Altrincham Grammar School for Girls

Just want to speak up about my experience at AGGS. The school is extremely racist. I went there a while ago and they banned braided hair. My teacher pulled me out of class and told me they don’t want to see my hair like this saying it was too ‘wild’ and inappropriate for school when it is part of my African culture and a protective hairstyle. When I didn’t take my hair out as if my hair was in the sun for too long it would shrink and cause damage he harassed me about it until my parents had to step in. The teacher never apologised about it but proceeded to make a classist comment about my low income family. That teacher relentlessly harassed me on a daily basis making comments about my appearance, the way I looked and acted would often belittle me and would even stop me at school to search my bag (which is truly so degrading). Around the same time I was also getting bullied and developed an eating disorder at the age of 11. The teacher further would warn all my other teachers about me saying that I was a problem at school I went almost insane as I felt like my teachers were watching me EXTRA closely. I tried my hardest but no matter what I always felt like I was never good enough. I became very withdrawn and just stopped talking. My parents became very worried about me but I just pretended I was fine. I started to really mess up at school at some point as I was going through stuff at home and was getting very badly bullied. Not only did the teachers not care but would make me feel as though it was my fault. I developed a self blame self concept which continued into adulthood. This is only the surface of just how terrible Aggs was for me. Everyone has a different experience and each one is valid I just want to share my own experience and maybe if someone is going through the same thing they are not alone. I’m sure AGGS has changed since then as it’s been some time since I’ve been there but judging by some younger people that I spoke to who also go there I don’t think it has changed very much. The ironic thing about AGGS is that the system they set up creates its own problems. For example the unrealistic standards set creates people who are bullies as a way of dealing with this and then people who are victims of said bullies. The bullies get praised for being “perfect” and the victims get punished by the system for being “imperfect” however they are really all human and deserve better treatment from this school. I understand wanting to achieve academic success I really do but in price of your mental health. Nope. And if you are thinking of sending your child there just warning that although your grades will be excellent just as my GCSEs were you pay the price with your mental health.

Not a good school for A levels at all. They made even their Mock exams so hard so that their students won't get good predicted grades for their university admissions. Many of them told not to sent my kid here,should have listened to them. Better go to any other schools for your kids A levels

AGGS brags about being an outstanding school in terms of grades, but in truth, the school offers a terrible working environment. Most students who get good grades get external help through tutors outside of school, worsening the class divide already apparent in the school. Little help is given to those who struggle with school work, and the teachers shame those who have trouble grasping difficult topics in class. Pastoral care is terrible, and school offers little to no help for students who are or could be neurodiverse. In fact, I would advise students against seeking help from the school as it is simply not worth it, the waiting list for the school nurse being over 3 months. The most shocking part to me though is how most teachers at the school either lack any kind of pastoral training or simply don't care for the well-being of students. So many of the teachers use harsh words towards the young people at the school for the littlest things. The priorities of the school are flipped upside down. Why do they care more about a rolled skirt more than the health of a child who is clearly suffering? The same teachers who preach the importance of taking care of ones health during assemblies, are the same ones who harshly condemn students for trivial things such as earrings and then turn a blind eye when a student is silently crying for help. It is disgusting to me how little some of the staff care for the students, and how they only care about grades and exams. Further, as a single-sex school, students should feel more comfortable with expressing themselves without fear of male judgement and misogyny, but sadly this is not the case. The school preaches gender equality and women's rights, yet decide putting a blanket ban on skirts in the sixth form is a reasonable thing to do. This ban is supposedly due to the concern over the skirt lengths of a few of the students, so now everyone is being forced into wearing something which they may not be comfortable in. What happened to women's rights? What happened to the 'women should be treated no different from men' attitude? It saddens me how the administration could make such a profound change without consulting the parents or students. The school has so much potential to create a safe environment for students, yet it is quite the opposite. Students are uncomfortable around their teachers, and would rather suffer in silence than seek help from the staff. What a shame. This all being said, the students at the school are very well behaved, meaning lessons are never too chaotic, but this is due to cultural factors and the demographic of the school (e.g. there are no male students) rather than the school itself teaching discipline. Another positive is that although lots of the teachers seem apathetic towards students, there a select few teachers who genuinely care for their students, and it shows in pupils attitudes towards in their classes compared to other teachers. I only wish there were more teachers like them.

