See all schools in Burghfield Common, Reading RG7
The Willink School
Secondary · Maintained · Reading
"I wish I knew about this website when I was about to choose School"
Lisa, parent
"Finally, one can access the opinions of other students completely transparently."
Fredrik, student
Get access to exclusive content, available only on SchoolParrot!
1 month
£2.99
First month. Then £4.99 / month
1 year
£19
Best valueFirst year. Then £39 / year.
For Schools and school staff
Do you work as a principal or school staff? Take control of your SchoolParrot profile. Click here
7th form
a true gem of a school for any "socially responsible parent"
we have looked at over 10 secondary schools for our son and no other school came even close to WILLINK. The new head mistress is a top professional and can only be described an "energiser" and visionary. Bulling is dealt with at its root, teachers take each pupil like their own, no task or question is too small, so far everything is going perfectly for our 7th form joiner. Touch wood
very bad
zero emotional support as they claim to have a "learning support center that students can go to whenever" but it is locked. since i have joined the willink my mental health has become wores and worse, not at all helped by the level of bullying and homophobia i have had to deal with while the teaches do nothing, prefering to deal with the bigger dramas and supporting the bully. in the anti bully assemblies they dont realise that its a absolute joke as they are telling it to the bullyies who just ignore them as they already know they are hurting people. but, the food is alright but dont send your kids here.
pretty bad
i have not liked it.at all. only good part is the food.
Avoid going here if you can
In general this school produces decent grades in its students. However that is pretty much where the positives stop.
I went to the Willink through years 7 - 10 and had to leave to a different college for 12 & 13 for my own wellbeing. I went to QMC instead and in the time leading up to people deciding to leave or stay for sixth form, several teachers were badmouthing QMC and essentially calling you stupid if you were deciding to leave the Willink.
I had experiences in classes with at least 20 different teachers while at this school. Of these twenty I had minimal trouble with three of them. The rest were bullies, bad teachers, snarky, or just didn't care whatsoever about the student's wellbeings.
-Mrs Harbidge seems to take joy out of embarrassing individual students infront of the class.
-One of the Geography teachers threatened to cut off my ponytail when I was in year eight because I was slightly fiddling with it, not taking any of my attention away from the actual lesson. The only thing that did distract me from the lesson was all of the thoughts I had about the threat he'd just made.
-Dr Kellaway made several sexist statements against men during my time at this school, continuously bullying two of the boys in my class at GCSE, and one time stating "this is why I say men are inferior. Because they have this tiny little y chromosome, while women have these nice two big X chromosomes." After this incident I decided I'd had enough. I went to the student support centre to report her to which I was met with shock and confusion for how I could be reporting a teacher and not a student.
In general most teachers would meet panic attacks, in-class bullying, and overstimulation with a major lack of sympathy and a large amount of anger. Meeting face to face crying, physical displays of discomfort, hyperventilating, etc with nothing except shouting and anger, and sending them out of the room for disruption to the lesson, never caring to ask if this student was alright.
The lack of ability to go to the toilet in lessons in absurd. People can't choose when their bladders are full.
And the dress code is useless. Me wearing some makeup or having two sets of earrings in instead of one does not distract from the lesson. You know what does? Bringing attention to the student who has two sets of earrings in while staring at her as she is made to take them out.
Fidget toys are not allowed, adding possibe stress to those with neurodivergence and anxiety. My brother was gifted a fidget ring for his anxiety at one point and he wasn't able to use it because of the "no jewelry" rule.
They also hand out detentions for bad reasons and the concept and execution of isolation, that is essentially student jail, at the top of the G block is useless. All it does is take students out of lessons, it doesn't prevent any future fights. Evidenced by the fact that fights kept happening.
The only other positive is that the food in the canteen was decent while I was there.
I went to the Willink through years 7 - 10 and had to leave to a different college for 12 & 13 for my own wellbeing. I went to QMC instead and in the time leading up to people deciding to leave or stay for sixth form, several teachers were badmouthing QMC and essentially calling you stupid if you were deciding to leave the Willink.
I had experiences in classes with at least 20 different teachers while at this school. Of these twenty I had minimal trouble with three of them. The rest were bullies, bad teachers, snarky, or just didn't care whatsoever about the student's wellbeings.
-Mrs Harbidge seems to take joy out of embarrassing individual students infront of the class.
-One of the Geography teachers threatened to cut off my ponytail when I was in year eight because I was slightly fiddling with it, not taking any of my attention away from the actual lesson. The only thing that did distract me from the lesson was all of the thoughts I had about the threat he'd just made.
-Dr Kellaway made several sexist statements against men during my time at this school, continuously bullying two of the boys in my class at GCSE, and one time stating "this is why I say men are inferior. Because they have this tiny little y chromosome, while women have these nice two big X chromosomes." After this incident I decided I'd had enough. I went to the student support centre to report her to which I was met with shock and confusion for how I could be reporting a teacher and not a student.
In general most teachers would meet panic attacks, in-class bullying, and overstimulation with a major lack of sympathy and a large amount of anger. Meeting face to face crying, physical displays of discomfort, hyperventilating, etc with nothing except shouting and anger, and sending them out of the room for disruption to the lesson, never caring to ask if this student was alright.
