The de Ferrers Academy

When I joined the sixth form campus, I was given a warm welcoming from the teachers who made sure we were comfortable with a new environment. The school provided me with all the information I needed alongside support with any requirements that would help me and my education. Teachers have helped me achieve the grades best for me by being friendly, helpful, and supportive. Would definitely recommend!

I have been at the De Ferrers academy since year 7 and have had nothing If not a positive experience the teachers are incredibly supportive. Since sixth form I have been very well supported and was able to take all the subjects I was looking for.

I am an external student, and has ready enjoyed my time so far. The teachers I have for my subject are very supportive and great teachers. The environment is very welcoming and friendly. The support is great with trusting teachers. I find the sixth form building very moderne has a university feel to it. It’s in a convenient place and overall I really enjoy my time here

This school is absolute bollocks

No mental health support
Not allowed to talk to staff you trust
Staff ignore you
Staff don't listen to any safeguarding concerns that you have

I joined this school for sixth form from another school in the area. I was lulled into a false sense of security by a sanitised open evening, a flashy new building and a lack of other options. To be honest, the main reason I picked this school is because they said we could leave at lunchtimes.

This was my fatal mistake.

The atmosphere created for external students is extremely unwelcoming. For an “inclusive” school, there is a huge amount of separation. There was an entirely separate introduction, teachers look at you like you’re some sort of strange fixture in a zoo and you’re expected to immediately understand exactly how the school works despite having often come from a completely different environment. Considering the sixth form gets many of its students externally, you’d think they’d make an effort to include us more. This has no been done very well. Some teachers do make the effort, but most of them will simply say “well you should’ve learned this further down the school” and move on. Some of us come from entirely different exam boards! We’re not going to know!

The school’s handling of COVID and online learning was atrocious. Granted, some blame does have to be attributed to students not following the rules here, but no effort was made to enforce many of the measures put into place, including the wearing of masks around the campus. Once again, this is not all teachers: some did make the effort, but most didn’t seem to care. For me personally, during the 2021 lockdown barely any zoom lessons were done, and the ones which were were of such poor quality that they were useless attending.

There have been many issues with delivery of lessons within the school. Most subjects are extremely behind, with some barely finishing content in time for the exam season. I’m sure you can see what the problem with this is.

Pastoral support is also poor. Select members of staff create an extremely unwelcoming environment. As previous reviews have mentioned, many students who are actual legal adults are talked down to like naughty Year 7s. We are told that we are not allowed to make decisions on our future until they say so. The lack of attention to detail is shocking: you can inform them weeks in advance that you will be missing a lesson for a legitimate reason (for example a university interview), and even remind them a day or two before, and yet they will still be calling your parents demanding to know where you are and why on earth you are in not in the academy. A bit of mutual respect would not go amiss.

The “equality” does not seem to be very present either. There is an LGBTQ+ society, and apparently an equalities committee (although I have not heard anything more about this since it was apparently set up), yet I have heard stories about atrociously sexist comments from students, students were instructed not to talk about the Palestine and Israel issue when the conflict erupted, and the subject of coming out (an often important time in LGBTQ+ students’ lives) was deemed “inappropriate” for the lower levels of the school. A room in the school has been booked out as a prayer room for the duration of Ramadan, but in the email sent out to students it reads “for students to use during their non-contact time”. For Muslim students who are incredibly close to their faith, why should they be restricted to when they can pray?

This links to the school’s main issue: they are control freaks. From useless surveys sent out that don’t achieve anything except wasting half an hour of your life (and often a lesson) trying to work a badly made Google form and instructing you to remove your coat/jumper IMMEDIATELY upon arrival (despite having two bags, it being near freezing outside because this was during the winter, and still wearing your bag), to being marked down a predicted grade on your UCAS form despite being 2 marks off in an exam (do you really have that little faith in your teaching abilities?) and being told you may not bring outside hot food into the school despite being allowed to leave at lunchtime, many students treating this as their main meal and the school food being frankly overpriced with little choice, this school could do with loosening the reins a little. Student concerns are not acted upon for this reason: the school cannot field multiple complaints from multiple students, do nothing whatsoever about it, and then wonder why grades in that subject are slipping!