All I can say is you better get ready for pressure and a lot of self learning. Mental issues are through the roof and no one cares. Even ofsted is in their pockets as they got it reviewed and it took weeks to come out. No one gives one and the food is expensive and crap, bad as aggs.

Delighted and DD very happy.

Word of caution about the staff this school employs and their ability to turn a blind eye to the wrongdoings. A teacher and his accomplice from this school squatted in someone’s home , verbally assaulted, harassed and threatened homeowners and refused to leave before being taken out by police. Be very careful since this is the environment that is apparently nurturing students.

this place kinda sucks i have some positives and negatives tho ✅pros ✅ 1.the outside area is pretty 2.the students are friendly 3.crumpets are AMAZING 4.some of the teachers are nice 5.i love the library 6.the sixth form cafe is great 7.lots of nice little bake sales ❌cons❌ 1.pe kit is uncomfortable and ugly 2.the pasta `sauce’ is literally just water 3.why aren’t we allowed to take paninis outside? 4.there are very few teachers that are genuinely nice (kudos to all the teachers that are ?) 5.some of the inside rooms are nasty and the changing rooms have NO ventilation whatsoever 6.the school is infested with karens 7.they NEVER,EVER clean the bathrooms 8.we’re not allowed ANY INDIVIDUALITY AT ALL. 9.they hardly ever talk about diverse history 10.the most boring assemblies ever 11.all they ever do is hockey and netball.i mean COME ON.i don’t want to do only hockey and netball. i wanna try out new sports. 12.why aren’t we allowed to roll up our skirts??? 13.they hardly ever sell those good cakes with the hardened icing 14.they act like they care about mental health when they don’t. 15.they never clean the gum under the tables.i realised that in year 7. overall this school is pretty lame and there are lots of better schools out there

positives: there's a great range of extracurriculars here and the buildings are pretty too. some of the teachers are lovely (shout out to mr humphreys especially he genuinely cares abt his students) and the food is pretty good if overpriced. negatives: class divide. about half of students have tutors in more than one subject - it really puts pressure on those who don't. some cultural issues are sort of impossible to fix because everyone here is reasonably smart which creates a lot of competition. yet the staff could easily discourage students from sharing test results and reminding everyone of how many days it is until their gcses but they just don't. 7 = bad grade: not many teachers tell students to be positive about a 'lower' score either. the in school resources aren't great and teachers don't really help with revision either. the trips are literally thousands of pounds. i really don't understand why aggs will spend so long talking about racism, sexism + homophobia (and make the students talk abt transphobia lol) but not mention the intersectionality of all those things w/ poverty. it's insane. teachers also seem to have about no training on recognising and dealing w/ students who are neurodiverse, instead preferring to embarrass students who have difficulty concentrating in lessons. liberty is just a concept here: the school force you to do specific revision and wellbeing activities as if those will work for everyone. the response to a certain petition created a few years ago was shocking, and the school effectively used their power to silence its students. but im sure they'll ignore all this anyway lol

Daughter very happy there. Lovely friends, lovely parents. Very mixed demographic - some from prep schools and others from state primaries. Highly diverse - love this - life is diverse, work, university and society is diverse so prepares children well. Very aspirational culture so suits able, conscientious children who want to do well. Daughter feels very proud to be there and whilst she finds it academically stretching, she rises to the challenge but has the confidence and drive to do so. I am sure it wouldn’t suit everyone for these reasons but as a parent I couldn’t be more impressed or happy with the quality of teaching, the drive, variety of subjects, fantastic sports facilities, careers provision and aspirational culture.