The lack of ability to go to the toilet in lessons in absurd. People can't choose when their bladders are full.
And the dress code is useless. Me wearing some makeup or having two sets of earrings in instead of one does not distract from the lesson. You know what does? Bringing attention to the student who has two sets of earrings in while staring at her as she is made to take them out.
Fidget toys are not allowed, adding possibe stress to those with neurodivergence and anxiety. My brother was gifted a fidget ring for his anxiety at one point and he wasn't able to use it because of the "no jewelry" rule.
They also hand out detentions for bad reasons and the concept and execution of isolation, that is essentially student jail, at the top of the G block is useless. All it does is take students out of lessons, it doesn't prevent any future fights. Evidenced by the fact that fights kept happening.
The only other positive is that the food in the canteen was decent while I was there.
Ex-student
I was at the Willink for 3 years but ultimately chose to leave as the school only care about manufacturing the perfect employees and only cared about high grades and rarely cared about producing perfect grades. I had a relatively normal social life but when I faced social difficulties like bullying, I was ignored the school favouring to deal with the big dramas and putting me to the side. The quality of the education depended on how your teacher liked you and luckily I had relatively high grades but the mistreatment my friends faced in the same class was so clear.
In addition, the homophobia my friends faced at the hands of other students was never addressed by the Senior Learning Staff and the injustice was never dealt with, leaving the students to attempt to resolve it on its own.The teachers were alright at teaching but a lot had very “short fuses” or had no tolerance for internal social problems. The main problems faced by the Willink were a mistreatment of minority students, a love for handing out detentions and strict teachers that don’t care about the students personal life and “lashing out” due to missing homework.
But if I forgot my lunch money I could go home for lunch, so its kinda a redeeming quality if you live close to the school.
I understand that I may come off a bit negative as an ex-student but I feel it should be known.
Many thanks,
An Ex-student
In addition, the homophobia my friends faced at the hands of other students was never addressed by the Senior Learning Staff and the injustice was never dealt with, leaving the students to attempt to resolve it on its own.The teachers were alright at teaching but a lot had very “short fuses” or had no tolerance for internal social problems. The main problems faced by the Willink were a mistreatment of minority students, a love for handing out detentions and strict teachers that don’t care about the students personal life and “lashing out” due to missing homework.
But if I forgot my lunch money I could go home for lunch, so its kinda a redeeming quality if you live close to the school.
I understand that I may come off a bit negative as an ex-student but I feel it should be known.
Many thanks,
An Ex-student
Review
Overall it's ok, generally good teachers however it has it's share of problems the canteen is abysmal, overpriced, abhorrent tasting food and awful management of the queues. Language department is understaffed, there's no school trips for any subjects other than languages and the curriculum is very stale and uninspired.
Year 2 SATS (ages 17-18) (Year 13)
I didn’t really enjoy this school tbh
I hate this school, I used to be the top dog I stabbed everyone in my path, until one day, this Sam Wella, I used to patrol the relatively medium sized field, until Sam wella came along, he took out his vape (extremely menacing item to have) he blew raspberry sweet flavoured vape into my face and proclaimed “yo , me have see u use legs around this grass place for long enough I kill you now. HE STABBED ME 2543543 TIMES!!! I’ve been used to being stabbed at this school when those neeks try to fight back with their pitiful knife length (only 12cm) mines about the size of a kitchen, anyway so I get stabbed and the school police officer ( we have 100) which is 10% of all police officers in the uk , but then Sam wella stabbed the police too, anyway yeah this school bad and a teacher me to kill my self, good regards Reuben baroni. lol
one of the better in reading area
Good leadership from experienced staff, sixth form is esp good. Only downside is the bad Lang department.
Willink
I am a student at the willink school in year 10 at the start of year7 things where not amazing but they where not bad.
I could not finsh my education in the willink due to my mental health.
The things some of the staff said to me were discusting expecting the SAFE GARDING DEPT HEAD!!!!
He told me to not self harm in school do it at home he called my feeling pathetic and said they wasn’t valid.
There is no HELPFUL emotional support what so ever and the teachers have not been trained for people will additionall needs.
Lots of other kids have had the same problems with this school because my personal experience was bad we had to have lots of meetings wich took weeks to sort out the teachers do not answer you emails.
I could not finsh my education in the willink due to my mental health.
The things some of the staff said to me were discusting expecting the SAFE GARDING DEPT HEAD!!!!
He told me to not self harm in school do it at home he called my feeling pathetic and said they wasn’t valid.
There is no HELPFUL emotional support what so ever and the teachers have not been trained for people will additionall needs.
Lots of other kids have had the same problems with this school because my personal experience was bad we had to have lots of meetings wich took weeks to sort out the teachers do not answer you emails.
AQA, OCR, eduqas
Don't go to the willink
This school is very bad
My friend reviewed this as "at least they had chairs" :)
My friend reviewed this as "at least they had chairs" :)
About SchoolParrot
- SchoolParrot is a review site for schools. We are a company that believes in more transparency within schools. Our platform is open to all users.
Read about SchoolParrot and our company - Reviews are published in real-time without moderation and we want to encourage our users to provide constructive feedback and keep a serious tone. The responsibility lies with the user.
Read our review guidelines