Castle Douglas High School

This school has no mental support at all and lacks any sort of remorse for pupils by far the worst school I’ve seen in the area

In terms of teaching staff, CDHS for the most part is exceptional as the teachers are kind and understanding, and clearly care for the students, with brilliant expertise. Unfortunately, apart from this, the school contains many faults. Mental health support is poor, and the help provided is poor, as I have experienced this over the years. There doesn’t seem to be much done, at least from my stance. Additionally, the school has a code against bullying and yet bullying is witnessed daily with nothing done about it. It is a toxic environment for students a lot of time, greatly impacting performance and health. The staff can also be changed, as teachers are in and out of school a lot, impacting grades. There is a lack of subject choice and students must attend other schools throughout the week to pick up extra subjects they want to take, which interrupts the daily schedule and creates disruption. Finally, there is a lack of funding causing teachers, such as in the art department to have to PAY for materials to be used by students. Visually, the school is nothing to be desired either.. This is not a terrible school for the average child, but in some cases is detrimental to certain youths mental health and education!

Absolutely ridiculous when it comes to mental health support. It’s genuinelythe worst school I’ve heard about in regards to this. A number of pupils have experienced suicidal thoughts/anxiety/self harm and friends/family/guardians have expressed their concerns to the school of which they have received NO care at all, in most cases not even a response. Do not send your child there, for the sake of their own well-being.

This school is absolutely rubbish to be honest

During covid times students had no place to self study, because they removed the common room for senior pupils. Whenever students would study or eat their lunch in the large open spaced hall they would be asked to leave and revise/ eat outside even if it was cold or sometimes raining. In addition, when students would reach out for help with bullying and physical harm staff did nothing to help. Little was done in relation to mental health, mental health was not acknowledged and some teachers were very disrespectful and very few were understanding. The school provided fun activities such as school of dance, however students spent hours bag packing in Tesco to save up for a trip, all the money was taken and given to the school instead of rewarding the students. This school priorities itself and not the pupils!

This school is not one of recommend if you are looking to take any subjects you’d like or do not want to be bullied. There is barely any mental health support other than a lovely woman who comes in twice a week, but she does not work for the school. The school staff are almost completely unhelpful when it comes to this. Bullying is the same, they just do not do anything of any help except from telling the person not to do it again. They also offer few subjects due to low budget so you will be transferred to another school a few times a week, which is regularly cancelled. The teachers themselves are amazing, I cannot fault them, but some support staff and some things are just not great.

They coped great during the pandemic.