Thomas Gainsborough School

I am a current student at Thomas Gainsboroughs School. The education system is not bad here and some of the teachers are lovely, however there are some issues I think must be addressed.

For starters, the higher up teachers care more about the dress code rather than actual education. I find it extremely ridiculous, since our skirt length doesn’t affect girls learning. Girls make the skirts shorter, because 1. they look hideous and we do not feel confident in them (pleated skirts in my opinion would look much nicer) and 2. everyone makes comments. if you have a long skirt, students will comment on it. they will belittle you and call you a nun. teachers are aware of these comments and want to be told, yet it is simply impossible to tell a lot of students off and get them to change. it’s sad, because there are only a few teachers who actually care about your skirt length and they don’t even teach you. with our skorts for pe, they are very short and we are allowed to wear them, yet if our sports leggings are slightly transparent, it is a bad thing?? it makes no sense.

and with ear piercings, how do 2 earrings (which are discrete) affect our learning? i’d understand if there were bizarre facial piercings and ear piercings, but i doubt anyone at tgs even has that many.

regarding food prices, they are ridiculously expensive. I understand that the school has to make an income but they have increased the prices since the start of the new school year and it is incredibly stupid.

going back onto the topic of skirts, it is quite obvious that the teachers think we are slutty for wearing them short. however, why not teach the boys to actually respect girls? it’s quite simple and easy to. as a bisexual girl, i have never disrespected a girl in a sexual way nor have i thought about a girl in that way, just because of her skirt length. the same goes to non uniform day dress codes. i don’t get how showing cleavage or bra straps is in inappropriate. do you not want me to wear a bra then or to wear a long sleeved top on a boiling day?? and having breasts is normal for a teenage girl and if the school are worried about the boys being “distracted” by them, they should have a word with the boys instead of making the girls cover up, which feeds into the “you get raped because of the clothes you wear” “you get raped because you are showing too much skin” idea, which is extremely harmful towards young girls and current rape victims. the non uniform dress code also includes not being able to have ripped jeans above the thigh. it is also yet again sexualising girls, as now showing off my skin is “provocative and inappropriate”.

For the past few weeks, it has been incredibly hot at tgs, and considering our uniform is literally black, we find ourselves hotter than most. However, it was only allowed to not wear blazers a few days ago at school (when the heat has been bothersome for quite some time). i have witnessed people being shouted at for wearing blazers and threatened with isolation even though it is incredibly hot. i have found out through sources that some teachers do feel bad for us, but must not allow us to not wear the blazers as it’s the rule to decided by the higher staff, which is extremely ridiculous.

in pe, it is also incredibly hot and there is little shade. if we feel very hot and tired because of the heat and just want to sit down, we are threatened with isolation even though some students are on the brink of heat stroke. last year at sports day, some people were only allowed to have time in the shade for five minutes maximum, even though it was boiling hot and a lot of people were close to fainting or passing out, which shows that the school has no regards for its students.

I would also like to comment on the absurd punishments for skirts and blazers. if you are wearing no blazer, it’s an isolation from Mrs Wilby. If your skirt is short, you receive isolation from it, yet i have witnessed extremely misbehaved students who get let off with a warning one. Once i got told off for my skirt length, and i unrolled it. I did not answer back or make any difficulties for the teacher telling me off. yet they dragged out telling me off even though i was behaving and then decided to give me a warning for “lying”. this one teacher i’m certain no one at school likes. she has belittled students, punished them for little things, discriminated them and is rude to her students in general if she is in a bad mood (you should not mix personal feelings and work together). when she is off school, everyone is happy and many have made several reports against her yet she still has not been fired yet.

going back onto the skirt issue, another time i was told off and i unrolled it and listened to them. i did not answer back or try argue with them. yet all this teacher did was mock me in return. she is horribly rude and i doubt anyone even likes her.

Besides all this, there are some lovely kind teachers at this school and i am dismayed how some are leaving. However, i think the school should reconsider their rules and actually listen to their students for once instead of caring about their reputation. Here at school, many do drugs, vape or smoke. yet the teachers are more concerned about how many earrings i have in my ear or my skirt length. I wish for things to change.

Ohh dear! As a parent - I’m finding my experience with Thomas Gainsborough frightfully disappointing. They have fantastic facilities and it should be an amazing opportunity for any child.

Whilst some of the teachers are responsive; most of my experiences have been negative. I find they use their guidelines in an often psychologically repressive bullying manner and have even tried their tactics on me - A parent!

At worst their stance is arrogant and quite often unfounded. Sometimes behavioural incidents are blown completely out of proportion to try and generate an allegiance with them over the child. This is without them investigating circumstances or using their own initiatives fully before involving a parent.

