Avon Valley College

As a former student, I have to say this school is dreadful and on the verge of needing to be permanently closed.

It is severely rundown and the staff seemingly lack the needed skills to teach their subject efficiently - I didn't notice how serious this issue was until I got to year 10/11 and was studying at GCSE level. This is where I saw that majority of the teachers were just as clueless as I was about a subject THEY were supposed to be teaching? This caused me and my peers grades to be significantly lower than what we could have achieved.
When a whole class got a poor result on an exam, the teacher would then blame us for not listening instead of their poor teaching (this would happen often even in higher set classes)

Aswell as this, because of the schools location, majority of students are army and move around every couple of years. This causes an unstable environment in school as the majority lack social skills and consequently there is a terrible bullying problem. The students also have issues with vandalism and fighting.

I write this review as a warning that if you are thinking of sending your child here you will need to reconsider. Especially if your child is SEN and needs extra support, this school offers none. My 5 years at the school were the unhappiest 5 years of my life.

I'm a year 9 sᴛᴜᴅᴇɴᴛ ᎯᎿ 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙖𝙘𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙢𝙮 and it's horrible here

I went there several years ago, so things may have changed, but my experience was awful.

As a SEN student, Avon valley offered very little in the way of support. The buildings and facilities were inaccessible and curbs and raised door frames were consistently unmarked, not to mention the derelict state of the buildings. At one point during my time there, part of the roof of A block broke off and we had to be sent home because of the danger it presented - when I left after year eight, it still hadn’t been repaired.

The majority of staff, though supportive, couldn’t control unruly students. Crime and bullying ran unchecked, and budget cuts meant that non-core subjects like Art, DT and home economics got struck from the curriculum.

I genuinely believed that if I hadn’t left AVC after two years, I wouldn’t have made it through my GCSEs. As it is, bullying, a lack of support, and the conditions of the school led me to develop several anxiety disorders. I didn’t want to go to school. It wasn’t a safe place.

The food was good though.