St. Mary's Menston, a Catholic Voluntary Academy

The year our granddaughter attended St Marys will live with us for ever. Whilst children will have their different attitudes, the policy at St Mary's would appear to focus on a draconian method of teaching. Negatives are the key points with zero tolerance, and rewarded with a confetti of detentions. This serves only to break a child's spirit. That year almost broke our granddaughters health and well being, her parents mental state, and us as grandparents, who felt helpless.
Their mission statement is a mile away from the realities of life at the school with the SEND facility almost non existent.
The last OFSTED report was in 2014, when the school became an Academy. In our opinion a revisit is well overdue and indeed necessary

I went to this school for a few years and it was not pleasant, no idea why people have such a good view off it but from personal experiences i would not recommend it. Some of the teachers really shouldn't be teaching with how they come across when you are student there.

To anyone reading this, please be aware that the Ofsted results the school goes on about so much is from 2014, a decade ago!! Believe me they need another one soon, I will never know how they managed to get "Outstanding". Ofsted need to visit unexpectedly to see the real St Mary's at work!!

Terrible school and I would strongly advise any parent to think twice about putting any child here. I made that mistake and regret it. The pastoral support is none existent and they do not listen to children or treat them as individuals. Don't be fooled by the marketing and the head teachers speech when she says "we will care for your precious child" during the open days as we were because they really don't.

Horrendous school. Grades are bad, rules are way too strict like you can't take food outside for break, can't wear a coat indoors even when you're 5 seconds away from getting outside, give instant detentions(as of next year) for any bad behaviour even small. Most teachers don't care about their students or their job at all, there are some redeeming teachers but honestly they should just find a better school that will treat them better. Would like to add this is all due to a new head teacher and deputy head teacher, the previous head teacher was amazing and all the things I've just mentioned were directly opposite with him. Not only that but this school obviously doesn't check their teachers very well as there have been 2-4 accounts of SA(Sexual assault) within the past 10 years that they've kept quiet about

This school is only bothered about children who excel academically. They do not have the resources to deal with any children with additional needs etc. my child has dyslexia and has had very little additional support. The staff in the school seem to have little or no knowledge on how to support a child with dyslexia and ask them to do the most ridiculous things. How the school got an outstanding rating is beyond me.

A great secondary school for academic achievement but poor home communication and poor online learning. Teachers can sometimes be hard to reach and bullying is dealt with poorly but many teachers are great at their jobs and are good at helping you through the course.