When asked how your child is doing academically. There is a lack of knowledge from the teaching staff which is infuriating when your child is preparing or starting their GCSE’s.

The school runs ARD days - Academic Review Days - which basically turn out to be BRD days - Behavioural Review Days - where they want to discuss how many times your child had a shirt untucked, dropped their pen, spoke in a lesson …. It goes on. It is a naming and shaming session and not an academic review day with any useful information where you can help support your child through their education.

Sadly this is known as one of the best schools in the area. I dread to think what other children and parents are suffering during this critical time of education.

Buyer Beware!!!!!

Average school if im honest. Teachers dont really care about your well being apart from a handful i will happily name . Most teachers only care about the uniform and will happily take a student out of lessons for having white writing on black socks 🤦🏻‍♀️ I know some teachers left because they didn’t stand for what the school was enforcing. The food isnt the best but it’s edible. They’re awful about piercings and have gone as far as actually trying to pull out my nose piercing out of my face when i went there but yeah if you’re planning on sending youre kid that lives outside sudbury here then i would suggest against it as its a waste of money for the bus 🤷🏻‍♀️

L school didnt care about you or how you felt,made you feel like you was practically in a army of ants with the way they controlled what you did,teachers did not care about anything apart ur uniform,racism and sexism was overlooked,but they did look after bullying quite well.overall quite poor

Hated my time there all the teachers are rude and arrogant with the exception of a few teachers (Mr Alexander, Mr Chiang)
The school also hardly cares about student well-being and safety with many fights happening, alcohol and other drugs being used in the school. Yet the school overlooks all that and focuses on school dress code and it’s reputation when I can turns up then really wanting to help students.
The school also has an access room for people with learning difficulties and the teachers are so rude to the kids and other students that I am not sure how she still has a job.
The food at the school is also terrible and overpriced with many students going hungry and if they ask the school for money and bring in the money the next day the school denies them making them go hungry instead.
The teachers are rude, mean and downright weird and disturbing with some teachers some teachers purposely dropping whiteboard pens and telling girls to pull down their skirts cause it’s “distracting”.
And don’t get me started on the hygiene in that place it is very dirty and most cleaners will just Hoover and wipe the walls without doing any cleaning. I remember leaving a lighter hidden behind an obvious place in the school to see if had been cleaned over the summer holiday but it hadn’t and the lighter was retrieved.
Overall the entire place is terrible and I would never want to send my future kids there ever

they need to grow up that’s it, how they act towards students is honestly horrible. do better.

While attending this school I was emotionally manipulated my certain members of staff for example and angry Scottish teacher. The school care more about there uniform then there students mental health.

I once found a ginger hair in my food yet non of the diner ladies are ginger, when I went to discuss this with them they picked it off and carried on scooping up the hot meals. However, the sub lady was the kindest person ever.

I have been mentally abused by the school libation who thinks she’s well ard and will chuck you out of the library for the smallest thing. Once she chucked me out and I had to wait outside for my mum alone in the dark on my own with no phone battery. However, after stating this to the libraryan she was having non of it and threatened to call SLT on me for the day afterwards.

I would not recommend sending your children to the Thomas Gainsborough school community unless you trust despise of your children. ITS A TRAP.

Food prices are extortionate and quality is unacceptable, the upper management care more about the school's presentation than children's wellbeing or enjoyment, and the school is very old fashioned in it's belief system with many occasions where teachers have told gay and bisexual couples to express themselves in private whilst having no quarrel with other couples. The school operates on a strike system where once you have received 3 you are sent to solitairy confinement for at least a day. This system is repeatedly abused by certain members of staff who target students they have problems with (a French teacher still employed there a few years back repeatedly sent a child with learning difficulties to solitairy confiment for "not learning in a correct manner"). The teachers berate the girls about keeping their skirt's an appropriate length, which in itself would be harmless if not for the derogatory terms used when doing this infront of other pupils. The school does not advertise itself as a Catholic school but enforces their views onto students with 20 minutes of bible study before lesson in the morning, and religious embassadors that walk around the school singling out children for their faiths by constantly berating them with their confirmist propoganda.

The school is good academically but not in many other aspects. The uniform is so strict that i was told to move schools because i had an extra piece of jewellery on and it was not visible unless you physically moved my hair and looke at my ears. Teachers tend to focus more on uniform than they do the actual education for example many of my friends would get pulled out of lessons for having the 'wrong' skirt when the skirt was as it said in the planners. They tend to find a problem in anything and everything they can