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Marling School
Secondary · Academy · Stroud
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Disappointing. Trading on Grammar status
Good school so far
So far my son is really enjoying the school (actually loving it). It’s still early days as my son has joined year 7 but hopefully it will continue going well. I’m surprised to read about drugs because I’ve not heard anything like this. Hopefully with the new head things have shown a turnaround
Removed my son from Marling
Removed my child from Marling after 3 years. Too much bullying, drugs and supply teachers. Head was sacked from his post in October, rumoured to be a way of delaying the Ofsted review (no Head=no ofsted) Even my son’s tutor group teacher was leaving, had enough. The place is antiquated, misogynistic and riddled with institutionalised blindness to drug taking.
Marling knew it would be a shambolic review from Ofsted, hence the tactical move to delay it. Better off at a decent comp than a terrible grammar, imo.
Marling knew it would be a shambolic review from Ofsted, hence the tactical move to delay it. Better off at a decent comp than a terrible grammar, imo.
TERRIBLE!
Marling School is a terrible school, the other students treat you so badly. There are no decent people at Marling. So that's why I'm trying to leave this school. People use very offensive vocabulary to eachother and they bully one another. I personally cannot wait for the Ofsted Inspection to see the school get a low grade
Where to start?
The P.E teacher is, at nicest, a dodgy bloke. The physics teacher is a Harry Maguire regen. The price of the food is so eye-watering that it make waitrose look like Lidl. And finally, the toilets were better in a certain part of Germany in the early forties.
Mistake of a school
Terrible school, the teachers bully students,
Overload work and ignore blaitent bad behaviour to specifically target the little pitty things. The canteen is an abismal there’s either excessively greasy food or cheap chemical full rubbish made out to be healthy. The so called security is a few 2m tall gates that don’t work and were only put in, so OFSTED didn’t fail the school on security. The outside is horrible there’s 2 benches and a field of muddy wet grass with loads of rouge balls flying around, hitting people in the head.
Overload work and ignore blaitent bad behaviour to specifically target the little pitty things. The canteen is an abismal there’s either excessively greasy food or cheap chemical full rubbish made out to be healthy. The so called security is a few 2m tall gates that don’t work and were only put in, so OFSTED didn’t fail the school on security. The outside is horrible there’s 2 benches and a field of muddy wet grass with loads of rouge balls flying around, hitting people in the head.
Avoid
I am so disappointed with this school. It is antiquated and thrives on its name only. If you are not going to live up to the Marlingtonian legend then you may as well forget it and no one is going to help you get there. Pastoral and SEN support is hopeless and many of the teachers are Victorian in their attitudes.
Marling school
The teachers are incredibly out of touch with students and seem unable to relate and help with issues of ‘our generation’ also the teachers offer very little in the means of supporting students that struggle with behaviour- they put them in an outdated system that focuses purely on punishment also there is not a consistent approach to punishment as many teachers allow their personal issues and relationships with students to get in the way of teaching
Nothing done about bullies or bad behaviour
Bullying and extremely poor behaviour are common, with teachers doing little to stop it. The majority of teachers aren't strict enough to keep certain students from acting out and disrupting the learning of other students. There aren't many lunchtime or after school activities for students not interested in sports, either. The curriculum is ok, but those at the top of the class barely receive attention from their teachers and aren't set challenging enough work for their abilities, so their progress is limited.
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The teachers don't seem happy - turnover is high. We've burned through multiple heads in the last three years. The senior leadership team is unchanged though (which is probably the root of the issue). Meeting teachers who've moved elsewhere into local secondary schools saying they're glad they did... speaks volumes.
Communication to parents, to kids, across departments, is poor.
The school thinks parents have infinitely deep pockets, and provide very poor value for money - you're heavily pressured to buy an extremely overpriced school laptop, which isn't fit for purpose, and no, they won't let you bring your own, you can't install any software onto it, can't even use Chrome, and it runs at a snail's pace. If you don't buy the laptop, your kid is forced to go to the library before and after school every morning to check out a school one - and there are sanctions and detentions if the laptop isn't fully charged everyday before school.
School trips are ludicrous - why offer skiing in Europe, when the kids could have an extremely jetlagged 6 days in North America? There are unfortunately plenty of parents happy to cough up the dough for these things, and people who don't have kids in schools elsewhere wouldn't be any the wiser.
They outsource DofE to a private provider, so doing the bronze award is around £300 - it's just £70 at a different nearby local school (and yes, all the equipment is provided there too)! DofE charges about £40, so £260 mark up to provide some tents and stoves and a night in a local campsite is shocking.
The teaching seems generally OK. Obviously the results are good, but they've cherrypicked the brightest kids, so you'd expect that.
Unlike other local schools, where teachers seem happy to provide a wide variety of extra curricular activities and enjoy doing so, there's only a handful of sporting clubs and little else and several of those are paid for clubs by private providers...
Kids don't seem to ENJOY their time at Marling, which is sad - very little positive recognition/reward - lots of negativity, though the school has said they're planning on changing this in 2025/26... Son got a lunchtime detention just for not having a working whiteboard marker a few weeks back, so we'll see...