St Laurence School

TERRIBLE pupil management! They take advantage of the fact they are an academy to off-roll children to suit their own needs as a school. Duty of Care is non existent if your child academically lacks their standards...they thrive themselves upon attendance & behaviour and tick boxing whilst hinding behind the fact that they lack over all Duty of Care for your child. It's an insestious school with every teacher working together to bully and set your child up to fail, focussing solely on the poor childs weakness that have SEN to adhere to their own needs, unless of course the child is academically well suited and ticks all of their boxes!

I had an awful time in lower years, I was called fat every single day for 3 years and faced homophobic abuse, I attempted to report this multiple times with this receptionist lady who no longer does student reception and she'd always tell me to come back after school and then go "well student reception is closed come back tomorrow" and then the cycle repeated. Thank god she works on main reception now. I tried to reach out for support many times, not even many many many times, to no avail; I was referred to CAMHS under the guise of the school nurse and... well got ignored by them. There was also zero support for GCSE options, to which I still regret and if I would've had a teacher to look over what I truly wanted, my options would be significantly different without interference from friends or teachers. Now onto my actual GCSEs, I loved (almost) all of my teachers from English to Science however teachers leaving (and I know this still goes on today) led me to face significant learning challenges which were never and still never have been acknowledged to this day. I know everywhere faces teacher shortages and where the school is most likely does not help, but using teachers who do not know the basic GCSE knowledge for a subject is not on when there are teachers around school who did and I know damn well had frees during Y10/11 lessons. Then finally on lower years, there was NO NADA NEIN support for post Y11 options, even though I was set on sixth form, this is disgusting and led people in my year to fall through cracks, now some working in manipulative jobs or constantly switching college courses because they simply DID NOT know what they wanted to do and DID NOT know what they could do with their life. Now could I go on about how this is some form of classism, in my opinion, yes it is but simply on a base level the school just need to do better, its the reason why disadvantaged kids go on to suffer whilst you brag about the good grades and the ones who go onto oxbridge.

Now, Sixth Form, oh I did love Sixth Form but oh does it have it's small flaws. This school needs more inclusivity training because it takes one teacher to say one wrong thing in front of the wrong person, this definitely isn't exclusive to Sixth however this is aimed at an exclusively (I think) Sixth teacher. Do not forget there is still a power dynamic between a teacher and a student, however much it's brushed under the rug. Next, this is chronic, just no support at all. If you aren't doing UCAS, they do not care about you however much they toy with that idea at first. Many students who didn't do UCAS in their final year and decided to apply a year later, found it a nightmare of chasing to do references. However, Sixth Form is great, even though references may be a bloody nightmare, the Sixth Form staff and Sixth exclusive teaching staff are great at what they do and genuinely experts in their field, you can tell that they care (Especially Mrs B, Mrs C, and Mr B). If you can tell from the paragraph length, go to sixth form just don't deal with the rest.

Now... Senior Leadership. What runs under all of this is senior leadership, this is excluding most senior leadership such as Sixth and people like that, it needs a change we gotta be honest. During my gap, I have been working; I seriously can not count on both of my hands, how many people I have overheard complaining about the head and the assistant head. I once sat in my lower years with a girl in reception talking about this, whilst I could hear her parents arguing with the head in the back, she'd fallen through because of her mental health with no support and they believed she had been targeted by teachers. I struck up some sort of temporary friendship with this girl when I spoke about my similar experiences, whilst being bullied in her year, and we came to a common denominator. The school did nothing. Her parents were able to go to head, what about the kids who don't have their parents to fight for them, what about the kids who fall through the cracks, and what about the kids who can't pull themselves up again? Whilst I reflect on this, I realise it wasn't his fault entirely but under the previous headteacher there was a renewed effort for mental health, I had conversations with Mr Stewart and he always cared, at least it seemed like it. But what was and is his fault is allocating resources to the wrong places, I genuinely fear for the kids like me in lower years who had no one and no friends to turn to, my outlet was english and it gave me my freedom, but not all kids have a subject or somewhere they feel seen and I can assure you they will not be seen by the school until a punishment is seen as being needed. A balance has also been broken, St Laurence was always a very relaxed school, now covid might be to blame, but ever since the renewed focus on behaviour... it has actually gotten worse. I could reference my social studies theories here but I am not going to thats for the a specific subjects teachers who I know have the same opinion as me with the head. In the past, I have spoken to both the head and assistant head respectively for a multitude of reasons, and I seriously have never felt more worthless in a conversation in my life. Its like they were trying to grind me down. An incident I had in which the head was shouting at me outside a door, I will never forget that day, that was just after a close family member had passed away. I am fully aware you can only go so far in knowing what a student is going through but I plead for teachers to remember you are not the only one going through something. That definitely focussed on the head more than it did to the assistant but I fear it applies to both... equally. Now I have to end this by saying to students, remember who turns up to your prom and who doesn't. Those teachers want to see you thrive and remember ,even though I am pretty sure only the current Y13's will remember him, remember which headteacher turned up to the old proms and which one doesn't currently but you know who will be bragging about YOUR grades come next year.
Remember he didn't earn those grades YOU did.

