Auckland College

Constant change of teachers, staff underpaid, bullying and extreme discipline issues, leadership significant problems (headteachers constantly get changed). Especially this is all in secondary. The GCSE results for this school are very bad, last year 17% of students got a strong pass (5+), and this is well below the national average. I can understand why as that particular class was really bad.

The school is very cramped aswell as pupils from all year groups (reception to year 11) are all in one school. A teacher could be changing a nappy of a small child and a secondary school student could just walk past the bathroom and see this. Therefore, no privacy or security at all.

Wouldn't recommend coming here.

Auckland College used to be rated an Outstanding school by Ofsted. Now, it’s rating has gone down to good. I think it deserves ‘Requires Improvement.’

First of all, the teachers. Whilst most of them are nice, there is a lot of disruption with some. The science teacher that used to work there was changed 4 times in one year (this was a few years ago), because the school was holding her back even though she was supposed to be on retirement. Therefore, when the science teacher took some leave there were 4 substitue teachers whilst she was gone. So disruptive, given that they didn't even know the material that the classes were covering. My child who was studying in the GCSE year was given the completely wrong material for several weeks, and this reflects on their GCSE results for the latest year and years before (which can be found on schoolcompare).

Next, leadership. Non-existent, extremely inconsistent. A very misleading video on the website which later got taken down. The head of the school was changed twice (2 of them left), and there are no after school activities for children in secondary school; they introduced an 'enrichment program' once for 1 hour after school, and the children were doing absolutely nothing and were not focusing at all. My child came home after sitting an extra hour in school for nothing. The program was taken down after about 2 weeks.


Next, discipline and students. The discipline in this school is second to none. It is difficult to believe, given that it is a private school, but it is the truth. There are fights in this school, where people pull each others hair and fight on the floor. As well as this, in lessons such as Maths and English, there is significant disruption. Pupils blare music (really inappropriate music), and the teachers do nothing about it. This continues and the pupil doesn't even get suspended/expelled. Therefore, it is unbearable for other pupils and they don't learn much at all, this really does reflect in their results.

The food here is terrible as well, the cheapest possible food. Just cold pasta, occasionally hot beans and potatoes; not healthy at all. They advertise a ‘salad bar’ on the website. This is completely nonexistent. On Fridays they only serve sandwiches, and the only choices really are ham and cheese as they were are almost always out of tuna.So many lunch ladies have left because of poor pay as well.

Overall, do not send your child to this school. They pay the staff unfairly, and as well as this, they do not treat smart pupils with respect. Children who are disruptive never get any consequences; some of the things that they say (constant swearing), and do (play really inappropriate music with words that I didn’t even know existed as an adult), are just so, so bad and they are just allowed to get away with it. The food is terrible; not healthy and so repetitive, salads/soups are non-existent. The leadership is terrible and the headteachers constantly get changed, not a healthy environment. So many bad students which can impact other students mental health.

I really, really do not recommend this school.