/w from our other teachers but if we asked for our results back from a test we did 6 months ago they'd say "I have other tests to mark from other classes you know, it's a lot of pressure" Like WHAT
That's basically everything covered, I don't think I missed anything. If you're reading this and still believe your child-children should go here then maybe you should go back to school.
Anyways. thank you Stags for saying I wouldn't get anywhere in life and I wouldn't get a job. I'm very happy with the job I've been at for a year and a half now, earning good money. My manager has complimented me of how hard-working I am and dedicated I am and not because my school showed me how to do that, It's because I worked hard to get where I am today. So thank you so much for the 5 years I was there and treating me like dirt :)
This school never handed bullying properly at all. If it wasn't pyhsical, they didn't handle it. From someone who had to deal with bullying, it made the first couple years unbearable.
When it came to mental health, again they didn't care. If you were suffering with a mental illness or things were bad at home, they didn't listen. They just said to breathe in and out, have a bath and listen to music. Whenever you said that method doesn't work, they just sent you back to class and didn't even try to make you feel any better.
The school cared more about your uniform, than your health. If you wore trainer socks, detention. If your skirt was too short, detention. If you wore a coloured hair band, detention. If you didn't have: black or white socks for PE, detention.
One time, the head teacher got a ruler and measured our skirts.
The school constantly bragged about being equal: femenism, LGBT, race. I once got sl*t shamed by a teacher. The amount of biphobic remarks I got at school by students were un-called for and the teachers did nothing about it. The racism was just disgusting and again, the teachers did nothing.
The amount of times they told us that having our ankles on show shoulders on show, our knees on show, was inappropriate. Ridiculous. They said it "distracted" the teachers. If my skin is distracting a teacher and they couldn't "control" themselves, why are they a teacher?
I remember when it was winter. Teachers would be wrapped up warm in their: coats, gloves, hats, scarfs at break time. The students though, we would be in a extremeley thin blazers, no coat or anything. We were freezing cold cold and it would be around -3 degrees outside. The canteen and hall wasn't big enough for a 1000 students and we weren't allowed to sit in our form rooms either.
Alos, PE in Winter. Again, teachers wrapped up in layers of clothes but us students weren't allowed to wear leggings because they were too "see through" why are you looking at my butt anyways?! And we weren't allowed to wear thermals either. If we forgot trackies or a jacket(PE uniform regulation) you had to just wear shorts and a t-shirt. These skorts and shorts, were tiny. I was allowed to wear these clothes that practically had my butt hanging out of them but I got an hour after school detention for rolling up my school skirt once and I'm sitting down, it is barely noticeable
My sister has hyperhidrosis (you sweat more than the average human). One time she was playing hockey in winter. Her hands started sweating and some of her sweat got onto the hockey stick and it was so cold, it turned to ice. Why were we allowed to play in weather that cold and not in doors?
This school says it was world class, most eco- friendly. This school is far from that. I remember they told us the inspectors were coming to check how eco-friendly we are. Obviously the school was cleaner than usual and got called most eco-friendly. The moment they left, rubbish all over the school. Wrappers everywhere, bottles all around the place, bins barely changed. Even the recycling bin was filled with food waste, instead of paper.
About grades. If you were failing classes, the teachers never bothered with you, a waste of time. They would choose favourites. if you weren't a favourite, well classes were horrible for you. I remember Yr11 science. Brand new teacher, first lesson. I had completed all of my work and I didn't read about the history of the atom, she said I was going to fail all my GCSEs. That really put my self-esteem down and I dreaded every lesson with that teacher, she was horrible.
Safety in this school was appalling. I remember being told there were some Yr8s walking home and a guy in his van were following them home, they reported it to the head teacher. She genuinely asked them "Were your skirts above your knees". They were 12 or 13 years old and instead of calling the police to check students were getting home safe and checked they were okay, she asked about uniform. It always came back to the uniform, she didn't care about their safety at all. Absolutely disgusting.
