UTC Heathrow

This school is a rebranded dumpster fire, they rebranded best part of a decade ago due to poor performance in Ofsted reviews as well as overall bad image. This has not changed, as during the time I was there the school only seemed to be going further and further downhill.

In principle the concept is brilliant, providing students with business lead learning as well as providing opportunities which might not be available to the same level at a conventional sixth form or college. But due to the fact no one has really ever heard of this school it means that they can't be very selective at all as to who they accept in. When I was applying we had to get a 4 in english and maths at GCSE and at least two other GCSEs, which for a school boasting about academic achievement, that doesn't match with the standard of student they accept.

In terms of the student body, everyone comes from very mixed backgrounds but it felt like the vast majority of my year group were students who didn't meet the grade requirements for another institution of their choice or saw the easy acceptance requirements to this college and applied. In terms of behaviour from the students, my year group reduced dramatically over the year I was there, either from students dropping out for various reasons or due to repeated offences resulting in expulsion.

When it comes to the staff, lots of the teachers are very lovely and are passionate about their jobs and overall have the teaching abilities required to educate the students. They can control the class with ease and keep them focused on the learning whilst still making it fun and interesting. Other teachers on the other hand do not have the experience or talent, and this number grew over the time I was there which I'll address further down, these teachers gave off the impression that they didn't know the material well enough to teach it in a way most could understand or those that did, couldn't comprehend that most were unable to just pick it up at the rate it was fired at them at. Now within my first three terms, we had a teacher who was invited to leave for multiple reasons, the final straw was for almost allowing a fight to happen in their classroom which involved two students throwing chairs at each other and a proper brawl, all this teacher could do was yell 'stop it, stop it' instead of actually trying to break up this fight. This same teacher also had a history with being horrible towards people with autism, he actually went on a full lecture in one lesson to another student who was autistic about how people with autism were lazy, useless and other demeaning things. This very same teacher on multiple occasions called students 'monkey' and other disgraceful things. I think the picture is painted pretty clear, but from what I understand the school didn't have any evidence beyond word of mouth and didn't want to risk losing a teacher, until the video of the fight circulated around so the school had to act.

The resources available at this institution are fantastic, they have all sorts of manual machines, plasma and laser cutters and so much more. But for 95% of the student body these are for show, most students will use the manual machines for various units of the course, but I've only known one student to use the 3D printers and the rest I've never seen used. The school has also got two Ford engines on engine stands down in the workshop, but were never used at all, even when we tried to arrange for a club to be organised where we could tare them down and rebuild them for furthering our engineering skills, we were turned down by the college.

On the topic of extracurriculars the school loves to show the plane that the students are 'building', this is not entirely true. The plane building club was hosted on a Friday after school finished, which meant some students would go when they first join then grow tired of attending as they realised there are so many more places they would rather be than that place. Another club we tried to set up was a welding club, we felt like this was a rather important skill to have which we weren't being taught even though the equipment was there. We managed to get a teacher who was willing to oversee the club but when we provided this all to the SLT they kept finding excuses or just ignored out requests for it.

One thing to take note of with this institution is that at random points in the year they will get the police in at the start of the day to perform a proper bag and body search, they are looking for knives but will confiscate any items which a student isn't allowed such as vapes or cigarettes. Now in most peoples minds this seems like an excellent idea, but when you are faced with the reality that the school feels like they have to perform knife searches on their students I think that displays fairly well the calibre of some of the students at this college.

The college is sponsor funded, this means that companies will give the school money or equipment, in return the school will do basically anything they ask of them. For my year group and what I assume for the years to come, the employers actively involved in the college were data centre companies. Now network and computer engineering isn't was any of my year group signed up to do, most signed up because they wanted to work in aerospace, many like myself, wanted to work in the automotive industry, data centres do not match what the students are looking for or wanting. Because of the involvement of these companies the BTech course is tailored towards pushing students down that route, which means that students become uninterested in the topics being taught which causes all sorts of problems.

I have so many stories, both good and bad about this college, but I don't have the time or motivation to write them all down, I'm hoping this will paint a pretty grim picture of the college to any prospective students or parents. In terms of me and my friendship group, I was one of four of my friends who dropped out early to pursue apprenticeships or full time employment, for anonymity reasons only I don't want to share too much on that, but the message here is that we all left early due to the horror show of a college this place is, I know that two of my other friends made it into university and another is now doing an apprenticeship. For those of us who left early we received no support or tips from the college, and for my friends who finished their courses they didn't either, the school only sees the students as a way to bring in employers and their money to keep this dumpster fire afloat long enough until they inevitably have to rebrand themselves again.

Whilst my experiences might not reflect that of every student, I have heard enough from both older and younger students which support my claims. I'm not going to tell you not to attend this school but I think my experience should definitely be taken into account when it comes to your decision. I would also like to add I'm not a disgruntled failing student who is angry at the school, I was predicted A*s in both my A Levels and a distinction in my BTech, so I hope that my opinions of this place are taken into consideration.

Thanks for reading