The Deepings School

This school is so bad there is like 10 cover lessons a week and also half of the staff members left at the end of the year awful and also barley any SLT members

I am an ex-student, graduating in 2023 from the sixth form.
Within the sixth form, my experience was generally more positive than at the secondary school. The sixth form is modern, and has sufficient facilities. There was issues with space especially when I moved up to Y13, which is understandable because there were a greater number of Y12s joining this year.
My biggest complaint is guidance, which to be fair I put down to the multiple changes in headteacher during just the 2022/2023 academic year. However, I believe the inconsistency is affecting the younger students, sparking a general sense of indifference towards authority and even a student riot in February 2023, which came about, allegedly, due to younger students being unhappy with the conditions of the school. Personally, I felt that the methods used to punish those involved in the riot and the aftermath, whilst pragmatic, was not harsh enough, which led to plans for further riots which thankfully came of nothing.
At the time of leaving the school, in June 2023, many if not all of the secondary school toilets were vandalised, with locks missing, and being quite unclean. The sixth form toilets were in much better condition, but this is oftentimes irrelevant because most sixth form classes are on the main site, meaning access to secondary school toilets.
In my experience, many students have consistently expressed a concern for their safety at school. Personally, I felt that mental health was taken seriously with my experience with receiving help, although this seemed to be taken more seriously within sixth form. My estimation as to why some students may feel unsafe is because a lot of the measures of punishment for students seem insufficient - for medium to serious offences, students are sent to BIC (Behavioural Improvement Centre) in which students are made to sit in silence or keep up with schoolwork. As you can imagine, this had little effect, because the consequences of the student’s actions are not addressed in a way that the student can learn from and understand.
Personally, I would not necessarily recommend the secondary school, but I would be more inclined to recommend the sixth form, though be wary that some academic subjects such as law do not run at the sixth form, and due to oversubscription and/or lack of funding for courses, many experience lack of guidance and lack of basic resources.
I know that some students have recently brought up the issue of sexual harassment, which is something that I experience twice within the secondary school. I was groped both times; first in year 8 and secondly in year 10. The first time, this was dealt with very well, and I felt like I had been taken seriously and validated, although I was never kept up to date about the progress of reporting the person who had done it. The second time was not dealt with well - the incident was reported but the member of staff who handled it merely described the person as an ‘idiot’ and tried to encourage me to not take it any further because the student would be leaving school the following year. The student in question was notorious for bad behaviour and repeatedly caused alarming issues, and was intermittently excluded, though seemingly never for longer than a term at most. The furthest I got with seeking validation the second time was pursuing a restorative justice meeting, though the member of staff who handled it never scheduled it. There is a lot of information about sexual harassment, mainly geared towards women but in some respects geared towards men too, which is good, but I have personally seen a couple of minor instances of it which people seem to accept as ‘banter’ or normal. Again, my guess is because the younger students in particular can’t seem to respect the senior members of staff as authority, which has a knock on effect with other students who may not feel confident or comfortable with coming to school. This is an issue which I feel needs to be addressed. There is an element of the school trying to come across in a certain way for Ofsted, and I can testify that most of the structures they put in place in time for Ofsted are temporary and rarely see it through to the end of the year. Ofsted demonstrations are seemingly to show what the school COULD be, and is not a representation of its current standard.

A lot of staff at this school don’t care about the students. The staff don’t bother to tackle racist, homophobic and misogynistic behaviour and when they do, they don’t do it very well or they blame people who are innocent. When a student refuses to go to lesson, they just put them into the bic (isolation) and give them an after school detention instead of finding out why they don’t want to go to lesson. They also don’t care if you’re being bullied. A few people I know have been bullied and the school didn’t do anything about it. I have had it on multiple occasions where I have been crying in the school and staff have seen me crying and have not asked if I was ok. Lots of people in the school have been shouted at wiles crying. The schools really affected my mental health and I have had suicidal thoughts because of the staff not caring. The school has also affected other people’s mental health and a few have tried to commit suicide. It seams like they only care about you wearing the correct uniform and your behaviour. Most of the staff who cared have left to go to different schools. However, there are only a few staff who do seam to care. One of them being the deputy head of year 10. She’s has really tried to help me and she’s been great.

doesn’t teach you anything. useless

This school is shit! Dont send your child here

I am a student at the deepings and I would not recommend this school to anyone. Most of the teachers do not care about your mental health, physical health and privacy. Some of the toilets get shut and some of the cubicles do not have locks on them and a few don’t have doors on them. Until recently, no one was allowed to go to the toilet, which is a basic human right. The school has an unnecessarily strict uniform policy which includes students not being allowed to wear skinny trousers, jewellery, fake eyelashes, socks that aren’t black, painted nails or trainers yet a lot of the female teachers have painted nails and they wear jewellery. One day in October 2022, 50+ students got put into BIC (isolation) for incorrect uniform. This information made it into news articles. You can search up “alun ebenezer uniform” and you will find the articles there. These rules didn’t change when the current headteacher came to the school. Students found the rules unfair and decided to protest. Over the last few weeks before the Easter holidays, there were loads of fights. Apparently there were 10 fights in one day and Apparently, a student brought a knife into the school. Students feel unsafe and they are terrified to come to school because of this The teachers aren’t doing anything to protect the students. Some students have poor attendance because of how shocking the school is and if they genuinely feel unwell at school and they go to their year base, they don’t get sent home because of their poor attendance. The school put on an act for ofsted and the trust. They also care more about how they present themselves for ofsted and the trust than students wellbeing. If you want your child to become mentally ill then you’re more than welcome to send your child to the deepings school where they will have suicidal thoughts and they will be scared to go to school everyday.

