Pakefield School

I do not like this school. I cannot use my phone during break or lunch. I got a week detention for calling someone a name and they got half a detention for starting a physical fight with me. This school is bad. I do not like this school. Shut it down.

The main positive of the school was the individual teachers: most of them were genuinely skilled at teaching and seemed to care about their subjects. Sadly, there were times where many subjects were taught entirely by supply teachers and this meant there were gaps in our learning that had to be hastily filled before GCSEs. However, this was not the fault of the permanent teachers, who were hard-working and helpful.

The school had a decent careers team whom I found approachable and friendly. There was also a nice library and the building was new. It had a large sports hall as well as practice rooms for musicians.

During my time at Pakefield, I benefitted from some interesting opportunities such as school trips, clubs, enrichment, special themed days (known as Le@p Days) and super-curricular activities to expand our knowledge. I think these could have been incorporated better into lessons, which were sometimes boring for high achieving students.

I felt that this school was let down by its senior leadership team. As brilliant teachers were replaced by staff members whose only job was (seemingly) to tell you off for minor misdemeanors such as not taking your coat off the second you walk in, I became disillusioned with school. There was a lot of bad/annoying behaviour in lessons, as well as bullying which I will detail in the next paragraph.

Throughout my whole time at Pakefield I received homophobic and transphobic bullying which I believe could have been dealt with better. This included slurs, invasive questions, being blocked from accessing places and (more rarely) physical abuse. As a gender non-conforming lesbian, I sometimes didn't feel safe in areas such as school toilets and in crowded corridors in between lessons.

Around GCSE time, Pakefield did a good job of running intervention sessions to ensure that pupils got the best grades possible. We had mock exams which were useful in determining what we needed to improve on, as teachers gave thoughtful feedback. Parents' evenings were also useful.

I didn't personally have school meals, but people often complained about their mediocre quality and poor value for money. PE lessons were also poorly run, and I noticed that boys often received more interesting and varied lessons than girls; something which I found unfair and sexist. Changing rooms were too small and different year groups had to get changed together (even year 7 and year 11).