Townley Grammar School

My experience from Year 7 to 13 was appalling. This is a racist, misogynistic institution where teachers themselves go as far as to partake in the bullying and alienation of students. A logistical nightmare with poor disorganisation and next to no student support. In terms of academics, a good percentage of the time, we taught ourselves. The few good teachers brightened the experience of select classes but in terms of leadership and management it was a catastrophe which seems to have only gotten worse over the years with sexual assault cover ups and the like. This is an institution which is more concerned with keeping up appearances than ensuring student wellbeing, hence the regular occurrence of mental health conditions among the students and a lack of support when this happens.

Okay so this is a great school IF you want to do a lot of sports and preforming arts(art, music, drama, dance exc.) but they don’t do that much for mental health and stuff if something happened with bulling or something that just do an assembly like it will stop anything. The performing arts department is a 5/5 , sports probably a 3.7/5 but the rest of the school eh 2/5. OH AND THEY PROMISE YEAR 7S THAT THEY DONT GET HOMEWORK OR A LOT OF HOMEWORK IN THE FIRST TERM BUT SOMEONE I KNOW WHO ARE IN YEAR 7 IS STRESSING THEIR HEAD OFF.

Skl is so bad im an internal here and started yr 12. the teachers are so bad i haave to go thru all my work at home myself and theyre all so uptight they make us wear blazers all the time even tho they said we can create a sense of identity and have a loot more freedom w our uniform but we dont. the food is expensive and they give rlly little portions. the skl is soooo unorganised and all the teachers do is basically shout at u i wouldnt recommend

Student hub is a joke. I went there once because I thought I was gonna pass out and they gave me water and sent me straight back to class. Another time I almost puked and they were like, if you do puke, go home but you should be fine. Turned out I had a fever and was ill. One other time I had an accident t that left me hospitalized and the nurse said, and I quote, we get a lot of you guys in here when she saw the uniform. All in all it is a pretty crap service they should probably try to make better, but no. They spend money on new white boards but not on broken toilets or students mental health. DO NOT GO THERE

When I came here to begin with, I loved it but now I have had several incident with my mental health and now have an ed and had a problem that left me in hospital for the rest of the day. The teachers told me that just because I was in hospital doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do the work. They care too much about grades. People there are horrible and can be bullies, I was left crying alone a lot. Teachers don’t help and they made me feel dumb. If you value your mental health don’t go there.

since i started here, my mental health has gone down really badly, i started to get a ed and had a problem involving a car and me, which left me in hospital. when i came back, the teachers almost gave me a detention for not doing the homework when i didnt know we had any. the food is overpriced and some drink are expired. it has some good aspects, like dance and drama lessons, but it has killed my confidence and my mental health is at rock bottom.

I love this school so much, there are loads of people to help you when you're struggling, and I feel like so many people expect the school to be perfect, because obviously there are some annoying teachers or whatever, and there are a few faults, but I genuinely believe the school tries its best to help us, to be really diverse, and to be the best school it can be. I am so much happier since coming to Townley and it honestly really annoys me when people complain about it constantly, because they can never give a reason, they just want to moan about it. Everyone expects the school to be super strict and then when it isn't, they call it overrated or a bad school, but I think it's good that they aren't super pushy, but also want us to get the best results. If you want to do well, then I would say to come here. And it's extremely diverse.

i mean it’s overrated

This school strives for academic excellence, that's what selective schools do, that's what we sign up for when we go here, if you dont want that PLEASE JUST GO ELSEWHERE. Additionally, I'm frustrated at other students slating this school for trying to be culturally diverse ! They are trying to embrace us. Everytime they try, people from my culture slate them online, its counterproductive and really sad. I have come from being a shy little girl, to an over achieving, happy, multicultural, LGBTQ+ woman here, Townley has helped make me, I rate it.

absolutely awful
in year — multiple times thought of suicide as a result of all the pressure they put on you

I've been at townley grammar for 4 years now and i have to say it is a second home for me. Teachers are welcoming, friendly, and are always reaching out to us for help and support. It is a great working evironment and they always bring the importance of pupils mental health, other cultures, diversity and inclusion and lots more being. it is a great community to be part of with so many new opportunities. It has its ups and downs just like every other school does, but i am really thankful to be part of such a great school and loving community and the school has always helped me out a lot and developed so many of my skills including confidence!

I hate this school. Many teachers are racist and have no empathy. They do not validate students feelings and make all students feel small and the teachers feel that they are superior. As well as this there have been many occasions where the school has been racist and multiple people have called them out for it but they had dismissed the issue and called the students harmful and that they were disappointed in their behaviour etc. The school needs to acknowledge students feelings and make it know to themselves that they need to care about all students mental health and well-being.

