Prendergast Vale School

"There is an unfortunate combination of hopeless students and staff with no hope. The students here, from bottom to top sets do little to no work with no regard for their education. For this they are met with teachers either being lost at what to do or absolute hatred from the 'behaviour officers'. The behaviour offices were instated with the purpose of removing miss-behaving students from lessons, so that the teachers wouldn't have to do so. Instead they are used as a device of hatred towards the students, acting to incarcerate students in one room all day, ridiculing students for close to nothing, for example wearing a coat or hat on school grounds during winter(which are mostly outside and most routes between lessons include an outside segment) will land you in a silent room all day, being constantly watched by said officers. This combination really does not promote improvement within the school since the students have little idea of the virtues and positivity of engaging in education and instead only turn up to school because it is a legal requirement, only to be met by negativity. This is ironic because the ofsted report states "requires improvement". The overall attitude of students to not do work and not hand in homework as a sort of collective protection from the the appalled teachers trying to get them all to do it (since it would be very hard to get 30 disobedient, lazy students to do anything, as demonstrated by this school). This leads to the students only having (or ignoring) regret when they leave the school having failed their exams, as they would have learnt to do so in failing every practice exam due to a lack of even trying. The only reason this school gets any A grades is that only some students aren't hopeless and somehow have the will power to persevere against all of the negative peer pressure and the hatred of the school. If you hate yourself then at least you will be able to agree on something with the school, as they will hate you too."

"Dreadful! I hired a studio for a dance rehearsal. The studio was freezing cold and the music system was broken. The Head refused to refund me. Do not hire rooms at this school!"

"Absolutely disgusting with the amount of bullying going on. Nothing gets dealt with and all good pupils are leaving due to it. Do not recommend as it's not worth the stress and heartache."

"This school is incredibly unorganized the year 11's were recently sent on study leave and a very informal leavers assembly was held and they weren't even able to sign each others t-shirts to and give the teachers or students a proper goodbye. also during the school there were major problems with security and the head teacher was not very involved in the school life of the students, I must say that the schools inability to be organised was an absolute appalling and I wish to spread my concern for any parent wishing to send their child to this school. Finally I would also like to express my concerns regarding teaching. In 2015 many students had up to 8 English teachers with in an academic year and also in year 9 we were made to study a B-TEC course for an entire academic which however the course was only supposed to be studied for 12 weeks, this then resulted in losing very valuable time in order to learn the AQA science curriculum for chemistry physics and biology. Please reconsider before ending your child to this school. Thank you."

"I could not ask for a better school for my son. All his pastoral needs have been catered for and as an academic achiever, he has flourished with the support of excellent teachers and leadership. He enjoys the school and stays focussed thanks to the monitoring tools in place for both teachers and parents. My son enjoys the community aspect of the school and feels that he has positive and productive relationships with his teachers who support the students at this college tirelessly. I have nothing but praise for Prendergast Vale School. Best wishes Sally and Mike."