King Edward VI Church of England Voluntary Controlled Upper School

the teachers here are so trivial and are always constantly nit picking on students for the littlest issues. making us get out equipment every lesson and signing uniform cards if we fail to have one single piece of equipment, which if we get 6 card signings we receive a half hour detention. canteen food is overpriced, and generally bad - i once paid 2 pounds to have a panini that had mould all over it

Sexual harassment at kegs is everywhere. When a girl in year 11 raised this issue with staff they did absolutely nothing. She then led an anonymous survey to prove to staff that this was an issue. The survey had over 100 responses with examples and names and the school still did nothing. The attitude went from 'inspiring'and ' pioneer for equality' to 'if these claims are really true' as soon as things became difficult.

Overall, their handling of online learning and this year's (2021) GCSEs has been appalling. During the first lockdown in 2020, there was no form of remote teaching for a whole term. We were given worksheets (which had no consistency across subjects- some could take thirty minutes and others could take three hours). After a term of this, they finally set up a platform where teachers could post videos of the lesson. There was no form of interactive learning until the next academic year's lockdown.

We were first told our mocks would be at the beginning of the spring term in January. Over Christmas we went into lockdown. We received no new date for our mock exams, and were instead told to keep revising 2+ hours a day indefinitely, on top of the school day. We did not receive any date for the mock exams until early March, telling us the mocks would be in two weeks. After these mocks, we were then told there would be a second set of 'opportunities' that would contribute to our final GCSE grade. We were not told when or even what these 'opportunities' would be and were instead told to continue 2+ hours of revision on all of the course content. In May we were finally given some details about these exams, however I didn't find out about the location of some of these exams until the day of them.

However, this exam experience is far from the worst. I had a friend who required being in a smaller, seperate room during exams. She also had extra time, until three days before the first mock, she was phoned and told this had been removed. She was only phoned because one of her teachers had heard this information and thought to tell her in advance, not the designated exams officer. Otherwise, she would have gone in blind. However, in almost all of the trial exams, she was not given the conditions required. She was not told her room address, she was given the wrong paper (maths foundation when she was doing higher), and then asked if she was sure it was wrong, then told to do it anyway (not an isolated event, the exact same thing happened to a student in the year above) and then found out there were no spare higher exam papers in the room, so was told to find the exams officer, who was not in their office, and eventually had to take one from the main room where the majority of students were sitting their exam, creating a highly stressful situation all because the envigilator assumed that anybody who had special requirements could not be doing a higher paper.

During the second set of exams, my friend was hospitalised. She arranged different dates to sit the exams, but was still on medication that limited her capacity for logical thinking, and in a lot of pain. She was assured this would be taken into account when these tests were used as evidence. It was not. Her additional requirements were also rarely met in the second set of exams. She was rarely placed into a seperate room. During an English exam, everyone else in the year was allowed fifteen minutes of additional planning time. When she told the envigilator about this, the envigilator did not believe her and made no attempt to check and she sat the exam with fifteen minutes less than everyone else. She was once again told this would be taken into account when calculating her final grade. It was not.

During the second set of exams there was also inconsistency between classes. Some English classes were told the question we would be writing an essay on in advance whereas others were told on the day. The lunchtime before a maths exam, year 11 were told we would have to sit outside on a car park when it was raining because <10 year 8 students needed the lower hall for PE. Apparently these students could not go into another PE set for one lesson, until they could, with ten minutes of lunch remaining.

There's been no sports day or school year charity events aside from non uniform days. There is very little PSHE. Contraception, STDs and the menstrual cycle are covered in a biology unit, but there's no meaningful education on mental health (that goes beyond 'talk to your depressed friends!') or consent, harassment, drug use or abuse. There's very little personal support. There are very few clubs that are not athletic. The quality of teaching varies wildly. In most areas it's average, but if you have any additional needs (whether that's due to a global pandemic, mental health or learning difficulties) they will not be met.

I’ve been here 4 years now and I and many others are now in education whilst in covid. I have been in isolation 5 times now back to back because the school don’t know how to handle it. All the teachers think that they are right and anything other than their opinion is wrong. They don’t know how to handle a situation properly. When I was in year7 I didn’t know what was normal but and the teachers were rude to me but now I know what basic human decency is I don’t put up with it anymore and if a teacher goes over the line I’m not afraid anymore to tell them. I regret going there. In saying all that I have probably had a great time there but at the same time I have had my worst

They do not care about their student mental health or personal issues. They say that they do and they present assemblies on how they support students but in reality if a student went to go seek help they would get literally nothing in return

The way they have handled COVID has not been great. We end up mixing with other years even though they say we are not. Our lunch is always cold as we eat late