St Philomena's Catholic High School for Girls

Used to be a good school but now it’s awful. Even ofsted has noted how tragic they are. Girls are vaping in the toilets and around the school.

Girls are mistreated and bullied by staff everyday.
Receptionist is rude and unapproachable she also bullies girls and gets away with it.
Calibre of staff is very poor and I would not recommend to anyone.
Head teacher is oblivious to what’s going on.

This school is a joke. They have TWO headteachers and it’s still a shambles. Whilst the teaching and subjects offered is good, the running of the school is half-baked. Check the governors page on the school website. The main headteacher is getting paid £140k-150k for doing what? My daughter says she’s hardly ever there and when she does show up all she does is yell at staff and children - no wonder teachers are leaving and nobody wants to stay for sixth form. The building is falling apart and the governors have a fund that they ask parents to pay for every year. How is that money even be spent? A girl could have been killed last year when a piece of concrete from the roof almost fell on her.
I dread to think what will happen when St Phil’s becomes an academy. That’s right - the headteacher was very sneaky and apparently did a consultation period over last summer holiday so that nobody could object. Hardly anyone knew about it and the assembly my daughter was given wasn’t very clear on why they are switching to an academy. It’s another layer of greed and corruption at the top.
This used to be a lovely, OUTSTANDING community school. Many of my friends had their daughters attend St Phil’s and cannot believe how downhill it’s become. My daughter cannot wait to leave after her exams this summer. Think very carefully about sending your child here. There is a lot the headteachers choose to cover up and yet claim be good Catholic people.

this school is horrible don’t send your kids here unless u want them to suffer. Teachers dont care about students’ learning, they only care about your appearance (skirts being rolled less than a centimeter up above students’ knees, hair type/ colour, bracelets and necklaces, jumpers being tied, no blazers and different colored scarfs, gloves and hats). They make u pull up your jumper and check your waist to see if your skirt is rolled (male and female teachers.)the teachers seem to be so distracted by the students this is so sexualizing. why am i being told that my appearances is distracting others?? students are insecure and having to wear such a uniform can cause more insecurities so students try to make it look better. Next some of the staff are unbearable. My art teacher for an example- doesn’t help with art at all, constantly giving out warnings and behavior point for things like being unable to draw straight hair. MFL teachers will give you warnings for looking around. its so bad i don’t even have a favorite teacher/ a teacher i can talk to about problems without being scared. Punishments. They are so unfair. I had different coloured winter essentials and i got into loads of trouble. Ive seen people get into trouble for having certain hair styles when other people have such vibrant hair. They dont treat students equally the school system is horrid. They claim to care for mental health but then blame victims for things that have happened to them, they dont care if you as a student is struggling. The head of years and SLT members are so mean. When around parents its a different case.. When SLT or Miss Noone come outside, every single student runs away as fast as fast as they can. Ive never seen a student go and greet any of the SLT, they just go the other way. How can the whole school run away from you? this needs to be fixed. Lastly, the students. the students make the school even worse. Students like to fight for fun, befriend older years so that they can go and pick on people for you, do all types of horrible things on social media, bring drugs to school, smoke and vape in school and will literally just cuss you out for being quiet, standing up for yourself or wearing different clothes than them. Tell me why students are being made fun of for being “emo” because they are wearing black converse or black anything really that isn’t skin tight?? honestly maybe it should become a PRU school seeing the amount of kids on report. Anyways dont sent your Kid here!

The Head teacher is a liability I don't know how she is still allowed to be a headteacher still the school has gone from outstanding to good under her charge say it all really...

