St Katherine's School

As a parent of a child who has just "finished" at St Katherines , I am glad she has - many of the staff were unhelpful, instructive or at worst incompetent. The image of the school and the compliance based culture is either the most important thing to the senior leaders, or the limit of there ability to comprehend. Its painfully apparent that staff do not know how to deal with anyone who is not neurotypical. The school beleieves it is all powerful within the gates, but outside the gates appears to be disinterested.

There are many better secondary schools to go to.

St Katherine’s is far more concerned with the schools image rather than the actual education of the students are receiving and their mental health during their time at St Katherine’s. Their values lie in the students representation of the school which made me as a student feel like a walking advert for the school, rather than someone who was receiving an education from St Katherine’s.

The building it’s self can be quite unsanitary at times but that isn’t always the schools fault as a lot of the time it’s the students who are to blame for breaking bathroom stalls and ceiling boards (to name a few.)

There is a mixed bag of teachers at the school. Some of the teachers, specifically ones that work in subjects, such as maths and English have had an amazing effect on my confidence and my decisions in future life. In my opinion these few teachers are the ones that hold st Katherine’s together. However, some of the teachers have had a negative effect on my education as well as emotionally effecting my confidence and self worth as a result of pinpointing flaws that could have been discussed as constructive criticism and instead displaying to me as a student that if I didn’t pass my GCSEs I would be restricted in all areas of my future life. This had a massively negative impact on my mental health as it resulted in a feeling of impending doom as well as feeling alone when it came to sitting my GCSEs. Oftentimes the pressure came from the head of the school houses but it was clearly evident that that pressure was trickled down from people of higher authority.

Overall I thing the school had a lot of places it needs to improve on and the direction it is currently focusing on is not going to advance students wellbeing. However a select few of the teachers are holding the school together and make me glad I went to St Katherine’s and had the opportunity to be educated by them.

The school is more concerned with its reputation rather than the safety and well-being of the students.

the ethos they preach at st Katherine's is just not put into practice. students image of students and behaviour is prioritised over their learning and the building is quite frankly unsanitary with leaks in ceilings, graffiti, litter, moldy walls etc. in my opinion it is not a safe learning environment.