Ysgol Dinas Bran

Attended this school from 2010 onwards till I was pulled from school and moved to home schooling due to the issues I faced at this school.

To begin, what other reviews say is true. Bullying isn't handled nor dealt with, usual cases on the field or in class will be met with a school morning speech during assembly saying something along the lines of "stop bullying, put it in the bully box, come to us and we'll deal with it anonymously." Can confirm from personal experience, it isn't anonymous and was told very much so who said what. Homophobia, racism, sexism and even something as small as the weight or body shape of another child are all something commonly picked apart from students and thrown at each other with no repercussions. Children bully each other for their differences, that's common but what you do going forward to prevent further harm to students is on your doing and not on the child to suddenly go "yeah, I think I will stop making fun of gay students today." let's both be real here, that is not how children think. Safeguarding for victims of bullying, assault and harassment is lacking. Many classmates of mine back when I was there ended up lacking in their education because they were just too afraid to return to school every week knowing that their bully will be there waiting for them with no punishment for their actions.

Support for students that need extra help, counselling or further aid is lacking and honestly in my opinion felt alittle bit like pushing the students to the side claiming you'll help and then not providing the help they claimed. For starters, I was constantly swapped councillors every week continuing to repeat the same things over and over again each week to new people that wont matter because when you go through new people each week saying your life story and your struggles you'll never be able to sink deeper into solving the problem. Outside of constant "meetings" that took me out of class regularly only to waste my time and not result in anything; the solution they gave me when I struggled was "just go to the unit and do your work there" not being provided with help with said work if I was struggling or possibly severely packed up with work due to lack of attendance (thanks to bullying making me too afraid to return to school) imagine what that would be like for a child to handle the fear of school, their classmates, their teachers and to be toppled with work they must do in time with no mistakes and no help provided or extra time. I understand how many students attend the school and running around paying close attention to each case that needs help is alot but the best you could of done is given your head of years more training for these sort of situations. I had two head of years and can safely say one very much did not care for my situation or providing help and the other seemed rather sick of me whenever I'd show up needing assistance. In the end I was too afraid to talk to anyone about my education needing extra assistance and the issues I had with other students and I ended up being home schooled and still to this day struggle to pick up the pieces where I left off back then because funny enough when they say secondary school is important they mean it, if only the teachers took it as important as they claim. Too busy boasting about their exam scores for their higher years which if I had to guess was from students that didn't manage to switch schools in time.

I cannot say much about the attitude of teachers as I'm sure the staff at the school now are completely different people that I have never met but when I attended I found you could count on your hand how many teachers and members of staff you could safely talk to. Every school has their scary teacher but when it's quite a few of them that you seen each week that end up being ruthless to their students It gets a little questionable.

I write this as I have family members who attend this school and from what I've heard the school hasn't changed. I still have contact with former classmates that have their own scary stories to tell about their years at this school and from what they have told me for years bullying was the main topic of their struggles each time I've asked. If you have students looking towards harm to themselves due to your own staff not properly dealing with harassment and physical assaults within the children that attend then that is on you, not the child.

The school is very poor and incapable of safe guarding students. The possibility of reaching academic targets is low, as is students making good progress. SLT need to take responsibility for damage done to students due to weak leadership.
Estyn should be doing an urgent inspection of the school. The correct support needs to be in place to ensure student safety.

This school is the worst. I've experienced multiple situations where teachers have shown zero respect towards their students. For example, I was told I'd fail my English exam and degraded because the current books we were working on were extremely triggering with past experiences I've had. This was by the head of English... While my head of year watched while she did this, even while I was sobbing my eyes out.

Not only that but while they claim to look out for those mentally ill or suffering, they are completely ignorant and uneducated. My friend had HEALED scars on her legs and she was told to cover them up because she may influence others to self harm too and that she was showing them off which is so stupid. People with self harm scars still have to live with their scars and there's almost no way to get rid of them so it's disturbing to tell children that they should cover up something like that when they've healed.

The amount of times I've been told to 'ignore' homophobia and transphobia in my school is disgusting. It also shows how little of an understanding these people have of the kind of effect being dead named, misgendered, having slurs shouted at has.

If you care about your childs mental health, do NOT send them here.

I go there now, I'm in year 10 and this school sucks! They do nothing about homophobia, transphobia or bullying or any of that stuff, instead they just give a kid a gentle slap on the wrist and tell them no, in year 9 alone I suffered sexual harassment, abuse from an ex, sexual assault, assault and much more, I talked to the school about this and all they did was talk to the children! Not even call the child's parents or anything! It's not recommended unless your going to bully everyone - grace

Can’t provide good school meals meats always raw . Teachers constantly try argue with students including me over anything small .they don’t understand mental disorders and tell it ain’t hard . They make u feel like crap all day long honestly need to change !!! Can’t be 2 seconds late without being challenged!

I have moved on from this school and it has been the best thing I have ever done, same for my sibling. They are now top of there year in there new school and dinas bran ruined there mental health. Same with me, I will carry these memory’s for the rest of my life. I was sexually harassed for three years and they did nothing. They made me sit in a room and shake hands with the boy who did that. They didn’t help me with my special needs and the ridicule you get off fellow students just for being slightly different is ridiculous, the homophobia and transphobia is high. I was kicked down a hill nearly everyday for 4 weeks. They didn’t do anything now my ankle gives way when I walk.
I will give credit to Mrs. McDonald, Mrs Griffiths Re and Mrs Griffiths Geography, they made that school so much better. Without them I would not have made it out of there.