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Review of St. John Fisher Academy

Absolutely terrible. Where to start really.

Absolutely terrible. Where to start really.

Staff are ignorant to basically everything. They won t accept responsibility for a consistently poor quality of teaching provided to students, the constant stream of supply teachers and poor decisions regarding the behavioural / correctional system. If you complain they ll insist you re wrong, possibly tell you off or evade the issue completely. Prior to inspection days we are told to say only good things rather than be honest (by most teachers) because this school is apparently good (Ofsted states otherwise). The censorship is like that of a typical dictatorship.

If you struggle with a subject they ll constantly tell you it ll click .
Students are blamed for not doing well but when a whole class fails teachers are never held responsible.
Way too many supply teachers who aren t qualified for the subject they are teaching or not qualified for higher level. Particularly at higher levels, students cannot and /should/ not be expected to teach themselves a large amount of a course, especially for a facilitating subject.

They couldn t care less about students opinions. The student council, house captains and sixth form committee is more or less an arbitrary role, like a monarch rather than a minister

Mental health services / support is a joke. However, if you d /like/ to develop a mental health problem please go here, you ll find it very effective.

Teachers are literally obsessed with mocks. Mock here, there, everywhere. No wonder people are burnt out by the time they actually see a real paper.

Aiming high doesn t exist here, instead your teachers actually
encourage students to lower their expectations while not helping them constructively while struggling. They don t see a disparity between targets and end grades as a problem but are rather unfazed by it instead.

Finally, when you leave school with your results.

There is so little advice or help or given to you throughout the school year specific to people who don t make the grades or aren t sure what to do, you have to research this yourself. Everyone deserves a second chance to start again and a break if they need it but somehow students are dissuaded from going to start again elsewhere or those who need some time off for their own health and well-being.