Cares more about appearance than education. Your not aloud any makeup no matter what year, any jewellery but a small silver/gold stud in your ear, boys can’t have short hair because it’s seen as “distracting”, girls can’t wear leggings or crop tops on own clothes day which is totally sexist, your not even aloud bows in your hair or ONE hair tie on your wrist! There is more stupid rules than these but there’s too many to list! If you break any of these rules they’ll you a detention/isolation until you get it sorted. I would not recommend this school unless you want your child to be stressed and have suicidal thoughts.
Terrible school; makes learning boring and destroys your mental health
I was a former student of St. Joseph's, 2015-2018. Got to leave, thank god, on account of an Autism diagnosis and find a different school. I don't know how this place is shaping up now, but judging from the other reviews, not good.
There wasn't a single shred of empathy in any of the teachers- let alone the deputy heads, who acted more like slavering attack dogs than they did approachable authority figures. I remember one time where a deputy head found me striding across the courtyard- a snotty, tear stricken mess. We had P.E before lunch, but because a bunch of the students were being unruly, our teacher blew a gasket and made us run laps well into lunch. I didn't do anything wrong. My mental health was in shreds at this time and I couldn't handle it.
All the DT did was tell me (the profusely sobbing autistic child) to tuck my shirt in before walking away.
The teachers here knew nothing other than beating children into shape. Put your head down and work. Step out of line, make a slight mistake, and you were fiercely ridiculed. Hell, even if you didn't make a mistake, they'd punish the entire class off the back of one kid's mistakes. Teachers would frequently go on minute-long tirades threatening the class while I just sat there wanting to get on with things. I particularly remember our year 10 maths teacher (who didn't even teach maths; he was just a P.E teacher who handed out pamphlets) rambling on and on about how he doesn't care if we listen 'cause he gets paid at the end of the day and yadda yadda. RE frequently came grinding to a halt as the teacher got into shouting matches with kids who criticized elements of Christianity. History? I would walk out of that lesson with ringing ears.
The work itself, depending on whether you had a good teacher or not (of which there was little), was the most lifeless schlock- booklets and questionaires upon booklets and questionaires. Rote memorization and zero engagement. One teacher I had for history actually tried her hardest at first, and put together fun lessons! Then the class eventually drove her stir crazy and it was textbook time from then on in.
Lunchtimes were also terrible. The food served was some of the most bland, disgusting slop I've ever had in my life, and I had to pay for the privilege. If you love eating meat that is 50% fat, this is the place to go to. That is, if you're even able to get inside before it's all gone. We had to line up behind an iron fence like livestock, waiting minutes on end for the next ten people to he sent in. The lunch staff was also obviously biased, as the girls were sent in far faster and frequently compared to the boys. I started taking packed lunches just so I could skip the queue. It felt good having the staff for a laugh, I'll admit. Not even the lunch ladies were personable. I ended up dropping a tray of food once, and instead of helping me clean my mess, this lunch lady just stood over me with a petulant scowl and her arms crossed. Sorry for dropping my food that I PAID FOR.
And although the school itself can't control this (to a degree), it was rife with bullying in the time I was there. Everyone would trip you up, shove you around, try to scare you, just insult you; me and my friends got beat up in year 7 over where we came from- because of football, a sport I'm not even interested in.
By time I left, I was in shreds. I'm still trying to get over the damage this place did to me, even if I'm in a far better environment now.
If you've ever listened to the album or watched the film adaptation of The Wall by Pink Floyd, St. Joseph's is basically what the school from The Wall was.
Parents; please don't send your children here. You're only going to ruin them.
This school is atrocious my children are going to this school and they do not want to attend because off how the teacher deal and shout at the children. The non school uniform situations for girls is terrible and the jewellery and other things that girls can’t wear. My daughter is getting in trouble all the time for these stupid rules that the school makes. And the school that they make out to be is all the lie my kids say it’s hell in there. They make out to be a religious school but it’s forceful. And there is many other things that I could say..
I really do not recommend this school to children..
Do not send your kids here it might be a beautiful school but the teachers do not care the pupils a pupil was crying and she was crying for 10 minutes in the toilet before going to lesson and all the teachers cared about was the pupil being late to lesson they told the pupil off for being upset they tell you off for bullying when they hear one side of the story and not the other they do not care about the pupils all they care about is there reputation a teacher once said to a pupil 'I don't care about people like you' this school ruins your mental health we would get told off when we were ankle socks whats so attractive about ankles we have to be punished for teaches and boys who can't control themselfs.
