Portslade Aldridge Community Academy Review

I love paca it is the best and u make so much nicer friend and the teachers are alright but not the best they can have a laugh

My son has been here for a quite short foreing stage (6 weeks), and he has enjoyed the school very much. Revising his notebooks, I have the feeling that PACA is not as bad as some of the other comments point out. I can say that my son has been treated respectfully by teachers and the rest of the students. Maybe he has been lucky, maybe if he had been there for more time, some of the problems referred in the comments may have appeared (bullying, irrespectful teachers, etc.). That's why I do not feel informed enough to rate the school with 5 starts. Nevertheless, as a parent, I feel really thankful to all staff and children who shared a great time with my son.

Signed up for the Autumn photography course. Looked at this and one with another nearby collage. The reason we chose this one was because it offered a level 1 in photography. From day one it seemed evident that a number of the 'Students' had differing ideas what the course was offering and what they wanted out of it.
Transpires that we should not have been offered the level 1 in photography it was in fact a community course.
This we did not find out until week 6 of a 10 week course.
As we had effectively paid for a course that was not as advertise,d asked for a full refund.
Refund was made on the condition we did not finish the course (Course had dropped to just 6 students by this time).
Pretty poor in my opinion, waste of 6 weeks. Least they should have done is refund in full and as a gesture of good will allow to continue the course to the end (last 4 lessons).
With 2 of us leaving will leave just 4 students !
I would advise people to avoid 'PACA' and look to the many other colleges locally that are more organised and offer a better service.

I rate this school a 5 because the lessons are so educating and fun to be in. What people say about paca are wrong. Paca isn't a rubbish school at all. It is better than my experience in my last school. This school is so helpful with my condition and help the most they can. Thank you paca

I take my review back, I'd rather be burning in the pits of satan.

I undertook a Spanish for beginners course which was thoroughly enjoyable and interesting as well as informative. The tutorials were fantastic and I would recommend them to anyone considering going there.

My son is at PACA and my daughter will be joining in future.
Lovely school with friendly well-behaved children and hardworking, committed staff.

My daughter goes to PACA and is thriving. The staff are doing a great job despite the unjust negative press and the pupils are well behaved.

Ok... I have just left this school to move to a better school. My experience here has been awful, teachers picking on children. I have been called an idiot, ghost for just standing waiting for my friend. I have had experiences of a child being called stupid and dumb for not understanding a question and a teacher saying a child has Tourettes. ( if you want to find out the teacher I will email you). Paca focuses on the negatives, kicks children out of classes too often, there are so many people walking around the school from walking out of lessons. I know around 10-20 people from year 7 that have moved schools due to how bad the school is. I feel bad for the teachers that try hard and focus on keeping children in line and giving them a good education, which must be hard when all the other teachers cause negative impacts in 3/4 of the lessons. Paca makes many children dread coming into school everyday. The SLT staff are threatening and scary and overuse there power of telling children off. People being put in isolation for wearing trainers even though they have a note from pastoral and home. The uniform especially for girls is hideous you feel restricted in the skirts, you have to walk like a penguin. They handle bullying so badly and mr postern really doesn t do his job. To all the year 7s coming up good luck you really need it. And all the parents choosing this year if you read this DONT GO TO PACA! take this from a child s point of view. Paca doesn t deserve to be a school, I can t beleieve it s ever passed offstead.

Poor behaviour, high staff-turnover, focus on negative C-Points because staff can not control classes, limited homework checking or feedback, the school drains any aspiration or joy from children, box ticking & box fitting. Poor child behaviour and teachers often only manage to crowd control.
With the new SLT this school is rapidly going backwards from improvements made before. Hope they can focus on what is best for the children or it will be a very long & challenging 5 years.
Would I recommend this school? Only if you have no other choice, your child has no additional needs & has a really focused/strong character to navigate the negative behaviours & seeming lack of control.
Most teachers are very nice, good & want what is best for the children but seem to have a lack of support, communication and/or structures to work with from their Senior Leadership Team. It is a real shame as the school had great potential & I feel they will be riding high on the previous Heads results & hiding behind these results for a while to come.
I really hope they prove me wrong as you can t get these years back for your child.

Its a fab school i know my child can safely beat up another child and only get isolation so dont worry about an exclusion coming up in the future if your child usally has bad behaviour :)

School continues year after year to fail to keep its children in line.We have our home vandalized when they turn out of school and time and time again we contact the school who do nothing. The last place on earth I would send my child to school.

It's another school that needs so much work it genuinely hurts my brain to fathom.

Teachers are quite mean and over all a bit too focused on c points. Me personally I have had about 9 I, not a bad child and I don t get told off that much but teachers like to point out. Some teachers are good for instant mr Knox, miss Austin and miss mcbrien.

I applied to one of their adult education courses. It states Students should have qualifications in English and maths, equivalent to at least GCSE grade C . This is not true as you will be asked to do a compulsory literacy and numeracy assessments before enrolment and you must get either the first or second highest level result in their list.

Although there is no time restrictions for these assessments but they expect you to complete each of these assessments within 40 minutes. I advise you it can take over an hour to get a good result in the Maths assessment as you will have to do all the calculations by hand. Calculators are not allowed in this numeracy assessment and the computer only marks the final answer of each question in the assessment so you have to be careful about what you write down in your answers as it can time you out if you make a lot of errors.

After you complete these two assessments you will then have a phone interview with a very mean tutor who will either accept or refuse your application, so it is a complete waste of time. I would advise applicants to avoid 'PACA' and look to the many other colleges locally that are more organised and offer a better service.

Very good school much more better than 3 or 4 years ago

paca is ok there is so much things to do but the teachers are not the best. I think p's and c's are a good behaviour system.and I like that they are going to let us study any subject Wednesday after lunch

PACA is picking up its pace and moving forward. It's not been an academy long and so far it's already managed to improve its OFSTED rating - it got Good for leadership last year and is working hard to bring the rest up to standard. It's got a new Parents Association as well which is a positive step forward for improving communication between the school and the local community. My child is very happy there and is thriving.