AGGS really do not care about any type of diversity. The pastoral care is non existent and they favour the rich that can afford to spend 1000s on tutoring to get the high grades. Otherwise you’re asked to leave if you are getting.low ones. Teachers have faves and there’s only a few teachers that really care. The head is so scary and is only bothered about results and her new building. Results are paid for by parents but the suicidal tendencies, mental health, cutting, drugs, anorexia, bullying is paid for by us. Be prepared to lose your confidence and feel bad about yourself.

this school sucks 1- they give out detentions for forgetting ur book once 2- not allowed to support palestine, but supporting ukraine is advised? 3- extremely racist and islamaphobic even tho half the students are muslim or poc 4- transphobic and homophobic 5- refer to us all as girls 6- some certain teachers refuse to help year 7s if they need help 7- too much homework and still make you do it if u have a broken hand and stuff 8- bullying. 9- teachers dont give a flying f about our mental health and most are racist tories 10- netball girls are the equivalent of football boys 11- misogynistic 12- some people dont even know what politics means 13- everyone blatantly cheats on exams and tests and no one cares somehow 14- ppl lying about wether or not they revised to make u feel bad 15- worst facilities ever 16- kids get blamed not teachers for things we didnt do 17- i found mould in 3 paninis in the space of one week 18- food is overpriced and hardly any options if u go in last 19- teachers dont care about us bc they dont get paid enough 20- cant complain about anything cos u will indefinitely get a detention 21- they want us all to be the same 22- the sixth form cafe- liz (dinnerlady who lets y12s and 13s push in) chased a kid out of the building because they put a suso down too hard 23- that one year 12 shoves us all out the way when were not even close to her 24- feeling bad about a high score because that one person in ur form got higher 25- teachers reading out ur scores to the whole form 26- exam week for year 7s 27- no individuality allowed 28- clear difference between who can afford things and who might not be able to 29- they never tell us about any changes that happen in our school and then get mad at us for not knowing 30- make you sit on the crusty floor that they dont clean 31- why arent we allowed on the front lawn???? 32- never speak back to a supply teacher cos they will snitch 33- memepages about the school 34- even if the memepage follows u and u dont follow them u get questioned by ur head of year 35- take peoples phones over the holidays 36- leggings under skorts rule 37- toxic af place 38- smells weird 39- teachers dont let u go toilet even on ur period 40- teachers will hate you for being a year 7 (sorry mate not my fault, blame my mum and dad)

lets start w the positive (haha) - everyone wants to learn to atmosphere is not disruptive - students are diverse and usually nice - some teachers work really hard esp during lockdown (shoutout to dr yong) - women in stem!!! - lots of extracurriculars - disciplined - nice outside area centenary garden's kinda cute and breezehill has heated floor in that one room negatives - assembly twice a week ab the most useless topics...and we have to sit on the floor. When the topics are good, they are often poorly explained and not given by someone who has necessarily experienced those things basically i'm saying straight white ppl expressing their white guilt through an assembly to a very diverse group of high school pupils (mrs clearie) - bro can some teachers stop w the pedophilia i don't need to be sexualised in my pe kit thanks - hypocrisy from teachers. - making it seem like an average grade is bad, like yes it's important to push yourself but belittling someone's worth just because of a bad mark?? this way of thinking is set by teachers but very much fuelled by students and also parent's expectations. competitive and toxic atmosphere asf - sick of the way pastoral team treat sensitive situations like bullying, sa and mental health issues are handled so badly i want to cry. dont trust school w ur problems it only makes it worse. then they take the littlest things seriously like bro focus on the bigger picture pls. - people pretending to be bi (i like girls but would never date one). please stop. - school tries to control its students sm like why are we not allowed to wear our coats around school and . calm urself lol - students not taken seriously and useless rules. phones and letters home for the stupidest stuff - only cares ab science they get all the funding - teachers are smart but dk how to teach - some teachers don't put the effort in because they know we will so don't bother to teach us instead the just say 'do pages 10-15 and you will get what to do' nah bro that's not how it works - food is overpriced we get that youse are all capitalist loving tories but really?? - tastes shitee aswell barely and vegetarian, jain, vegan and halal options