This school is bad THEY ONLY CARE ABT THE SMART KIDS THE DUMB ONE THEY DON'T CARE U GET IN TROUBLE FOR NO REASON AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE WORK AND HW THE HW IS SO HARD THAT I GET DETATIONS BC THE TEACHER DIDN'T EXPLAIN IT PROBABLY! The trips are nice u get to go to different countries but the price is so high I can never get to go on them bc the price is to high for my liking
My daughter came home bawling her eyes out because a teacher falsely accused her of planning to do something to another student when it clearly wasn’t true. My daughter tried to explain what happened but they didn’t listen to her and called her and some other girls horrible names. She said something that emphasised that she girl were ‘cold hearted’ or ‘heartless’
It may seem like it's the best school but in fact when it comes to issues involved with certain teachers. Students are practically bullied using old style scare tactics into pursuing the narrative they want.
As a current student of the school. I can’t wait to get out of there. The school is lead by shocking slt. The headteacher himself is not a nice person in front of people he tries to stamp his authority on students in a forceful way and he does the same to parents. He is really kind and funny In 1-on-1 situations though. You can have a laugh and a joke with him and he can be quite approachable aswell. The same can’t be said for the deputy head. Although her teaching style is amazing and as someone who has been taught by her for two years my grades have really improved however she is also Head of safeguarding. As someone who you’re meant to talk to about your problems, wether that be at home or in school she is probably the least approachable in the school. She does not deal with any situation effectively. Most people don’t want to talk to her because of this. She tends to blame the person who needs her help my saying “you could have helped yourself” or something along those lines. She excludes people for reasons that would have been more appropriate to have been dealt with a detention or a one day isolation. she makes the students look like there stupid and makes many people feel as though they shouldn’t be there. Most teachers in the school are kind and excellent teachers however in a lesson one day, the deputy head said “the teachers all the students like don’t get good results out of you because there too nice to students” which I can say is quite the opposite for me and for many students in the school. The school as a whole discriminates against any student who isn’t the picture perfect “religious teen” because there not how you would think they would look. The school cares more about uniform and haircuts which they said is because “if they crack down on the little things then there won’t be as many big things to deal with” which the big things still happen but there oblivious to them because there so caught up in checking Uniform. Girls cannot wear trousers that you cannot fit a pound coin all the way down or trousers that you can see your ankles because “it’s distracts male members of staff”. If they get distracted by a young girls ankles then they should not be working with kids end of story. And for boys if you can see their scalp it’s isolation until it grows back which how does any of this effect peoples learning? If your thinking about sending you child here. Don’t. And if you do then your in for one heck of a ride
I am at St Joseph, s high school I don't like the teacher the teacher don't listen to you they don't help you when you need it I have a lot of bad experiences In that school and if you send your kid to that school I feel bad for the child sorry but children don't need to speak to us the way they do it's just a horried school
Where do you go when the teachers are the bullies? Terrible school, the head covers up the staff's awful behaviour. Numerous complaints are made to governors and nothing is done. That school does more harm than good. Singles out and belittles one parent families, LGBT , anyone who doesn’t fit their idea of a normal person. child protection is a joke. Do NOT send your child here.
It is of course a religious school with "good discipline". However, most rules are unnecessarily strict and in some cases discriminative. One of the worst is haircuts, your hair can't be too short that your scalp is visible because it's apparently distracting for other students. You can't even come back to school from a holiday with a good haircut without the worry of getting isolated and strict punishments for it. You can't even have your phone in your bag, not being able to use it in school is understandable as this can increase the chance of cyberbullying and doesn't let you focus on work. If you are caught with a phone in your bag, regardless of whether it's turned off or not been used, you'll still get punished and have it taken away. The only way to get around this is to give it to the reception in the morning and collect it back at the end of the day, which is just a pain and there's the risk that someone could just steal it from reception by saying it's theirs. Other than rules and punishments, the actual education is ok but RE as a subject is very overwhelming than it would be in other schools, religious stuff is taken very seriously around the school. If you're still choosing a high school to go to in Wrexham, I advise not picking St. Joseph's as it's just getting worse every year. You'll find the learning alright for some time but you'll also certainly get fed up of these stupid rules. Good luck if you're coming, you're gonna enjoy your time in hell!