I was at this school for 5 years and from a few weeks in at year 7 I realised it wasn’t right for me. I found most people thought it wasn’t right for them either. The actual school environment was bitchy and unfriendly because of how competitive it was to be the best and anything below an A was seen as underachieving and disappointing. Teachers rarely helped out of class. And I found many of them spoke with such strong accents I couldn’t understand them. It was difficult to settle in and I was so thankful for when I could leave. The dance department was always really friendly and they acted as second mums.

I have been a student at this school for a while and I can confirm it was the worst decision of my life going to this school, the safeguarding team do not help at all and must of the time make the situation worse or just don't do anything at all. The school puts loads of stress on you for homework so unless you do it the day you get it, it will easily begin to build up a pile even after 2 days. The most pieces of homework I have gotten is one for each of the six periods in one day and each homework takes about an hour to complete so that means you barely have any time got leisurely activities especially if you also have tutoring or do extra curricular clubs.

The only thing the school cares about is grades. I know that one of my friends has had similar experiences to me with the safeguarding people where she has tried to talk to people about struggles with mental health and problems in her family yet they called her dad which caused her 3 days of arguments. If I did not have the support of my friends, I would have committed suicide ages ago. They also do not give help to students who need it, notably people of colour, lgbtq+ people and nerodivergant people. They claim to be supportive and make many PowerPoint on it but we are not treated as we shoukd be and are instead seen as failures.

Another issue I had was being a transgender person at this school. I came out as Non-binary near the end of year seven. My form tutor was actually quite supportive and used my correct name yet most other teachers still refer to the class as ladies as if there are no transgender people there and although it is an all girls school they have got to expect there to be some students like myself who came into the school not knowing they were transgender and not being able to get out because of unsupportive parents.

I genuinely cannot express my hate for this place and desire to leave. I dread to think what gcses will he like and honestly if you care about your child at all do not send them to this school.

this school loves showing off with performative activism, and preaching diversity and acceptance with the student, but in reality they cannot be bothered to actively help show and embrace different cultures.
pride month is in june every year, however this year the school remained silent about lgbtq topics until now, in july where they posted a powerpoint claiming how they are suportive. not only is this homophobic as they claim to be lgbtq allies while remaining quiet when it is our time to be openly proud,and then posting a short powerpoint very late, but has ignored the fact that july is actually disability pride month, and they are using lgbtq issues as a way to be quiet about disabilty, and getting away with their extreme ableism (i have had many experiences of ableism in this school throughout my time there).

this school claims to be inclusive and diverse, but secretly they are doing the exact opposite of what they preach

this rating is for the music department. music lessons make my week better and the teachers are very understanding and make lessons fun.

i agree with all the other reviews on here, but rather than reviewing the school i am reviewing the music department 5 stars. they are understanding and make lessons fun, music lessons are the best part of my week.

as much as grammar schools are appealing, especially when your child seems naturally gifted and you think they will benefit from a high achieving school, i am here to tell you that they won't succeed if you send them to the townley hellhole for formerly gifted children.

if you try and research this school for yourself, you'll find that the results are very split - you will either find a web page saying how great the school is, or one that says it's the worst place in the world, however if you look more into it you will see that the positive posts are made by the school, and the negative ones made by anyone who ever went to it.

some of the teachers there were lovely, but a lot of them weren't. they were rude and horrible, singling out students in the class to pick on and berate in front of everyone for not being "smart enough" despite achieving grades much better than the national average. the senco and student services workers provided no support to children with mental health problems, and anyone who tried to speak up about their struggles were immediately shut down/told they were faking or attention seeking.

most people that i know from that school came in happy and confident, and left with some kind of mental health problem due to the lack of support and unrelenting pressure.

there were multiple students in my head group alone who actually developed anxiety induced siezures/loss of consciousness because of the pressure put on students, and many others fell to depression/suicide because they felt like such failures for getting 10 GCSEs in stead of 11.

overall, the whole place is a failing mess who put all their efforts into parading their high results average in the faces of potential parents aka pay checks, and put no effort into actually improving the school for the welfare of the students already in its facility.

i have been at this school for over five years now and i cant say a good word about it. on the surface level they do get the results but it comes at a price, a price they couldnt care less about. since the day i entered that school my confidence and mental health plummeted, for the past five years i have been suffering panic attacks for which this school who is meant to be an advocate for mental health has done nothing about besides telling my parents i need to deal with my own issues and keep it out of school. this anxiety developed due to the insane amount of pressure put on students to achieve perfection which is not possible in 99% of cases and instead makes them feel so low they reach levels such as mine. this school has pushed me to breaking points countless times. on my GCSE results day i attempted suicide as my 11 GCSE’s all grades 6’s and up were not good enough. twice on the day before school has restarted have i also attempted suicide as i would rather painfully overdose than suffer through going back to the place that does this to me. sending your child here is signing them up for years of mental suffering that will take a life time to overcome. this school only cares about your grades not you as an person, you are NOTHING but a number to them, if you care about your child do not send them here.