The John Henry Newman Catholic School

This school nearly turned my child into what he is not and will never be. A brilliant, fast and self-learner suddenly don't like going to school.
If your child attends this school, please observe their behaviour after school, ask them questions about what made them happy or sad at school etc. esp if you are a person of color.
I had several back and forth emails with a particular Teacher at this particular school, because I felt my son was being targeted. And yes my story is not an isolated one. I know of another parent, who allege threatened to report the school to the District Board for alleged discrimination of her child.
Please research, read, read about the difficulties faced by minorities esp blacks in these school systems and take positive actions that would benefit your child.

Sucks. Emotionally abusive teachers sometimes. Hated one for making my kid cry.

I don’t even wanna grade seeing this video realising these are your pupils. This is disgusting and you should be ashamed for not realising how long this has been going on. This didn’t just start randomly. He’s clearly been bullied by them before. You disgust me as a school and whoever raised that dirty scummy of a kid. Let yourself be bought to light of how shitty of a parent you are. Dumb fuck.

A student of your school was grossly bullied, beaten and was told to lick the shoes of the bullies.

It will be a step in the right direction if this incident is investigated as there are videos of this incident recorded by the bullies going viral.

Not bad- Catholic life is the center of the community

One of the best schools in Hertfordshire

Some of the teachers (though explicitly not all) put you in a really difficult spot and it makes you cry because they don't consider if your having a bad day or if you are experiencing personal problems such as mental health issues. It's like they expect you.to just say 'I have mental health problems' outloud when surely they know how difficult it is to do that. The likely hood is that we won't say anything and they will never really know what the problem is becuase they confront you in front of other students and turn it into an interrogation and make it so hard for you. They alienate you. Its all totally unnecessary.  I was told that i have to see my negative experience as a teaching moment and that i need to be stronger and less fragile.  I don't understand why it's so necessary to experience negativity In  order to learn and to grow. Why can't it be a positive experience ?  Why can't they all be kind and flexible instead if me being stronger and less fragile ?  Why do I have to be less of the person I am? Why don't they just acknowledge that you have an issue without probing you to ask why. The "why" isn't really that important. When someone harms they are not seeking attention , they are seeking acknowledgement and when you say it like like that and you think about it it doesnt seem like such a terrible complex thing. You realise how much of a need it is to be acknowledged and not have judgements made about you. We don't want to be defined by these things so please don't.

They urge this concept of trying to “find your mission in life “. All this does is perpetuate a very narrow view on what success is. Even the attempt to just be happy can be challenging to some people. Theoretically the idea of doing your best and working towards your dreams sounds like it’s easy. All sunshine and rainbows. In fact all it does is place a deeply philosophical burden on those other kids who are currently unhappy or struggling to establish what their “purpose” is and have no idea how to achieve this kind of goal. I think the teachers care deep down .. well I hope so… but they outwardly seem to follow this preachy catholic philosophy and don’t seem to use the initiative to know where things just aren’t right. As a student here you feel as though you are talking to a wall sometimes. Or singing into a void. I can’t relate to my teachers that well. Sometimes I don’t feel comfortable talking to them. They want to help but you sense that maybe they don’t know how to do it and it makes you lose confidence in their ability to do so. They have this supposedly great mental health support but it just feels like it’s all talk at times, But I suppose this is probably everywhere ... They talk about all the things they have in place and reassure you about provisions when students might be in crisis but I wonder what they would actually do if and when confronted by a true crisis. If a student really was in dire need of support. In some ways this school is great but in other ways it tolerates so much that is realistically “wrong” and It is my belief that : what you tolerate you promote… what I do like is there does seem to be a promotion of us being able to advocate for ourselves. This should really be further encouraged. It is good to make a stand for yourself and for your own learning experience when you don’t feel you are getting enough out of it and to be heard. Hopefully they actually listen to understand and not just to respond. They need to really promote the different ways to communicate. Some of us don’t like to talk in front of others or to talk generally about what is bothering us. Some of us like to write it down. Maybe email. My older sister said that when she went here in the past she really wished there was somewhere you could physically go when you were having a hard time. She spent most of her bad days hiding in the girls toilets crying. The cubicle was the most private enclosed space in the whole school. She said it was all well and good letting her leave the classroom for a breather but there was nowhere appropriate to go for some space or some time alone and the stress of having to find somewhere private in a sea of over 1000 people just added to the initial anxiety she already had. She was really impressed to hear that the school built a room specifically for this purpose.

i do not enjoy going to school here, i enjoy learning and academics but i do not enjoy the environment, it is volatile and unsafe.