went here all the way up until sixth form and finally left this hell hole in 2019. 7 whole years all i got was depression, anxiety and undiagnosed autism, sitting both GCSEs and A Levels with all of these and no support!!! (the councillors were terrible). also so much bullying, being a girls school it was so difficult as girls were very nasty. solutions in this school were to sit in a room with the bully and a teacher and "talk it out" which usually just made matters worse as you'd be bullied for reporting the bullying. teachers were very hit and miss, it's a teaching school so they also get a lot of trainees and boy, if you get one of these during your GCSE or A Level lessons, good luck! some teachers were fantastic and others just couldn't teach for the life of them. there was definitely a lot of favouritism with some teachers blatantly doing this, Ms Mayall was... yikes, as well as some of the PE teachers. there was also a few teachers that were lowkey a little racist, not entirely obvious but it was clear that they did sort of favour white girls a little as opposed to the girls of colour - considering there were a lot of girls of colour it wasn't right at all. sodexo brownies used to be so good before they charged more for brownies a quarter of the size, extremely depressing as they were the only things that got me through those seven years. the lady who worked the canteen in the sixth form cafe though (i'm so sorry i don't 100% remember her name but i believe it was Liz) was very lovely to us once we reached sixth form and the food was nicer there! i had a bad experience here but the biggest shoutout goes to Mrs Langridge, she was an absolute angel - she was my sixth form form tutor and she was so sweet, really helped me through some tough times even with the most simple conversations, even though she probably doesn't realise it ? Mrs Downing was also an absolute queen of a biology teacher all the way through, so sweet yet so good at teaching so i'll always appreciate her a lot too ❤

It could totally be worse, but it SHOULD be so much better. They pay no attention to mental health unless it's causing harm (that they can see) to a student's grades, but LOVE giving assembly after assembly and lecture after lecture on why 'we care' and 'you can talk to us and ask for help'. If those things were true? Great. But nooooo. No matter how obviously a student is struggling (and sometimes even when the school have been explicitly told), they only ever provide help when our academics are being pushed to below a level they're okay with. The level of virtue signalling and lack of care is frustrating at the best of times, and outright harmful at the worst. Some of the teachers are amazing, sure, and they work really hard to support everyone, but loads don't teach us the material we need to know, and expect us to self-teach the material in our own time - not mean homework to reinforce previous learning, but teaching the material to ourselves having never been taught it in the first place. They advertise themselves as one of the highest achieving schools in the country, but that's basically due to the students going above and beyond reasonable expectations, not the school itself. Most of our learning is completely geared towards how to pass a test, rather than with any intention of truly fostering knowledge and understanding. I don't have a problem with learning information that is not strictly speaking 'necessary' at all, I know knowledge and learning are important in their own right, however there's no point in simply 'learning' to pass a test, in such a way that it realistically gives no indication of our actual understanding of a subject, and we are more likely to just forget the information after the test than to remember it long-term. I get that this is really a problem with the education system as a whole, but the school takes it to extremes. They also REALLY want us to be machines. Like, they'd probably rather we literally all looked identical, sat silently through lessons, and had absolutely no opinions of our own. Piercings or hair dye? Forget it. People get harassed for refusing to remove healing ear piercings with literally NO regard for their mental health. Assemblies could be taught by teachers with actual experience of the issues, because our staff is pretty varied, but nah, always the same 3 teachers who really have no clue. Oh, and a trainee teacher stopped me going to the loo for no reason even though I was literally on my period. No 'sure you can't wait for the end of the lesson?', just a straight up no. The school don't provide enough indoor space for younger years to eat lunch, and although there are some outdoor benches, they aren't usable for many weather conditions, especially because students aren't allowed to wear coats around school during school hours. Most of the benches are unsheltered, and even if they all were sheltered, there wouldn't be enough for everyone. People end up eating standing up or hiding in locker rooms/toilets. The only indoor spaces where they can eat or even go to stay out of the rain are the dining hall or any lunchtime clubs they might attend, and the dining hall has time restrictions placed on when people can be inside it, meaning that before a student enters or after a student leaves, they usually have to wait outside in horrible weather or hide in the school toilets. It's unfair to expect students to either attend a lunchtime club every day, hide in the toilets, or wait outside in weather that is often some combination of rain, freezing cold, and wind, it being England and all. This is less of a problem for students in older years, as they are allowed to eat in their form rooms, but they are stopped from socialising with friends because they aren't allowed in other form rooms, and it's still not okay to expect students in younger years to deal with this. This is also something that has been repeatedly brought up to teachers for years, and the student body has been ignored or brushed off with no compassion or understanding by senior leadership, even when other teachers have agreed with us. Recently, several students have been made very uncomfortable by some of the teachers making comments about their bodies. I don't know what happened or what was said, but it doesn't really matter. When most of the student body was super uncertain and on edge, instead of taking the time to talk to us, they tried to end any and all complaints and told us to change the uniform that they had previously had no problems with us wearing, for reasons that they completely failed to communicate to us, but feel a lot like a reiteration of the message that someone should change their outfit to stop someone else making them uncomfortable, rather than the other person just not taking clothing as an invitation or excuse for their actions. There are teachers who ARE amazing though. There are some teachers who go above and beyond to help students, and I can't say enough how important they are to the school as a whole. They are so, so appreciated by the students, and it is so valuable for individuals to have teachers that they DO feel comfortable going to when they have a problem or need help/advice. The school as a whole gives so little value to (read: doesn't give a shit about) student wellbeing compared to academic performance, and desperately needs to reassess why they are actually academically high-achieving, and it needs to listen to students on a much larger scale, as well as not pick and choose which feedback they follow through on based on what they care about or what is easiest for them. Unfortunately, my opinion doesn't matter. Or the VERY similar opinions of almost everyone else who has left Alty a review on this site. Because the school don't care. They'll continue to lie about caring and blame us for problems they cause, because that's what they always do. If it works, right? Also, they flaunt that outstanding Ofsted rating like a 6 year old who just won a medal of participation at their first gymnastics competition.

