St Peter's Catholic High School

I attended St.Peter's Catholic High School during the early 2000s. My experience there was not a positive one. I experienced constant ridicule and belittling from staff. Yelling at students and the use of derogatory names such as 'non-achiever' and 'lazy' was often used as discipline. Punishments were given for the wrong shade of gym socks, shirt untucked, too much makeup, or the incorrect hair length according to your sex. I could go on. We were also made to run laps around the school's perimeter. This school was a very non-inclusive institution that cared more about being a high-achieving state school than the individual needs of its students.
The SEN leadership team was abysmal and had an unpleasant culture of toxicity. Condescending and unsympathetic. Students who were struggling, or did not meet the criteria of the 'idealistic student' were often ignored, with very little emotional support offered. Mental health awareness was shocking. I saw teachers taunting pupils saying, 'They will end up crying in front of all their friends'. Teachers could be worse than the students! The few teachers I saw there who were kind and generally cared about the students were overshadowed by the leadership team. Blatant favoritism was evident, particularly among the sports faculty. I hated every moment of it. I regret any association. St.Peters was bleak, dated, divided, and in desperate need of an update in terms of staffing priorities and infrastructure (The latter I can understand, as budgeting is always an issue, especially in these hard and uncertain times). After my time at St.Peters, I was left feeling depressed, and suicidal. I was self-harming (Which the school ignored). I was left with a lot of anguish that took years to recover from. The teaching assistants at St.Peters were amazing at the time, and the English, Languages, and Music faculties were the most supportive and approachable. It wasn't all bad. Now, as a worker in education, one thing St.Peter's School taught me was how 'not' to communicate and build relationships with students. St.Peter's is a very respectable school in the Wigan borough, However, I believe this is flawed. It's like the school can't drag itself out of the 1970s. Maybe the school has improved since then. Times change. One can only hope.

Whilst the food isn’t my top recommendation of the school, neither is the teacher and student relationship standard.
Don’t get me wrong, the maths teachers and RE teachers are absolutely class, however the odd teacher here and there seems to have a lot to say about 15 year old girls life styles! Whilst uniform rules are absolutely understandable in a catholic school, to have someone that shames kids for fake tan and makeup, saying that future jobs wouldn’t wanna hire them, is a bit far fetched. And also to isolate students in headteacher offices, and disrupt their learning for mascara or concealer is really taking the mick.
like i said the maths department, RE department and office staff are absolutely made of gold and couldn’t fault them (every department the same but these stand out severely in the school)…
mental health crisis team seems to have improved over the last 5 years, but not improved enough.
bullying is talked about often, but never seems to be punished, or certain teachers even passing it off as “banter” or “being soft”.
sports facilities are class.
if you’re popular.
Sets in PE are often mislead and not accurate to curriculum, think i could perform you 7 just dances, but not tell you a single thing about how to play football.
set 1 PE often do netball, and set 2 did about 5 months of badminton.
and boys do what seems to be football or rugby every lesson, apart from the odd “athletics” where it’s just a bleep test running up n down n left n right.
would send my kids here can’t lie, but mostly just to see if stuff actually gets improved that needs improving.
safety and security is okay, except for the fact i’ve seen multiple students just walk out of school and seen past students stood outside with baseball bats:..
should probably start locking the door near nurture guys!
yuh.

School food: Whilst it being vegan is a positive for it, it smells and tastes like cr@p. Burgers smell like dog poop, cakes are always raw, morning food is burnt, dry, bacon would be undercooked and the only good food at lunch is the chips, jacket potatoes and pizza, everything else is sickly.

Staff behaviour: Disgustingly unprofessional with neurodivergent kids, suspected neurodivergent kids, kids with invisible disabilities, or a child with any issues towards learning and clearly needs support. If a neurodivergent child misbehaves in a way that is given due to their neurodivergent condition, teachers will well and punish them, and in the future will target this child and make the children feel unsafe just because of mistakes they can't always control.

If children behave in ways that aren't severe and the teachers personally don't like or see the child as in the way they will unreasonably grab, push, corner or punish them.

Head teacher and staff have a history of being ableist, staff making insults towards neurodivergent children, children with down syndrome, head teacher refusing a pupil with a physical illness the right to freely check their phone to monitor their condition just because they were in the hallway, and believed the child would cause issues if people saw different rules applied to her, "we can't have people thinking different rules apply to you and not them," the girl was diabetic and she was incredibly low.

Mental Health management: Horrible. Near nonexistent due to how they don't actually help in the slightest. What's that? You're not in because you have severe mental health issues such as anxiety and depression as well as possibly many more, and struggle with thoughts of suicide? That doesn't matter, it's all about the grades, they're obsessed over attendance because the information of how low their attendance scores are are out for the world to see within just a few google searches.

Education: It's good until your child is suffering from bullying or mental health problems, this school WILL ruin your child and make them feel unloveable.

Security: Barely and doors locked, easy access for strangers, a student was r-worded and the teachers defended the offender.

Indoor Environment: The classrooms are literally falling apart, holes in the fake ceiling, cracked walls, destroyed toilets, science classrooms stink, gum infested desks and all they're focused on is implementing a new computer room, how cute!

Outdoor environment: Dirty.

If you’re clever and need no support this is the school for you!
If you need any academic, emotional, or special needs support - please go somewhere else
Food is dreadful - and expensive.
Very cliquey teachers - and the teachers not in the clique do not have the guts to speak out
Old fashioned equipment
Inflexible attitudes
Reception staff rude
Everything is too much trouble
A nasty nasty place wrapped up in a Catholic facade.

Excellent support academically. However very frustrating dealing with some teachers attitudes as they were worse than the kids. Bullying and mental health was not a priority. Even after leaving it still effects you. Think the overall safety and the teachers priorities need to be addressed. But overall when you look at the school as a whole and what they want to achieve. I’m happy I spent 5 years there. As not every school is perfect and are definitely more under pressure these days. I would send my future children or family there.