Mackie Academy

Absolutely love this school I’m in my last year, yeah, I’ve had my ups and downs here but doesn’t everyone. Most of the teachers are really nice, helpful and respectful and easy to get along with. It’s opened up many opportunities for me. My advice for anyone going to Mackie is just to try and stay on the right side of everything and do your best and your time there should be good. :)

The zero tolerance policy is completely useless. Both students suspended 9 times out of 10, even if one was only acting in self defence.

The food is good but expensive. It’s almost a pound for a can of off brand fizz.

It’s awful, I was bullied out of there by both teachers and students leaving me with trauma and severe mental health issues. When the issues were raised with the school they treated me as tho I was the problem and made no effort to change anything. I don’t know a single person that has gone there that hasn’t hated it. There is next to no support for students with learning difficulties, mental illnesses or any form of divergence from the “norm” I was punished with detentions, and was shamed in front of many people multiple times when I had been absent due to disabilities or if my work was subpar (due to my learning disabilities that I received no support for) when I finally did receive support from the Sfl team the teachers shouted the sfl staff down and took away what few accommodations I had received. I’ve seen no evidence of change since I left and have multiple friends that still attend school there. Unless serious change were to happen I would advise people to avoid it if at all possible.

A lot of the upper staff are genuinely nice people trying to improve the school, but I think they’re missing the mark in a lot of cases. The drug education could do with looking into what actually works - trained professionals teaching the classes rather than police as many students have had bad experiences with the police, and actually teaching and developing the social skills to refuse drugs rather than just telling us to say no to them. We also need to consider that many students will take drugs anyway, and we need to equip them with the skills to have that experience in the safest way they can; having a sober friend there to look after them, teaching them there’s kits you can get online to test what’s in your drugs to make sure they’re not laced with anything making them more dangerous, how to get out of a bad trip (being in a comfortable familiar environment, listen to good music, how to dose safely - taking too much your first time can give you a horrible anxious time, not mixing your drugs with other drug or alcohol as that can increase the risk to an incredible degree.

As for mental health, they do teach some valuable information like how anxiety is linked to flight or goth and such. But they only really teach about depression and anxiety and it’s important to acknowledge that other disorders exist as a student may have one and giving them that knowledge could lead to them consulting their GO and getting the right help.

Teachers dont handle bullying/students problems as they should.
A lot of the time victims receive punishments for standing up to their bullies, and bullies receive nothing.

its a s***hole and the teachers couldnt give two s**ts about the pupils