If any current students need mental health support and you see this, please go get it and please take time off. No matter how much the school will make you feel like its life or death being in, its better if you are able to experience life.

This school is a horrible school, teachers don’t help with bullying at all. Many students had to leave to be homeschooled due to many traumas. Teachers don’t help with mental and physical needs (anxiety, dyslexia ect). Very dirty school nothing is ever cleaned and is just very dirty overall especially in the toilets. Students aren’t listened to and respected. Food is overpriced and gross (£4 for a small, raw sausage roll). No after school activities. No safety, people have ran out many times including people not in stlaurence have walked into the school. Grades are so low due to poor education. Please do not send your kids here.

Bullying runs rampant in this hellhole. Instead of doing something about said bullying after the suicide of a year 9, they instead focus more on mental health briefings, which aren't inherently bad, what's bad is that they don't take any action against bullying whatsoever.

School food is horrible and is only consistent in being stale. Most teachers are nice as long as your class doesn't act up.

Headteacher is more of a dictator than anything.

As for activities, there isn't much to do other than the field being open rarely during the summer, so the most eventful thing to happen is the fire alarm being pulled. Don't go here.

Lots of homophobia and abuse towards students less physically gifted. But also a good system of teachers to talk about you mental health or things at home to

This will be easiest to work through the sections:
- (Grades) The school is one of the best for grades in Wiltshire, but that seems to be the only thing they prioritise sometimes.
- (Environments) The environments are average. Indoors is clean but often a little old and damaged. Outdoors there is fields and seating but nothing more really.
- (Safety) As for this, it’s quite open. The gates aren’t locked as the site is shared with the Wiltshire music centre where people do walk through often. The public can pass through the school areas freely.
- (Teachers) Some are nice, some aren’t but that’s to be expected with all schools I guess… The teachers could 100% be more understanding however. So many students here deal with mental health issues and teachers don’t often take that into consideration. The TA’s seem to be even less understanding when it comes to arrivals etc.
- (Activities) There’s plenty of clubs to join, so that’s good.
- (Handling Bullying) I myself have seen bullying and have had to step in. I haven’t experienced it myself or seen it other than that so it must be dealt with.
- (Equal Rights) In terms of race, ethnicity etc, the school is great. It’s not diverse at all; considering it’s in Bradford-on-Avon that is understandable, but the few minorities that are here are given the same treatment as anyone else. PE is a little sexist with the sports you do but that’s to be expected I suppose.
- (Food) The food is the same as any other schools get. Some of it is nice, however it is SO overpriced for what you get.
- (Code of conduct) Sorry but this is absolutely terrible. Girls are being stopped left and right for their skirts by both female and male teachers. The rules are extremely strict with makeup, jewellery so be prepared to only be allowed the smallest of studs. You have to follow strict rules on hair styles. Your ankles are absolutely not allowed to be on show and you must not wear any coloured coat that isn’t navy or black. Oh, and it must NOT have ANY logos on it.
- (Personal Development) The school pushes you for work ethic and most students do make an improvement in their grades. As mentioned before, that is prioritised over mental health, so that is often forgotten about and neglected. So many students here struggle with their mental health; something needs to be done about that.
-
Overall, it’s a good school for grades and academic ability but not so much your personal well being. Compared to John of Gaunt and Clarendon for example, it is a great school.

Had a terrible experience there from year 9-11 where my mental health was grinded away at by not only teachers but also relentless bullying that wasn’t handled, the way they deal with mental health is disgusting and I’ve had to receive counciling for years now in the aftermath.
I was assaulted in a lesson as well and the school took no further action and I was continued to be bullied
I don’t not recommend this school in the slightest and have heard many things from other students which are outrageous!
This school needs to be reported to ofstead.