The Gordon Schools

This school is horrible, it is full of racist, rapist , sex offenders and over all disgusting human beings who are always protected by the school staff. They don’t care about any of the victims that have been affected by the many many many offenders in the school.
It also has several senior teachers who still hold out dated opinions and believe old fashioned standards like girls should be house wives and only take subjects such as H.E and the boys should be big masculine strong men, they also constantly comment on girls clothing sexualising minors. One specific teacher in the English department wanted to ban leggings as they where “to see through”
Why would a male adult even think to comment on that? It makes me feel sick whenever I hear it.
One specific teacher in the guidance area has on multiple occasions touched students inappropriately or made horrible comments to them, keep in mind it’s mostly young girls. They don’t care about anyone’s personal space or even well being. That teacher has also made comments to girl who have come to them about being assaulted IN THE SCHOOL saying things like “well did you smile at them?” “What where you wearing?”
As well as that the school head of child wellbeing only cares about what’s on the children’s work books and not their mental health, ignore signs of struggling and only focusing on their failures.

3 out of 4 of Senior Management appear to do absolutely nothing. The current head teacher has little to no authority and appears to not do anything about issues concerning the school. When you get to the senior phase some teachers are great and very supportive, however some should be retired and have very dated views on teaching. Some PSE teachers are very unorganised concerning helping seniors with UCAS applications and personal statements. Behaviour is worst in BGE (S1-3) and this hasn't been helped during the pandemic at all, which isn't entirely the schools fault. The canteen food has become progressively more unhealthy over the years, despite being told it was healthy when joining the school in S1. Many new and better teachers are needed let alone an entirely new campus....need I mention toilets dating back many decades. Overall, if you're thinking of sending your child here or joining don't, many in Aberdeenshire are far better.

Many things happened to me as a pupil of the school. Mental health not being very well cared for. Teachers having a bias against some students. Sports being much more favoured than the arts. Bullying not being handled at all, students could bully another student in front of a teacher and nothing would be done, sometimes the teachers were part of the problem. Disgusting bathrooms that were falling apart. In one instance the girls were told to tell the boys about personal space bubbles instead of the boys being told off for flicking bra straps, with the girls getting in more trouble if they reacted.
There were a few nice teachers and rooms but they were rare.

The students are not properly managed as there is constant behavioural problems especially with the S3+ and this is not a good way to welcome new S1s into the school. It is a big enough change for them in environment and routine, without having to fear the older ones. My child has been telling me about issues such as being demanded by a S5 to move seats on the bus because that was ‘his seat’ and students bringing massive bags full of the local chipper food into the cafeteria. The teachers are somewhat good but some of them need to adjust more to the current teaching methods and standards, that things have changed since they went to school. But the good teachers are usually supportive and helpful with the work. But school in general is very toxic to students and their mental health nowadays, so it’s not that surprising really; the difficulties the school is facing.

The leadership is absolutely horrendous. Three depute heads and a head teacher and still practically nothing useful gets done. They’re more interested spending years finely curating the school’s ‘visions and values’ than actually doing something tangible. They’re simply not interested in our feedback; we’ve been banned from mentioning certain topics at pupil councils, when we’re asked to do surveys we are watched closely and sometimes have our answers read out loud which is obviously intimidation tactics. They only care about you for your grade and even then as long as it’s 5Cs so they can get over the requirement that they measure Scottish schools by that’s all they care about. Mixed bag of teachers to be honest, some are absolutely incredible although unfortunately most of them have left now and some are downright incompetent and should have been sacked a long time ago. Building is in terrible condition, still a leak in my Spanish classroom and absolutely freezing. As well as this, the guidance teachers are incredibly unhelpful and don’t actually care about the pupils. One is very homophobic and transphobic and refuses to reach anything to do with lgbt people in her PSE class despite it being the required curriculum. They should have been fired years ago. Dinner ladies and janitors are a lovely bunch. You CAN do well at TGS, but it’s hard.

This school has some of the most caring, hard working and passionate teachers who will do whatever in their power to make sure you do well but the rude, unhelpful and down right incompetent senior leadership team and the run down nature of the building really lets down the many wonderful teachers that work here.