Tapton School

in the time i have been at this school, 5 students have committed suicide, and one of my friends has attempted, and yet the extent of the 'help' we get are one-off assemblies and the most basic "if you feel sad reach out to a trusted adult". there has not been a single member of staff who has genuinely made me believe that tapton is a safe place in any way; the few staff members who i actually trusted were a handful of SEN staff and the leaders of the lgbtq club.

i am autistic and am currently trying to get diagnosed and medicated for depression, and the help that tapton 'offers' had to be fought for tooth and nail by my mother, who has worked with mental health professionals in the past. my friends are not so lucky, and despite their equally severe mental health problems, the extent of the 'help' they recieved was a member of staff who is severely uneducated about actual mental illnesses who either did nothing to help, or made the situation worse.

the staff does little to nothing about bullying - the quiet students are left to endure the bullies as they seem to be allergic to giving detentions to students throwing stationary at people's heads. one member of staff completely ignored someone throwing a pencil at a special needs student in favour of telling a girl off for wearing a necklace, and you would be correct if you assumed that this attitude is held with similar cases.

the discrimination at this school is also thinly veiled. despite what one can only assume to be their best efforts, the staff are tactless at best and bigoted at worst. on a powerpoint that is still being used to explain the queer community, an entire slide is dedicated to listing every slur one could use against a queer person in what i sincerely hope is the school telling people to avoid these words. a teacher i unfortunately had the year i came out as non binary practically refused to call me by my pronouns, and only addressed the situation after i emailed the head teacher. all she did was deny everything, and then never referred to me in the 3rd person afterwards.

there is so much more i could complain about in this school, but frankly i do not have the time nor energy to express it all. i desperately hope this school improves sometime soon, as i am attending sixth form here, but i don't have an enormous amount of hope.

In my few years at that school there have been 5 suicides.
That statement alone says enough about the climate of that school,I have been told to starve by a member of staff whilst having a mental health breakdown, told to 'not go round talking' about my possible mental health conditions, left for MONTHS without any support after coming forward about suicidal thoughts. I have been called a freak for standing still, pushed by fellow students and repeatedly bullied with little to no punishment for the cruel. Vulnerable students are often ignored and harmed by the school as their focus is grades and nothing else. I have had the leadership team make my friends cry and shame them for their (diagnosed) sensory issues and block me from using the toilets during break-time (with no valid reason behind this). The only reason this is 2 not 1 stars is because almost all the regular lesson teachers are lovely, even the strictest teacher does genuinely want the best for you, most are funny, well trained and engaging, I love my teachers and they keep me at the school <3

Terrible experience there back in the early 2000's. A lot of bullying coming from staff. Pam Leon (Maths teacher) was the most bitter and awful teacher that I've ever had the misfortune of being taught by.

i always found myself repeating myself with the teachers and never got the support or help i needed!!
i was bullied alot and still just got told to ignore it!

Worst teachers ever, some of them cant speak English. The worst maths teachers in the world, they cant teach other than 1 way. The headteacher Mrs Rhodes its as if hes been on a night out until 3am and returned to work the same day. She is scared of parents of bullies so she doesnt fix issues. Lots of problems and crime in the school she hasnt fixed, this school has the worst management. The ones who get good grades in the school are coming from the privileged families in Fulwood, Sandygate, Lodgemoore otherwise the other children do not get the grades they deserve. It’s a discriminative environment. The teachers scare your child if she seems quiet but dont dare to bother loud and rude children. Since its become an academy and they control the funding, they employ inexperienced teachers to save money which impacts the children negatively. Teachers use the warning system to target quieter children to make an example for the aggressive kids who the teacher doesnt want to confront. Don’t believe the OFSTED ratings because the teachers are warned and act differently when ofsted arrives and they teach old lessons sometimes when ofsted comes so the children know the content better infront of the officer. It’s important for every parent to speak up and show the real reviews of this school. The maths teachers form an alliance against any negative feedback against their horrible teaching styles so its like talking to a brick wall.

Please dont send your children to this school if you cant afford a private tutor or if you don’t have family members there to stand up for your child.

The teachers act as if going to the toilet is a privilege and take your child’s property away if they don’t listen to the silly rules in place meanwhile the bad kids don’t get sanctioned for actual crimes and the quiet ones are bullied by teachers for not being smart enough.

The school in general is okaybut the way they deal with mental health needs to be so much better. There are many issues going on within the school however the school does nothing about it. Many students have been told over and over to come back if it gets worse and never get the support they need. Furthermore students are given resources they can only use on their own time and likely need WiFi for. We are pushed by teachers to get the work done and pressured by them using talk of exams very often and it is quite damaging to mental health. Very few teachers understand mental heath so it often feels like there is no place to turn to. The environment is built to support the certain students who act out and if you are a 'good' student you are ignored and never checked up on, sometimes 'good' students are placed next tho those who act out to keep them under control which hinders their learning. It is not fair to those students. They have also not had an ofsted review for almost 9 years and I can without a doubt say it wouldn't be as good, provided they actually talked to students. It does not feel like a safe place to be yourself, there's homophobia transphobia and many more issues and school rarely does anything about it. Their values of valuing everyone caring for each other and achieving excellence are not being applied. Students talk about having to survive school. Our brains are naturally wired to want to learn. This is not learning. This is a memory test on a bigger scale. This is not right. Tapton needs to do better. There's a good video by Prince Ea called what is school for and one called I sued the school system by the same person. I suggest watching them