Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls

An all round education and the teaching is generally excellent.

It has been a nightmare of a school from the beginning to the end. The only reason my daughter put up with it is because of the whole catchment area fiasco and yes my daughter wanted to proudly wear the badge of having studied at a Grammar school. But jeez, it was an actual horrid experience from bullying by teachers, bring ridiculed and belittled due to religious beliefs and down to the accent spoken with. My daughter received her GCSE results and won't you believe it; the subject which she got the lowest grade in is the teacher ahe gor bullied by. No surprise. The school does not teach well; the kids are bright and intelligent naturally or they get additional support externally from the school. The school is an extremely toxic environment that does not manifest a healthy balanced outlook or approach, and does not consider the wellbeing of their pupils. Mental health is seriously concerning; not just being sad and low which with hormones and general life difficulties exist - I'm talking about the more complex mental health. Its probable that high achieving children may have such psychological problems but it is quite severe at this school whereby things were heard and witnessed by my daighter which affected her. She had no one she could speak to though. Forget the pupils bad behaviour the teachers bad behaviours were swept under the carpet time and again. The educational standard is no thanks to the teachers - the girls are clever and are self taught in majority of cases.

Yes, they ‘help’ you get good grades, by that I mean forced extra help during lunchtimes if your getting below a 7, not optional. The grades they require you to get is outrageous, from years 7-11 all your taught is it that a 7 is the bare minimum and not really that good (7 is an A) and you should be getting 8/9s. The teachers are nice but definitely pick favourites and really don’t do much for mental health. They did recently introduce a ‘quiet room’ where you can leave lessons to go to to calm down however most teachers will ask you to wait until the end of their lesson to go unless you have a special card. Some teachers are worse than others with regards to homework; some give about 30min worth a week and others give 1h every lesson, sometimes to be completely for the lesson the next day. Prices in the canteen are extremely high and not lowered even after years of complaint, eg. A meal with a small drink can cost over £5 and the portion sizes are only right for the year 7s. Overall it’s a good school in that there are not really fights, arguments and bad language is common when teachers are not around though.

Just because the students don't misbehave and physical fights don't break out, people assume that everyone is happy there. This could not be further from the truth. The staff are horrendous at their job; whether that is in pastoral or actual teaching. The teachers do not know their subjects or how to teach and, despite several complaints or reports about them, the school refuses to take action on it. The pastoral team is awful on mental health issues and refuses to address concerns on blatant racism, homophobia and islamophobia. There is so much pressure on the students to achieve high grades with little or no support offered to those who may be struggling. The students are as unhappy as the staff.

mental health support is genuinely terrible for years 7-11. The school is blatantly islamaphobic and transphobic. Many of the teachers can't teach their subjects and the school still keeps them despite multiple complaints. Immense pressure is put on the students to achieve grade 9s. The only redeemable factor is that good, conscientious students usually come from it, but that's less down to the teachers and more the student culture.

Great level of education, not so great with mental health problems