Chesterton Community College - Cambridge

Kizzia S.

I was a student there and had a such a horrible time. They would do absolutely nothing for bullying, heavy favouritism, judge you if you have any type of needs and homophobic.

I was extremely sick when I was about 14, I was projectile vomiting every day for hours on end. My mum gave them assess to my medical records so they could see I was going to the doctors and getting a lot of tests. So they took my mum to court.

In year 11 a girl is year 8 had a crush on me, I had no idea at this time. She was telling everyone we were together. When I finally found out I very much avoided this girl but she would try her best to follow and stay in my friend group even after we asked her to leave. She came to me online saying she’s bisexual and is very confused so I say her due to her age please don’t get up to anything bad. Yeah have a girlfriend but probably don’t go any further than simple kiss as she can’t protect herself yet. She had also gone into detail about abuse with her parents so I ended up showing the school my messages being worried about her. Her mum ended up reading these messages after being informed of my report. The girls mother had then said she knew my address and would fight me and make an example of people like me and coming out with homophobic slurs. The school had then decided despite me showing everything and me trying my best to avoid the girl I was the one in trouble and if I did one more bad thing I was expelled or I could chose to go to a different school what was at the time called tbsp academy. Let’s just say I chose to transfer over to tbap and to this day I do not regret doing so. That school had showed me how stuff is actually run properly and how badly I was treated at Chesterton.

So basically if your kid is part of the lgbt, has disabilities or even just a hard time learning please don’t send them here. I’m not the only person who’s suffered from homophobia and discrimination for disabilities from this school and far from the last. I even bumped into a old teacher from back then and she had admitted she was also shamed for being part of the lgbt by her fellow teachers but nothing was ever done

Harold L.

The sixth form is really good, the size of the class is small so easier to focus on lesson. Student behaviour and quality of teaching is outstanding . Professional Card given as well, Lots of enrichment opportunities (e.g Kenya trip and Gold Dofe)

The common room is very cozy, got sofa, beanbags etc

Apollo ?. H.

Teachers are mostly wonderful and good teachers but with a select few who shouldn’t be teaching anymore.
The pastoral care is awful, with one teacher asking people to “promise to her” not to relapse in self harm.
Similarly the numbers are often deemed more important than the students. I struggled with my health during yr11 and was once forced to go back to lesson In excruciating pain and nausea by someone who didn’t even come see me. All because my health had reduced my attendance.
As well as this the pressure to excel in all lessons is unsustainable and leaves you with a constant need to overachieve down the line.
Otherwise the inclusivity is incredible based on a couple teachers hard work as well as pretty good teachers.

Doris W.

Excellent teachers who are really dedicated to their students’ welfare. I am so glad my daughter didn’t go to Hills Road. Hills Road enrolment team were cold and unhelpful but my daughter received such care and help at Chesterton Sixth Form College. I am forever indebted to Mr Mepham and Mr Bowles for their love and care over the last 2 years. I would strongly recommend Chesterton Sixth Form College to all parents and students!

Sihem B.

Fabulous teachers, games and lots of work good for students

Bahar S. A.

Very down to earth and supportive of new teachers. Highly academic headteacher and members of staff open to new ideas. Very diverse set of students from various academic, socio-economic and ethnic background, but the school has put so many interesting provisions in place to ensure inclusion and they are very adaptive, creative and flexible policy-wise!

microwavable M.

Year 11 pupil:From an academic perspective the school is great. However whilst I do believe the school cares about its students there's a lot of progress when coming to reaching out directly to its students and making the connection between homework, mental health and general grading. As a current student on average im assigned around 7-8 assignments (varying in length, difficulty and how much we're expected to do)per week, whilst this may be a normal amount, it makes spending time with family and relaxing in general really difficult, especially when we're often being force fed the narrative that teachers spend hours alone marking our assignments when often they're never checked thoroughly or even at all, and when they are little feedback is given on how to improve (I'm fully aware teachers may actually spend time marking and I appreciate it may be difficult to give equally thoughtful feedback to each individual student but it makes homework particularly demotivating knowing that often the effort we put it wont be recognised or reciprocated). Personally I spend the majority of my time trying to work out ways of short cutting my homework, trying to maximise the amount of free time I get, obviously this doesn't provide me with much actual knowledge and shows that I'd be better off without homework, or just more practical knowledge on how to revise effectively, instead of being told how and what areas to revise, perhaps teachers could spend more time finding a way to give us more individual revision plans, this way achieving higher grades with lower stress. In addition to all the added stress of GCSEs we're often taught ways of dealing with mental health, personally I appreciate the effort the school goes to to show that they care but "mindfulness mondays"and simply adding a few websites at the start of PowerPoints dont erase the heart of the issue, that being the detrimental pressure we're put under to meet our potential grades (often not being accurate or flexible reflections of us as students and individuals, but rather as points of pride to wave around when sitting amongst groups of other children, or stickers to hide incase of embarrassment) and the results the school produces every year. I myself have developed quite bad anxiety, the anxiety itself doesn't revolve around school but the impact of the monthly tests often results in sleepless nights and unneeded stress which could be resolved by better 1-1 relationships with teachers and trust built between staff and students. As well as this, for a year onwards I have been placed in a lower science set, whilst I agree that my grades dropped dramatically in year 8, no actual questions were asked because of this, no teacher asked me why they dropped or plan was put in place to help me pick myself up again, resulting in a grade 5 end of year result. After being moved down in year 9 I quickly realised that the teachers were in no way as motivated to teach the lower set students, but rather they taught them to a level 6 grade (a pass for GCSEs and allows them to say "97% of our students passed their GCSEs", whilst ignoring that whilst this is still a great achievement it's still a low pass and isnt really enough to get into Hills road (the follow on sixth form college chesterton pushes children to aim towards getting into). I've made great achievements in science since year 8 yet I'm still in a lower set class, recently I scored two 7s in my science tests (an A equivalent) and one of my science teachers told me that I should move up (which I really appreciated as nobody actually had said anything to me, in fact my mum sent the school an email at the start of term enquiring but I was told i would have to wait until i completed the tests, which i got a 7 on, which is really unfair as we're only taught to a grade 6 level, which on it's own isnt enough to move up, so I spent hours every night revising, though I still haven't been moved up). Generally the teachers are amazing, especially the English department, but changes must be made to the grading system and general algorithm.

monica B.

My dd is thriving in this school. She has great pride in it as have her fellow students. There is a broad enrichment program and the national curriculum is delivered in a creative and inspiring way by a strong team of teachers and leaders. There is unusually low staff turnover, which is always a good sign. The school is in the top 100 nationally of non selective schools, and certainly doesn't coast on catchment area. We are lucky to have our dd there.