Mildenhall College Academy

From the previous reviews on here, I can see just how bad the school really was.
As a student who moved to this school when the new building was built, currently attending this school right now, I can tell you alot of these issues have been resolved or improved.
The new facility is excellent, and maintenance is generally very good too. I wasn't here during the old building, but can imagine just how poor conditions were then.
The classrooms are alot bigger, we have both air conditioning and heating. Most of the school is very clean as well.

And with the teachers, I've generally had a great experience with all my teachers. Sure, you'll get the odd ones here and there who are lazy, but overall education wise, it's improved drastically.
In terms of bullying in previews reviews, I can see it was a problem. Like every school, bullying still occurs. But almost everyday I come into school bullying is quite rare. You'll get an occasional fight but most of them are because of both people involved.
Ive moved schools loads, and in all my other schools shoulder-barging or shoving in the hallways were quite common. However in MCA I hardly ever see this anymore. Out of the 2 years I've been in this building it's only happened to me once, whereas in other schools it was almost daily. So in my opinion, I'd like to say it has improved alot with bullying.
Rules have also become increasingly strict, teachers are around every corner and there are CCTV cameras everywhere, so it's very hard for bullying to happen now.

Support and SEND has also improved, for example if you are overheard talking about a topic that is considered a danger, the safeguarding team comes instantly to help. However there are still some issues with mental health in the school, mainly because the school doesn't talk about mental health often, and it is an area that needs to improve.

Canteen food is great, hygiene is great, lessons are mostly fun, teachers are mostly great, in my experience so far with this school, I can confirm it has improved drastically from the old reviews. Maybe for some it is different, but I've had no issues with this school and I'll honestly miss it when I leave after year 11. I highly recommend this school. It may have been terrible before, but it has improved so much and I think people need to realise that as this school is still severely underrated.

this is an all round absolutely terrible school. the principle is a DICKHEAD and its full of weird teachers, a couple of them are genuine groomers. the cleaners are nicer people than all teachers and "supportive staff". so glad ive left

THis is the aboslute worst school I ever bee too! They teach me ntothing!

Do take this review with a grain of salt.
I attended this school from 2014 to 2019 at the old location, Bury Road. From what I’ve heard from people in the area, they still have mostly the same staff, however they have moved to a new building (which was very much so needed).

To say my 5 years at this school were traumatic would probably be an understatement.

Almost every issue I went to the staff about at this school was entirely dismissed.
I endured constant harassment and bullying in school and outside of school, which I would usually report. I was very shy (and undiagnosed autistic) so reaching out directly was very hard for me to do. This was always met with complete dismissal, usually being told to “hash it out” with people who were bullying me, or, without asking or telling me first, would just place me in a room with the person I made a complaint about. I’m sure you can probably imagine this not only didn’t help, but made the bullying 10x worse.
I very quickly learnt from this that I just had to tolerate whatever abuse I received, because staff never helped in any way, and made me feel incredibly invalidated and worthless.

Any mental health support was always poor.
As you can imagine, the school’s tolerance of harassment and bullying did not put me in a great place mentally, so I was extremely depressed and socially anxious.
I was grateful to receive some help from a teacher of mine and they referred me to an in school counselling program - however, I was only given one session of this and never got one again.
I also had a multitude of other problems that you would probably assume the teachers are trained to deal with, however, as you can probably guess by now, I received no help whatsoever.
At the time, I was being abused, and in retrospect the warning signs were completely obvious, and I displayed very obvious cries for help. My hygiene was very poor, I was constantly falling asleep in class from a lack of sleep, I would cry in the middle of class, I would flinch whenever anyone approached me, and sometimes would self harm in the middle of lesson. However, all of these combined never seemed to raise any red flags to any teachers or support staff.
I genuinely think if my teachers had paid any sort of attention towards the students, then the abuse wouldn’t have gone on as long as it did.

My experience with the SEN support was also poor. Generally they were very friendly but ultimately dismissive of any issues I faced.
At the time I was not diagnosed with anything but me and my family were aware I was different in some ways. My parents spoke to the school about this many times, and I did have a learning support test at one time. However, they concluded that because I was “smart”, I was fine.
I can’t exactly blame them for not knowing what particularly I was struggling with, but I can blame them for not looking any deeper into anything despite calling their attention to it.

My teachers generally were nice - but there were a few teachers who would target me specifically with rude comments and unjust punishments. My parents had made complaints however they went ignored.

Education wise, the school was okay. I don’t really have any complaints, but not any praise either. It’s what you would expect from a general comprehensive secondary school.

Although they have a new building now, when I attended, the building itself was in very poor condition. The walls were extremely thin - so much so that some students would poke holes in them with their pencils. Actual class time was very difficult to focus in because you could hear all the surrounding classes through the walls.
The classrooms were also extremely cramped and small. In some you would be sat at tables shoulder to shoulder with other students and would have to shimmy through the tables to leave the room. In others, they were unbearably hot in summer, and ice cold in winter.
The school had made an attempt to create gender neutral bathrooms, however, the way they went about this was… Odd. There were no walls seperating the toilet stalls from the hallway where people would be walking around during breaks, which made actually using the toilet a very uncomfortable and humiliating experience. Most days I would just wait until I got home to use the bathroom, to avoid people accidentally walking in on me due to the many broken locks on the stalls, or rowdy students banging on the doors and yelling at you through them for fun.

The food served in the cantine was actually quite nice. But I think that’s the only thing i would say MCA had going for them.

To conclude, Mildenhall College Academy was a terrible school. Every day I was just counting the hours until I got to go home.
I’m not sure about the new site at the Mildenhall Hub, but I doubt much has changed since three years ago.
I couldn’t recommend this school any less. If your child has no other option for secondary schools but Mildenhall College Academy, maybe just don’t have them attend school at all.

Good school in general, but loads of cover teachers instead of actually teachers so students are behind and some students treated better than others (eg students that normally misbehave but do something that the rest have done all along get praised and given trait points, but students who do well every time aren’t ever mentioned). Also, you aren’t able to see how you’re doing in lessons (like target grades or if you improved or the subjects you need to study in) even in reports which is pretty rubbish. Other than that i’d say it’s pretty decent.

Not the best school, some amazing teachers but my mental heath has just gone downhill since year 8.

They just gave u loads of wipes to wipe down the tables

Don't go here if you have extra learning needs they will break you, ignore you and tell you you're faking it.