Worst experience of my life. I am currently in my last GCSE year and i've had quite literally no support from staff at all. firstly, my chemistry teacher went on jury duty for 3 months, and while there were about 7 other science teachers who weren't teaching other classes at the same time as my class they didn't teach us, instead my class and other classes had a cover teacher, and as a result majority of my year group has been failing in science, but especially chemistry. Next, my physics teacher, all year i have been teaching myself the entire content since the beginning of the GCSE course, but it was extremely tough in year 11 seeing as my physics teacher quite literally just sat at her desk or on her phone not doing anything. Then there are teachers who lock students out of class being they are late, in one of my classes the teacher did not like the student for whatever reason and locked the door and refused to let her in, taking away learning time for her and also us because we were being disrupted. in another class, my teacher has been absolutely terrible since the beginning, she gossips with girls in my class, talks about personal things like s*x and other topics that are just not appropriate. my teacher is in her mid forties and we are 16 year old girls. furthermore, this teacher quite literally did some girls' coursework for them, and they got the highest grades, meanwhile me and my friend received no support or help at all and scored a few points below them. in yet another class, my teacher has been repeatedly and constantly telling my class that we are all going to fail and that there's no point in doing any work, as a result i, along with others in my class have been struggling a lot this entire year. at the beginning of year 10, about 2 weeks into the year, i requested to switch one of my subjects, and the teacher refused, meanwhile, a girl who had been having issues wither her family and rarely came to school, was allowed to switch her subjects 3 months into the school year. next, another teacher randomly stopped coming to school, since January and up till May this year i have not had a teacher for a subject, we have not been told when she'll be back and as a result my entire class is struggling, meanwhile the other classes have support form their teachers. next up is the students. they vape during exams, and teachers say nothing to them, whereas they'll yell at the quiet girl if her skirt is 1 cm above her ankles. students also bring weed and other drugs to school and vape and smoke in the toilets. there are also rumours and gossip about girls having s*x in toilets, and going sexual things in the canteen, in class, and anywhere you can think of. also there is bullying that is blatantly obvious to teachers, and yet they do nothing, which is just disgusting. the caretaker at school also takes joy in chasing girls out of buildings, away from the heating and outside into the -5 degree celcius weather. even when snowing, teachers stay huddled up inside the staff room, stuffing their faces with warm food and drinks, meanwhile there's a canteen not big enough to hold all the 1500 students, and when we wish to stay inside we are chased out by the caretaker who once growled at me and my friends and came up very close to our personal space. also, because i am currently in year 11, we had meeting with out HOY and we were asked what we were planning to do for sixth form. majority of students have secured placements in other school, colleges and some even have apprenticeships, because the lack of education, security and safety, most wish to not stay here for another 2 years. i told my HOY that i was leaving and i was told that the other school i was applying to were exactly the same and that st phils, was the better school, whereas, my sister went to both st phils and another school i am applying to and she told me that st phils was by far the worst school she had ever been on. students are rude and abnoxious, teachers overlook the absolute b*tches and c*nts at my school and give them a pass for everything, whereas the students who only wish to get their work done suffer because teachers have no control over anything, and quite literally do not care. we were also told by the maths department, to only do the first 10 questions of our maths gcse paper in order to get a 4 and they refused to finish teaching the curriculum to some classes because they weren't smart enough and just wanted them to get a 4. we are also not allowed to have phones on us from 8:15 to 3, if they find a phone on you after invading you personal space and searching you bag with a metal detector, they take your phone away form you, and suspend you for however long they feel like. one girl in my class was upset because the HOY took her phone and when she got it back it was smashed and no longer working. lastly, they literally force you to lift up your jumper and unroll your skirt and watch you do it, apparently we all have really f*cking s*xy kneed that the teacher's can't control themselves last year during the heatwave where it was 40 degrees celcius, we were not allowed to wear tops past our elbows and we had to wear knee length shorts, might aswell just come in the uniform. since my time in year 9, there have been about 30 teacher who have left. wonder why? and now only the shitty teachers are left.

this school has gone downhill, i will not deny when i say that in year 7, it was a good school, however, since year 9 and 10 and now 11 it has been the worst experience of my life. i would not recommend sending your child here, pick another school, literally any other school. unless you want your daughter suffering form anxiety, depression suicidal thoughts or an eating disorder, bullying and extreme exam stress because she'll just be teaching herself anyway. might aswell just home school at this point. i hope you have fun choosing high school for your child. and if you do decide to send her here. good luck.

I personally enjoy going here but that has a lot less to do with the school and a lot more to do with my personality and friends.

Negatives:
This school has little to no respect for privacy, searching lockers, bags and people at will, and revealing whatever sensitive information they obtain to parents or careers with little regard for the pupils wishes. There are plenty of teachers that couldn’t care less about what you learn and struggle to teach you the bare minimum to pass your exams. They pile endless homework on you on top of pressuring you to join extracurriculars leaving no time for you to have a life outside of school. The target grades they set in Year 7 are often unattainable or irrelevant as time moves on as they are based on your results in SATs you completed years prior. The school cares very little overall about mental health only paying attention to the few students whose learning difficulties are either very apparent or whose parents have called the school and asked for extra attention. I definitely think that they’re trying to improve. The school is really really strict (with skirt length, hairband colour, you name it).
The food’s not great however the waffles *chefs kiss* so good.

Positives:
I’m not sure how they managed but this school has a very good environment among the students. Almost all of us are friendly to each other and there are very few physical fights (when there are it’s normally among friends who’ve fallen out). New pupils often get accepted and “adopted” by a friendship group within a week of them joining. I haven’t witnessed any bullying myself (but I guess I don’t know for sure if any goes on). There are lots of extracurricular opportunities (I’ve done tennis, African drumming, chapel choir, Spanish twilight and Most Able myself) and they normally include days off of timetable prepping for some showcase or another which is lots of fun. There’s a good range of subjects available for GCSEs including Drama, Sociology, Health and Social Care, Business Studies etc. This is subjective I guess but as a Catholic school I think it does a good-ish job of maintaining their catholic morals and it definitely promotes the faith among the students through services and prayers and liturgies. It even has its own chapel and school deacon. Last thing is that the actual site is really pretty with big sprawling fields and huge buildings it’s quite picturesque. :)