King's Norton Boys' School

Its taken years of therapy to deal with the trauma this school gave me and escape the countless false rumours started and spread about me. For a school that had a student commit suicide due to bullying the year prior to my starting there was far more interest in sweeping that under the rug and moving on than there was an attempt to actually address the bullying issue that plauged the school.

I could never decide if the teachers didnt care or were just particulary dense when it came to reading the enviroment around them. I was beaten up multiple times to no consequences on the bullies part as they were "Top students" or part of the public facing sports teams, effectively making them untouchable. On the ONE occasion we managed to arrange a "bullying discussion" between the deputy head and another teacher we were genuinely met with the response "X Student gets A*'s, he wouldnt do that..."

Majority of teachers focused on the top mark scoring kids and berrated the ones who couldnt keep up rather than choosing to help them. A prime example of this was my ICT GCSE Class where 3 students had 179 of 180 marks on their coursework while the majority of the class (an additonal 20 kids) sat between 30 and 50 marks. The teacher deciced to start all classes praising the 3 and eventually 5 students who made it to 179/180 while telling the rest of us we werent doing good enough and spending the lesson at the beckon call of the top students and damn near unavailable to the rest of us. At one point he even told me "Your coursework is so bad youll need an A* in the exam to scrape a C overall". Brilliant Morale boost.

Very few teachers werent on power trips, they really seemed to get off on talking down to us yet demanding respect in return. then preaching how respect is earned not given in the same sentence.

Multiple teachers got into inapropriate relationships that usually resulted in one of them leaving and the related classes suffering. Substitutes VERY rarely had subject experience and this resulted in the religious education class of my year effectively going into their GCSEs blind and with minimal coursework as they just hadnt had any decent quality teachers in the 2 years their teacher had been on Maternity leave. She returned about 4 days prior to GCSEs to wish them well and ended up having a meltdown as they had very little to show for 2 years "coursework".

Even now its become a King edwards academy I see plenty of problem teachers have carried over so I expect very little has changed. You cant fix an issue like this until you cut the rot out at its core.

If you value your childs sanity and dont have the spare change for A LOT of therapy. Dont send your children here.

Teachers end up doing nothing to help bullying despite their so called anti bullying policy. Ultimately resulting in my son and his mom being taunted and threatened by as many as 30 to 40 students. Even when caught on camera they wouldn't do anything. If your kids not able to look after themselves this isn't the school for your kids at all.

KNBS is simply not at all consistent in the quality of its provision. Some teachers seem to try, others seem to be there for just another day to pass. Parents evening - once a year. Do not expect any other feedback, unless it is behaviour related. Some reports come twice a year - some formal grading is given out of context, but even that is missing on some subjects. Home works often come of crinkled sheets of paper. The Satchel system used for home assignments is used for some but not for all home works - try to stay on top of what is where. From it sometimes there are references to other sources and sometimes the deadlines for them disagree. On a few occasions the home works have given the wrong definitions - disappointing. In my son's first year I got a phone call to tell me he is not at school. It made me so alarmed although I drop him there each morning. They did not know he was there. Eventually found him. No apologies. On a few occasions I sent messages to via e-mail - no one is in any rush to answer them and usually it is too late and my issues are still unresolved. If we parents drop off or pick up our sons we get glared by the teachers for parking too close to the school for their liking. But, there are no parking restrictions, and it is not our fault that the road is narrow and there are 800 of them coming out at the end of the day. If my son were more interested in learning I'd move him to a better school. This is the kind of school where anyone can somehow get through because nothing much is required. Oh, they bang on about all sorts of big things and their ethos, etc - nothing much in action though. Bullying amongst the kids is common. I would not recommend it to anyone. Probably too big for its own good.

My son has been in this school since September 2022.I am very pleased with it ,his last school in Cotteridge (he came home with bruises on his legs /from other lads ..every week ..and his grades have improved a lot ...when he started ,they ,tested him and said he had a reading capability of a 9 yr old ..with lots of help he has been given ,that has now been resolved ..I was worried about him starting secondary school with much older children …but he has settled in like …a duck to water …