The uniform policy is, frankly, ridiculous. You'd think at 16-18 years old, being considered in the eyes of the government young adults capable of driving, voting in local elections and in many cases drinking, marrying or making the decision to fight for your country, you'd be able to have a bit of choice over what you wear. No. As previously mentioned, you're expected to have any sort of "outdoor wear" off the moment you step through the door, even during the freezing winters. They situate people on the doors and everything. I was once told in a very condescending tone of voice to "improve my uniform tomorrow". What was I wearing, you ask? A zip-up hoodie, since I was on my way home. I was told my that my Asda school trousers looked like jeans, the jumper I was wearing wasn't acceptable and that I needed to be wearing a blazer at all times. When I explained that I had a blazer, but it was too small for me and my parents didn't want to shell out more money for less than five months, I was told in a very condescending tone that I needed to buy one. I promised to talk to my parents about this and get the issue resolved. The school's response to this was to call my mother, during what would have been the middle of her work day, to bug her about an issue I had already said I would resolve with her. I just had no words for the situation. Nose piercings are also banned at this school: I've always found the banning of piercings and bright hair in schools faintly ridiculous, but this school takes it to ridiculous levels. I've seen a girl driven to actual tears when a member of staff shouted at her in front of a good hundred students about her nose piercing, something she had had for the entire time we'd been at the sixth form. Uniform rules are fine, but students should not be made to cry because of a simple nose stud.

I wish I could say this school is good with technology, but nope, they fail here too. Keycards are used to get into the building, and these were not activated until I was almost 6 months into my time at this school. The iPad scheme, I must admit, is actually rather good: for what you get it’s quite cheap (£60 at the start of your first year), and I believe there is support for students who struggle to pay. However, this is where the benefits end. The school has chosen to use the world’s most god-awful app for work, an app which constantly crashes, freezes or deletes your work entirely. The Wi-Fi at the school is down more than it is working, leading many students to resort to using their own mobile data to run their iPads so they can actually get work done. The teachers are so heavily reliant on the iPads to run their lessons that when the Wi-Fi goes down, it seems to descend into total chaos. Having come from a school where technology was rarely used, it was rather a culture shock. I’m sorry to sound old-fashioned, but a good bit of pen and paper wouldn’t go amiss once in a while! Printing at this school, for us external students, has been abysmal: none of our cards for the printer would register, and when the IT guy is rarely in school it’s hard to get it sorted. You were relying on internal students or family members to get things you needed printed for you. I couldn’t print anything up until a few weeks ago, when they finally upgraded the printer system!

The location for the school isn’t really ideal either. I understand this is a factor likely beyond the school’s control, but they did choose to purchase the building and I have just one question: why? There is exactly no green space, no outdoor area for students to use on free periods or lunchtimes. There are often drunk people sitting on the steps just around the corner of the school building, and I for one have felt rather unsafe when walking through this, especially in the winter when it is still dark in the mornings and evenings when you are arriving or leaving school. The road outside is incredibly noisy, with sirens constantly going up and down. It’s hard to concentrate with the amount of outside noise. Again, I know this is outside the school’s control but it is a factor to consider.

I suppose the bottom line is that there is not an area where this school does not have some sort of downfall. I came to this school hoping that I would finally be somewhere that had had some serious investment and was willing to help students achieve their potential, yet I found neither of these were true. The lack of academic support for my year in particular has been shocking: when I brought up my concerns to a teacher, I was told “you’re clever, you’ll be fine” and was not offered actual help until a good few weeks later. Very little support was offered during UCAS applications: no advice on how to write personal statements, and only students who applied for early consideration (potential Oxbridge students or students hoping to study Medicine or Veterinary courses) seemed to get proper help. Resources are stretched far too thinly, standards are starting to slip and the attitudes of the authorities at this school could do with a serious shake-up. Bullying further down the school is supposed to be horrific, with many parents looking to move their children to other schools in the area. Do yourself a favour: don’t waste two years of your life on this school if you are an external student, just go someplace else. You’ll likely have a better time, and won’t be treated like a second thought.

Claim to be a good/outstanding school, despite their complete disregard for student mental health. They have mental health campaigns, and claim to support us if we need help. However, the amount of unnecessary pressure they put on their students is ridiculous! I am a year 12 now and during the lead up to GCSEs I was set multiple mocks all the time, told to revise for hours a week, on top of a regular amount of homework. Was then told at my year 10 parents evening that my current grade 6s & 7s weren’t “good enough” (yet I was still 18 months away from final exams). The amount of stress they put on you to do well in exams is disgusting! Had and still having a horrible time there.

Not good no one where’s a mask all the bubble mix at the start and at the end of the day share the same toilets as everyone