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Purple Oaks Academy
Primary · Special · Northampton
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The teachers are nice but very misguided. I wouldn't be surprised if most of them were not trained for SEN students. This is not to say they are bad, far from it, the vast majority of them are lovely people, just not very well equipped.
The school uses Securly, an extremely controversial cyber-monitoring tool. It is well known for being able to non-consensually watch a student's screen. It is the modern-day Big Brother (and yes, I have read 1984) and this school is allowing it to run rampant. It does not block sites that it should while blocking innocent sites such as PicMix for "other adult content" that it does not contain!
The school food isn't too bad. It's usually alright - although the sausages leave a lot more to be desired. The worst thing I have ever found in my school food is - and brace yourself - a snail's shell. I'm serious. We also had moldy cheese at one point. However, the food has greatly improved since then. I also deeply respect our lunch ladies, it's a very difficult job and they do it very well.
I do think there are just a liiiittle too many trips in a year and we miss out on learning a bit, but truth be told I don't particularly mind the trips (so long as there's no sport involved).
One major, MAJOR problem is that the staff are extremely bad at handling meltdowns. There are some kids that are notorious (in my mind, if only that) for kicking off quite a lot. And what do the teachers do?
Is it..
A) Give them space
B) Put them in a chill-out room
C) Give them a comfort item
or
D) Read to them to help them calm down?
If you said any of these, you were wrong.
Instead, they confiscate comfort items, refuse to give them space, constantly tell them in a very patronising tone of voice to do whatever is upsetting them, and restrain them. We actually had to have an anti-restraint group come in to talk to us because I suppose they had gotten wind of this.
And, speaking of the chill-out rooms, they look like those padded rooms you see in movies from stereotypical mental hospitals, except they aren't even padded. There's some blue pads on the floor, and plain white drywall. We once bumped into one and potentially broke our nose. Yes, you heard that correctly.
Overall, this school has many, MANY flaws. Would not reccommend.
P.S. When I was getting bullied, they did nothing to stop it for FIVE YEARS until a new substitute principal forced them to. Bravo.