crappiest place Ever they ruin your mental health and expect everyone to be geniuses. Create family problems don't know what privacy is and will hunt you down until you're ruined. the school is so broke you'd be glad your child didn't go here.

1 - i've been bullied multiple times here and the school did nothing but make it worse. 2 - my mental illness got so much worse when i came here, school didn't care until i started failing classes, even then did nothing 3 - lol yeah there are so many pro-ana students here 4 - continue to call us girls when many students aren't even girls 5 - (SOME) teachers will ignore you if you ask for help 6 - offer basically no good subjects for gcse / alevel 7 - you will have to teach yourself everything lol and also if you even want hope of passing ur gcses u better get a tutor 8 - racist as hell but will ofc preach abt how diverse they r online 9 - smells bad tbh 10 - so many p3d0s. at least 5 here and only like 2 got fired after AGES. 11 - true the whole school is infested with wasps 12 - !! TW SH !! the mental health team here is so bad. one of the nurses literally taught me how to s3lf h4rm. and also a teacher literally yelled at me when my scars were visible because it was a 'bad influence' on the y7s??

1. everyone here is privileged and obnoxious 2. so many pro-ana mfers 3. sixth form is shite and the pastoral team there are patronising 4. transphobia 5. half the schools brown yet the staff cant address racism 6. they pressure u into going to the sixth form 7. B = bad grade 8. rubbish subject variety 9. r4pe culture. 10. heteronormative terfy feminism 11. they only just shut up about jk rowling as a feminist icon 12. west wing smells dutty 13. the schools a greenhouse mannnnnnn 14. they aren't lying when they said u will come out mentally ill. i was fine before i came here 15. they don't take student voices into consideration and the headmaster is practically inaccessible

You will most likely become mentally ill, but you can get good grades if you work really hard and probably have a tutor.

the teachers kinda hot though