In class, if you ever needed the toilet, most teachers didn't allow you to go. If I need the toilet, I'm going. I have a right to go. When I started my new job, I asked my manager if I could go to the toilet, he was confused why I asked, I didn't need to. Stags made me believe I had to ask, when it's a basic human right. Even if you were on your period too, they didn't care.
They spent money on the most ridiculous stuff. For years we asked for a roof over the pool, they never bothered. They'd spend 1000s of pounds on rubbish we didn't ask for nor helped us out. They spent 1000s on the new canteen (or as they called it, a restaurant. Genuinely, if you called it a canteen, you'd get a detention), our old canteen was yes grubby but it only needed a deep clean and some new paint, not 1000s on new stuff that wasn't necessary.
Also, talking about the "restraunt". The food was disgusting and over-priced. If you got free school meals because your parents couldn't afford lunch. You could buy a hot meal or a sandwich. It was so embarrassing asking my friends if they could buy me a drink or something because I couldn't afford it and the money the school gave didn't cover it either. The pressure they put on the students when to came to exams. They would say if you failed your end of year exams, you failed at everything. I was 11 believing I failed at everything because I didn't pass a couple of my exams. They made you believe they were the most important thing in the world. The same with h/w. Again the pressure they'd put on you. They'd expect us to do 50 pieces of homework, revise, write 5 essays, all in a night. They say if you haven't completed a piece of homework in let's say half an hour, don't carry on with it. Then you'd tell them that and still get a detention. I remember staying up till 3am many occasion completing h/w. I once missed one question because I didn't understand the question and got a detention because it was incomplete. I would get around 2 hours of sleep a night because I was spending hours doing h/w I barely had time to see friends or family. They'd complain so much if you forgot to do the h/w that wasn't even relevant to the class. We have other pieces of h/w from our other teachers but if we asked for our results back from a test we did 6 months ago they'd say "I have other tests to mark from other classes you know, it's a lot of pressure" Like WHAT
That's basically everything covered, I don't think I missed anything. If you're reading this and still believe your child-children should go here then maybe you should go back to school.
Anyways. thank you Stags for saying I wouldn't get anywhere in life and I wouldn't get a job. I'm very happy with the job I've been at for a year and a half now, earning good money. My manager has complimented me of how hard-working I am and dedicated I am and not because my school showed me how to do that, It's because I worked hard to get where I am today. So thank you so much for the 5 years I was there and treating me like dirt :)
Year 7-11
Scarring & awful at handling bullying
I never saw physical fights whilst I was there but the amount of emotional bullying was unbelievable. There are so so many rude and just plain mean girls, but as they rarely physically attack anyone, the school does nothing about it. I was never bullied but I tried to stand up to a girl who bullied someone in my class, and ended up being badmouthed and isolated by a large proportion of the year. Whilst the teaching is alright, I now have anxiety and am constantly aware of what other people think of me as a result of going to this school. Please don’t send your girls here.
STAGS
I love stags. The teachers and students are all so supportive and just brilliant.
DONT BOTHER
Every staff member is completely unsympathetic to students with mental health issues. The staff who are meant to help students with their emotions and mental health are surprisingly the cruelest to deal with. Multiple students have been accused of cheating on exams by teachers who don’t like them, and giving them bad grades for that, which has completely ruined their GCSE results. The school does nothing to address bullying, quite obviously so considering a majority of the teachers have very bad attitudes towards the children and pick on them. For a girls school the teachers are heavily misogynistic and invalidate the experience of young girls suffering on their cycle, even going so far as to announce in assembly in front of the whole year that your period isn’t a reason to get off school - when you are constantly throwing up, suffering from cramps, severe stomach aches and bleeding, a pain killer does NOT help and it’s extremely privileged and upright to say to a group of young girls that they should come in despite their agonising bodily functions. Don’t come here unless you want to come out with dozens of mental health issues and self hatred.
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