this school is the worst by far the teachers don't care abt ur mental health they only care abt Ofsted and the people in higher sets and isolation is just pointless because its not gonna do anything and they expect us to carry 6 books around sometimes it used to be 3 lessons a day but now its 6 there is no point its so pointless i wish i never came here if ur having a breakdown they just send u to lesson they literally do not care abt students mental health so if u think abt sending ur child here think twice cus ur child will just become suicidal cus of this school and they mental health will decline alot so please for ur childs sake DO NOT send them here

The protest was a bit awful but apart from that it’s average I guess.
The food is nice except my chicken was a bit uncooked.
The staff is alright but we don’t have a geography teacher and one kept kicking people out of class for no reason.
There was also a teacher who got kicked out for inappropriate behaviour with students and now he’s getting let back in.
The bathrooms are useable but most of the stalls don’t have locks on them and some don’t even have doors.
There refusing to add doors because people vape in the bathroom.
Some of the soap won’t come out , which makes it impossible to wash your hands.
Some people in the changing rooms don’t wear underwear.
There’s a new tech block though so that is a plus.
We’re not allowed to watch news round or anything like it.

Overall a great school!

I am a parent of a year 11 student at the deepings school my daughter was in her lesson and needed the toilet after being given a pass, she had asked her teacher for the toilet repeatedly and shown her pass but the teacher carried on say no i think this is againts her rights and it is disgusting behaviour, this is not allowed and will be reported to offsted

Students get punished for small things such as wearing trainers with school uniform or having too many piercings yet students don’t get punished when they are bullying others (even if it gets physical). People are scared to go to school in fear of getting bullied and some of them take time of school because of this. Some people in the school are racist/homophobic and yet they do nothing about this. Multiple teachers are sexist and most teachers don’t care about your mental health. Quite a few people in the school have poor mental health and some are even suicidal yet they are not getting the help they need. The teachers tend to care more about the students in higher sets then the ones in the lower sets (who need more help academically). This year, I was left without a geography teacher for 2 months. Instead, I had cover teachers and not many people learned much from those lessons. There are 3 lessons a day which last 1 hour and 40 minutes, run on a 2 week timetable. This has caused students to fall behind academically as they are not remembering as much information from the lessons. Please don’t go to this school. You’ll be better of at another school.

School is okay. I’ve known of many incidents in the school and nothing been done about these incidents. Including sexual harassment,racism,mental health problems. The school cares more about uniform and their statistics then the students and their well-being. That being said a few of the teachers there are lovely.

Rubbish school so bad and teachers over act on a fight and think there better than u

they stole my gender

Students get put into detention at their break and lunch to "give back" the time they wasted in the lesson. If the teachers actually made an effort to make the lessons less boring and keep it under control, the classroom would be quiet and willing to learn. The pupils at this school get isolations which is where you miss lessons and have to sit in a room for a day/half a day/a week doing basically nothing. Teens won't learn if you make them sit in a room quietly, there is no point. Most of the teaching staff can't control the students which leads into bad grades that are blamed on us.

Just dreadful don’t not attend

A fair amount of students don't feel safe. Instead of having 6 lessons a day, we are having 3 lessons a day which are 1hr 40min long but we have a week 1 timetable and a week 2 timetable. This is really stressful because it is hard to learn your timetable and certain subjects you absolutely need for your future career will be harder to achieve the right grade u need due to not having it persistently like we used to. For example, you would have that subject you really need for your future career ONCE in week one and TWICE in week 2. They put on a fake act for Ofsted to get a better rating than it should. When Ofsted visit, it's all u ever hear about. Litter was everywhere, classes where uncontrolled but the only time they cared was when Ofsted where there. Really DO NOT recommend this. Oh and the teacher pressure you so much. For example, I know someone who absolutely struggles with mfl and they made her take it for gcse, she didnt get a choice and now shes always stressing over it, being told she isn't going to pass ext. That isn't right. Absolutely awful school. Also, with this covid, they only let pupils inside when it is pouring with rain, and even then, if you leave the classroom your not allowed back in and have to get soaked in the rain because some pupils dont like the indoor area for their specific year.

Should be no stars
Where do I even start
I didn't have a physics teacher for 6 months and then was expected to do a mock (we all failed) and when the teacher returned he said it was our fault we failed
A student literally locked a supply teacher outside the classroom by barricading the door with tables and received a detention
I didn't have one actual maths teacher in year 8, supplies all year which resulted in my work consisting of half a work book for a whole year
I witnessed a older student vaping in the corridors and when there was smoke around him the teachers were blind
I had a friend in the year below that had a friend that would get in trouble alot, I met her once and she said that they let her go for a cigarette break if she gets mad (a literal minor told me this)
I could be here all day but to summarise I learnt more in some years about the unorganized mess the school is than the actual syllabus
All I'm saying is check the recent Ofsted reports (if that doesn't scare you away then this should)
Dont put your children through this

Got told i wasnt being bullied and i was over reacting.

the staff are rude! and they dont help at all. the school only care about the top set students and the kids that need help dont get it at all!