I was a past pupil from this school and I needed to voice my opinion, on the one hand you will see how the school is a lovely place for people of all backgrounds but I can tell you now that it isn’t the case. The school is a vile place full of vile teachers, I can’t even tell you the amount of times we had supply teachers that were definitely not right in the head.
They say they care about the safety of their pupils but as soon as someone is getting bullied they are blind as bats, someone seriously needs to check out this school before some poor student takes their own life due to the lack of support you get from the staff here. Countless times our year group was called in for being out of line, one of the talks included how the female students had to wear white or skin coloured bras as in the summer when we were allowed to take our jumpers off the bras were distracting not just male students but male TEACHERS, we were in year 8 at the time so if that doesn’t say something about the staff here I don’t know what does.
We got measured in front of people to have skirts fitted which was so degrading, I know of many girls who fell into eating disorders because of this and yet the school didn’t seem to care one bit.
Another time they brought a woman in to talk about abortions and how everyone should be pro life, this is such a vile thing to do, abortions shouldn’t be up for debate and sure as hell we shouldn’t have had to sit there and tell us that it’s our own fault if we get abused and have to keep the child that happens from that. So many of us were disgusted by what we were hearing and no one was offered support from it.
The school is corrupt, they absolutely hated our year group so they made it even more of a living hell.
So many people suffered from mental health issues and the teachers didn’t seem to care, they even went as far as talking about someone’s problems in front of people once, where is the confidentiality there?
Do what you can to avoid this school at all cost, teachers are only in it for the money, dirty school, dirty teachers. Vile place to go and trust me as a former pupil I know what it’s like there. Believe the reviews that state how bad it is and take that into consideration when choosing a high school.
Amazing school!!!! If you want your kid to be sent to a non caring, self loathing environment where they always feel threatened them that’s what your in for! The schools homophobic, Transphobic and the teachers are oh so jolly, especially when they don’t care about your mental health and only about your education. Never send your child to this school. Ever.
As a former pupil , my time as this school was good teachers are supportive, I had a issue in year 8 with bullying this got sorted out , I felt listened to and supported , I left with excellent exams results ,teachers put on lot of extra classes during break times and after school for help and support for revision , I have read the other reviews and they are mostly negative but then people tend to only make a review to complain rather than to say something good ,I feel that’s a shame
I had a good experience at st Joseph’s I left with good exam results and many of my year group 2021 cried as we will miss some of our teachers so they can’t all be bad ,
My son started here in September and now it's March so 6 months, he has suffered constant bullying and detentions. This school shows no compassion, is not a nurturing and caring environment for your child. They Intimidate children and parents alike, I am pulling my son out. Do not send your son or daughter here, if you want good exam results consider other options. I really never realised and wish I'd read these threads beforehand. Even the local authority are aware of the situation and considering taking action now. Vile school with vile teachers, should be ashamed of themselves. Better to take your chosen where they are happy and protected.
My child has attended this school 5 yrs I would recommend they have supported my child well the head of year especially phone calls home to check how they are how they can support more , the school has structure they have values and children are expected to be respectful to all before yr 7 you have a meeting and everything from uniform to behaviour expectations are explained to you so if this isn’t for you don’t send your child her but I personally wanted this my child they have thrived here and have flourished the teachers care especially for those children that want to learn and are enthusiastic you get out what you put in I would give this school 10/10
Good moral values , teach respectfulness, community care
They are strict about uniform but you do know this before your child starts
They expect your child to behave well and attend school again you know this before they start
Wonderful school with hard working teachers
The only way I can describe the place is hell and surely for a religious school that shouldn’t be the case. For a school that was supposed to treat all pupils the same it never did that, they only ever focused on the pupils that were academically smart and never helped the pupils that needed it. The school discriminated everyone in different ways and made sure that no one felt like they had a place there. The school never helped anyone who was struggling with bullying or mental health because the child protection officer (*** *****) just shouted at them and made them feel like they were the ones in the wrong. Pupils were scared to talk to her about any worries or struggles they were having and therefore had no one to talk to in the whole school. The motto ‘no child left behind’ is the complete opposite of what they did. Unless you were really smart they just left you on your own. I would never recommend that school to anyone, it was horrible and the years I spent at that school were the worst years of my life.
