Great Baddow High School

Teachers don’t listen to students. The head of year 7 took a dislike to my daughter because she isn’t afraid to speak her mind and because of this she harassed my daughter.

The school is so bad they won’t let year 7 cross the road by them self,the staffs and members are horrible they tell you off for no reason.They have really rude teachers, maths teachers forget there caucalation and spelling.English teachers don’t know what the words mean. As mentioned at the beginning review a year 7 with hearing difficulties and none deaf year 7 cross with no adult so my question to the school is why can a normal year 7 cross the road but a deaf year 7 must have a teacher it makes deaf people feel like they have no trust and reassurance from staff.Deaf students always feel like there not normal and they feel like they are the odd student in classes

I've been impressed with the school's commitment to STEM subjects and the opportunities available to students. My daughter is thriving in the Sixth Form and I'm grateful for the support she's received from the teachers. However, I do feel that the school could do more to engage with parents and keep us informed about what's going on.

As much as I have made so many friends at Baddow and some of the people there are amazing teachers, there are SO many problems that it just seems like the school ignores. First of all, as much as I love what they’ve done, it seems like their entire improvement plan is the deaf department. I have nothing against deaf people, but I found that instead of equally spending their money and resources inbetween lots of mental problems and special needs children, they prefer to pour everything into that department. When it comes to behaviour, and even as someone who could be called a good and not naughty student, when children get into trouble, they target the ones who have gotten into trouble before. The ones who they think of as good kids are let off with a lot more. Now, I haven’t even began on talking about the hygiene and cleanliness of the school, and it is terrible. Every toilet I went in would have a broken handle, wrappers all over the floor (including sanitary products) and even on multiple instances urine on the toilet rims. In every few metres of floor, there would be so many random wrappers of food and there would be writing on the walls of rude words EVERYWHERE. In every toilet cubicle, there was at least one thing messy or broken. The toilet paper holder, the writing on the walls, the locks, even the taps. It’s gotten to the point where when you go into the toilets, there will be girls holding doors shut for their friends, or even multiple girls going into one toilet because there were so little that actually worked.

Bullying and Harassment is also a huge problem at the school. The most they will ever do to raise awareness about the problem is tell us ‘if you are bullied, tell us and trust us you won’t get into trouble’. The problem is that almost all children at the school need more encouragement to come out and say it. Because of this, most children think they can get away with it. And so most people you talk to are really rude and do things like push you, make fun of you sexually like (me being a girl) saying “hey baby girl” and other sexual terms that I can’t say on here or this will get taken down.

Overall, the schools bad, but children are scared to tell their parents about it or just don’t because it happens often and they are used to it.

My son is in Year 9 and we are so impressed with the school's facilities, the staff are always helpful and the values of the school align perfectly with our own. I love that they specialise in Science and Sport, it's been great to see my son's passion for these subjects grow.

one of the students was given 3 detentions in one lesson today for no reason all the teacher gang up on the students the clans the students are ganging up on the there is a couple nice teachers. when u try to talk to a teacher about mental heath all the do is tell you to get on with your life and just forget it school is more important

Interesting views on mental health and helping those with extra needs. I was supposedly given alot of help, however never actually got it, for instance I was apparently allowed class room breaks, but wasn't; I was given a fidget (by the school) to help anxiety, but wasn't actually allowed to use it; they did a test and found out I am most likely dyslexic so gave me extra time, but then took it away for important tests; I was also given (again by the school) an overlay to help me read, but wasn't actually allowed to use it and finally, I was given rest breaks in tests but again wasn't allowed to use it. Along with this, some of the teachers pick on students, in year 9 I had an English teacher who spent the whole term teaching us (top set English) how to spell/use grammer/full stops because some of the students were dyslexic and made several mistakes due to not receiving any help. Initially, the school seemed to help, however after realising I wasn't actually receiving the help I was supposedly being given, I had a change of mind.

My daughter left Great Baddow High School a few years ago and I couldn't be prouder of the person she's become. The school's emphasis on personal development and extracurricular activities really helped her grow into a confident and compassionate young woman. I've no hesitation in recommending the school to others.

As a parent, it's lovely to see my son happy and thriving at school. The staff at Great Baddow High School are always approachable and willing to listen, which makes a big difference to us as parents. The school's values of respect, empathy and responsibility are really evident in everything they do.

hello! apologies this review is very long haha.

i used to be a student at great baddow, but left in year 9 due to my mental health, which was mostly triggered by being at baddow. i joined in 2016 starting in year 7, expecting to have a great experience and an opportunity to become independent and learn lots of new things. unfortunately, it became quite the opposite. the first year was relatively okay, but i didnt realise my mental health beginning to decline. come year 8, it was god awful. the staff did not give a single shit about mental health. i would have countless panic attacks before and during school. when in student admin, the nurses would often tell me "its a hot day" as an excuse, just telling me i was dizzy due to the weather. i had panic attacks IN FRONT of them, and it was still excused. one instance i was sent back to math class after an attack, and almost ended up puking in class due to my anxiety. in fact, many of the teachers did not cater well to people like myself. im also autistic, so i struggled a lot in the environments i was faced in. especially in french class, my teacher was fucking terrible. all she would do is yell, threaten students with detentions for pathetic reasons, and i lost count of the times she made me cry. it got to a point i just couldnt attend any longer. i had so many traumatic experiences and i feel sick at the thought of it. im 17 now, and doing much better, but i will never forget the way it felt to be there. seeing as i havent been there for around 4 years now, i do not know if they are doing more for mental health, autistic folk, etc. i pray to god they are, but i fear it is still incredibly looked past, and i can only hope they do more to help in the future.
overall my experience there was dogshit, and while there was some wonderful teachers, majority of them only gave a fuck about grades. (:

Certain Teachers victimise the children and get away with it. More so the ones in power. Ruin children's and parent's lives and just continue to pick and pick and pick on the kids.... there attitude is well leave then and try to push you into their system. It's absolutely disgusting how they treat some of the kids, especially the ones with needs. They don't get on the kids level and understand them just lock/shove them in isolation rooms or exclude them from the school instead of helping them get through. All they care about is the scores with offsted and results of the more intelligent kids. They don't care for anyone with mental health issues. The school is far too strict for this day an age. Those teachers give kids complex issues and mental health problems. I would never recommend this school to anyone. They need to understand that they is life going on outside of the school and sometimes there's more things to worry about, rather than handing out detention slips all day and punishing the kids.

Teachers pick favourites - however some of the teachers are the nicest people ever and I think they should go and work elsewhere because they are too good for Baddow
They are AWFUL with dealing with mental health and bullying because all they care about is good grades and good statistics
If you are ‘sporty’ you will get away with everything
The current head (2021) and one of the other head members of staff are bully’s themselves and love the power they hold but use it in the complete wrong way - they also work in quite a misogynist way as I saw many boys get away with things that are absolutely unacceptable in a school
I think some of the rules of the school are prehistoric and should be changed
I have also had many friends who were turned away in medical when they were actually ill because they didn’t look ‘physically sick’
They spend all of the money on god knows what because 2/3 of all the classrooms don’t have glue sticks and most of the textbooks have pages ripped out of them but no one seems to replace them or do anything about it
The tutors I had were useless and didn’t help at all with any of the problems I took to them so you then have to play a game to find a teacher who will actually listen and help (there isn’t many)

Good sports facilities and pe teachers canteen repetitive food, never changes, dome is cool and quite unique to the school

teachers pick favourites and don’t understand mental health very well but it’s a good school

Meh, if I went into specifics this wouldn't be anonymous but one thing is that they suck at dealing with bullying