Upton Hall School FCJ

Excellent, past pupil myself and my 2 daughters both attend the school. Both girls have thrived academically, have represented the school many times in both sporting and academic competitions. They enjoy learning, have a lovely friendship group and on the whole have nurturing and enthusiastic teachers who motivate the girls to be the best they can. Both daughters have had really loved their time at Upton as have their friends and if your child is academic wouldn't hestiate in recommending the school. So many past pupils send their daughters here and many teachers are also past pupils which demonstrates how much of a family the school is. Feel very lucky that both girls have had this experience.

If you care about your mental health don’t go here

It is a beautiful school. Lovely buildings and the history of the school is always taught in depth. Plenty of extracurriculars to choose from. Uniform is always worn with pride.Absolutely amazing school. Only thing I find troublesome is the push to join extracurriculars.

Not only do we learn Maths, English etc but we learn life lessons and how to be a great person.

Realistically the staff do not properly address serious issues however they are good educators (with the exception of some English and science teachers) and they enabled me to get 8s and 9s in GCSEs. There is a heavy workload and lots of pressure on the students however many adapt and learn to thrive but if you are unable to cope I do not recommend it. The mental health support is present but not up to standard, there is little confidentiality and students with extra requirements or neurodivergency are not well supported. The school has definitely improved in recent years but friendly reminder that during the most stressful time of year 11, in the weeks before GCSEs, the headteacher told them that they shouldn't complain as they didn't have guns to their head in Afghanistan or Ukraine and should get on with it. However that said there are some teachers that are very friendly and open to supporting, for example, LGBTQ+ students, neurodivegent students and all others, mainly those in the history and maths departments. Despite many male teachers enforcing the strict uniform rules a little too enthusiastically (and one science teacher informing a student he could see her bra through her shirt), the majority of the male teachers are in fact not creepy and are very professional. There is a good atmosphere and standard of teaching. I have left the school now but would recommend it for students willing to work hard and who can cope well with stress. Note: the cafeteria has on numerous occasions had poor standards including rats, uncooked food and mould so I'd personally recommend only purchasing from the grab and go pre-packaged food to be safe !!

school can’t handle bullying or anyone with any type of neurodivergency, students are placed under immense pressure to perform well. some teachers are incredibly rude through email. skirt length is so important apparently, if it isn’t at your knee you will be asked to roll it down. what makes this worse is that it’s an all girls school and it’s also male teachers checking your skirt is down enough. students suffer severely with mental health issues due to feeling inadequate for the standards of the school and the counsellor does nothing about it. overall, pretty poor experience, the education was okay though.

Honestly, not the school I thought it was or advertised as. Yes they produce good grades, but at what cost? School worries more about the grades and attendance of students than their mental health.They need to up there support system and be more understanding. They are constantly commenting on skirt length and uniform and fail to accommodate for particular student needs with uniform, the pe kit is inclusive but that is it. They offer the bare minimum of support to students who have ASD and/or adhd or any sort of neurodivergency in general. The amount of homework and revision students are expected to do throughout their time at this school is ridiculous! I was told by a member of staff I had to do an hour of extracurricular, 2 or 3 hours of work, and 2 hours of revision on top of personal commitments per night which is way too much to expect from a 14-16 year old. I have since left the school but have been told by current students that the work load has increased. So yes, the school produces students with good grades but also alot of students who have burnt-out and broken down, including myself and many of my friends. Do NOT recommend sending your child to this high school.

The school only cares about league tables , if you’re not academically clever / high achieving they don’t care about you because you’re not gonna make the school stand out from other schools grade wise when it comes to opening days and looking for new students, they don’t care about bullying and don’t do anything to sort / stop it. They also don’t know how to cope with learning disabilities especially adhd / autism, they label these children as naughty and try there best to hide them from ofsted inspections. If you value your child don’t send them here. Yes other schools have bullying problems but they try to sort them out not turn a blind eye to it . Everything is about religion and yes I respect the fact it is a religious school but it’s 2021 they need to respect the fact that not everyone is as religious as they are, they preach about these fcj values and how all students should use/ practice them but hardly any of the teachers use them especially SLT , they’ve threatened to kick year 12s out of they don’t pass mocks , yet again this is proof all they care about is grades and not the well-being of there students, for the younger years they’re more concerned about appearance rather than the struggles that go hand and hand with puberty and growing up, no sympathy for the students who have divorced parents and are more likely to forget books and homework due to going back and forth from there parents home.this is only the tip of the iceberg the only good thing about this school is the food and the free sanitary products for less fortunate kids

Lovely teachers, very supportive with subjects but not good with mental health. The girls aren’t the nicest, sometimes quite horrible. Very beautiful buildings though.