Never put your child in such a horrible discriminating environment not only about the current mask situation but I’ve been apart of that school and my family for years and my siblings and mother hated it. The staff are not fit to run that school N Ellis was definitely one of the worst the way she dealt with bullying and mental health amongst students were disgraceful she didn’t deserve her place as second headteacher at that school and many others agree.
The current stand-in Headteacher protects bullies and persecutes anybody who questions her archaic practices, she's threatened to exclude my Daughter for no reason, screamed in her face, put her in isolation for absolutely nothing and when I told her I'd be speaking to the Governors, she told my Daughter she isn't scared of me and she'd call the police on me, simply because she lacks each and every standard expected of a head teacher. Do not send your kids to this School.
I thought on entering this school that I would have a good time and lean some valuable things towards my education, well how wrong I was, how in the hell will a 24 page document on Jesus help me pay my taxes or rent a car, ah yes that's right it won't, cheers for possibly the most agonising years of my life, except the lunch lady's you lot are okay.
Totally biased.... staff do not respect the children but they demand respect and earn it through the use of fear and threats. No child left behind is an absolute joke and they should not be able to use this as their motto it’s so contradictory to how they actually behave. They are more bothered about children’s appearance than their well-being! Their pastoral care is ZERO
Star 1- The school handles racism heavily well as they punish the students who participate in racial discrimination and use derogatory racist slurs.
Star 2- In all seriousness, you do get good grades as the teachers work you until you understand and there are many assessments which take place. These help us to understand where we are and what we need to improve on.
Wish- We wish that when we struggled with our mental health the teachers were more approachable during times when we needed them, as they said they would be but weren't.
The teachers often forced their opinions on to us, not letting us have a say on what we think about a situation. An example of this is the homophobia that is apparent in this school. For example a teacher called being bisexual a “phase” and another teacher split up two students from the same form on suspicion of them being gay.
Another large issue that we faced during our time in St Joseph’s was the reoccurring sexism. The complete abuse of authority used to diminish our rights as women. To describe this we were told to cover our ankles, shoulders and mid drift to name but a few female body parts that were overly sexualised by the school.
We do account that we attended a FAITH school. We are practicing Catholics who attend church frequently and are taught that the most important commandment is “love your neighbour as yourself” and personally we did not feel loved by the school as a whole.
To conclude this school gave us a satisfactory education and pleasing grades. However this came hand in hand with the idea cemented in our heads that women are objects, those part of the LGBTQIAP+ are not valid and mental health comes second to the A* in religious education.
Well, what can I say except that I absolutely hate this school. For starters, the school is extremely sexist and homophobic. The school refuse to change names on the register for transgender students, even if their parents have given permission. The teachers only care about our grades and our haircut. Let me ask, how is a shaved head going to affect my learning? How is me having hair dyed an 'unnatural colour'going to affect my learning? The school is completely unfair: when the school get caught out doing something completely inappropriate, they just lie to get out of it. I'm in class right now so this is all I can type. Don't come to this school.
This school is utter shambles and it’s full of vile teachers who think they know what is best. I hope one day people finally realise how much of a disgusting place this is.
As a past student of the school I can say that I had the worst experience I could’ve ever imagined, I know for a fact other past and present students can agree. The school is a sick place that only cares about how it looks and the grades they get. I will never forget the countless times girls were told that in the summer they could only wear white or nude coloured bras because coloured bras could be seen through the white shirts and this distracted the male teachers and students, absolutely vile to say the least. Not to mention the way they suspend the students that they think will make the school look bad when the inspectors come around. Not one teacher in that school cares about the pupils mental health which has lead to multiple issues with past students. The school does nothing to support anyone at all, I had friends who were apart of the the LGBT community who were treated differently when I recall the motto of the school is “no child left behind” utter rubbish.
Highly recommend you avoid this school at all costs if you want to have a normal high school experience because trust me this isn’t the place for that.
This school only cares about our haircuts and do not care about our mental health a few months ago a our ** ******* **** *** *** ***** **** over to see if their tights were "see through" and when all the girls complained to the teachers they just shrugged it off and told us that we were lying this school is the worst and I can't wait to leave this summer
The whole system is based on fear. They use religion to scare the students and pressure them. Sure, this school has really good exam results, but it is at the cost of mental health and morals. Your grades will allow you to get jobs, but this school teaches you nothing about real life, real life skills and things you actually need in life.They treat the students sexist ideals and teach students to victim blame. Girls are treated unfairly at this school. They use religion to manipulate the students. I DO NOT recommend this school.
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