Pilton Community College - Barnstaple

Kelly T.

Pilton College is a school full of empty promises of a safe, supportive, inclusive and nurturing educational environment, yet in reality those words are not matched by their actions once you sign your childs life, education and wellbeing over to them.
Everything I'd read in the poor reviews from past students was echoed in not only our experience but similarly in that of friends and their childrens. Luckily for my son I made the decision to move him early on and in true narcissistic fashion Pilton were all too happy to oblige rather than reflect on how they treat people and deal with incidents. They even refused to provide the new school with any info or CATS results to help his transition.

Bullying and violence among students is rife and the imposing of school sanctions and policies are severely lacking and largely ineffective. Most of the Senior Leadership Team I met are unreasonable and seem more concerned with covering up incidents and protecting their schools self imposed reputation than actively listening and taking appropriate action to incidents.
If you dare to question their authority and decisions you will be met with controlling, confrontational and dismissive attitudes, be made to feel like you're being difficult and be rudely spoken over to suppress your voice and prevent you from advocating for your child.
Apparently if you aren't there then it didn't happen and it was insinuated I was lying when I stated they had a serious bullying problem when they demanded I provide a list of names to back up my comments!
When my son was assaulted the deputy head victim blamed suggesting he tell everyone he's SEN so the other kids "could understand him better". Another SLT staff member told him in front of the bullies "your mum says you want them punished for what they did, is that true." Anyone with an ounce of common sense understands that would put any child in a difficult and highly vulnerable situation and was nothing short of irresponsible and unprofessional. It should never be left to a child to decide on appropriate punishments and an ex police officer should know better!

The SEND support is non existent when your children start and SEND kids might as well be chucked into the deep end of a shark infested pool to see which kids get eaten and which can swim to safety. Any talk about working with primary schools to ensure a smooth transition is utter rubbish and previously adopted universal or individually targeted support strategies or reasonable adjustments from primary are removed until you fight for them again.

The 3R's system of classroom control is used disproportionately, excessively and inappropriately by some teachers and most seem too focused on petty little things like colour of socks or a child turning their head the wrong way when there are far bigger issues they should be concerned with.

School transport is awful with daily incidents on the 921 bus including food fights, vaping/smoking, intimidation, violence and even drug use.....something the current head of year 7 didn't regard as a safeguarding issue!

Overcharging of food purchased in the canteen was happening with such frequency that it goes far beyond being passed off as the odd genuine mistake by staff and seems to be an institutional side business.

I'm not usually one for giving bad reviews however I feel strongly about how badly my son was treated and the poor attitudes of the SLT who weren't interested in our awful experience. No school is perfect but believe me when I say Pilton is not all it's portrayed as being when you visit on open days and I want others to be better informed than we were when making their choices. Do yourself and your child a favour and go elsewhere!

Melanie U.

Someone from this college fraudulently used my card details and ordered items to the school. The individual clearly is a staff member or someone with access to the post. I’ve tried contacting the college and have not had any help from the school office.

From the other reviews, it is clear that this place is not an institute in good standing whatsoever.

Leo

I am currently inside this school and it sucks really bad the classrooms smell like vapes and my English class smells like weed, there are gone off sandwiches. They have cut down massively. Now all there food is healthy, the Pringles, the flapjacks, and more are removed utterly disgrace full. Apart from that the teachers including Mr hunt don't care if you get hit, if you swear you get isolation, also there Karen's. Don't come to this school

sunghoon P.

literally moving countries because of this school, the education sucks, the teachers dgaf abt kids mental health and education and the people here a terrible, also i was doing student receptionist, me and my friend went to do a task and when we came back it smelled heavily of cigs in the building were many children go. so much so for "caring abt kids health"

Leguy

The school never pays attention to anyone unless they're a naughty kid. They just let them do whatever they want and give them a thousand house points for doing the bare minimum work. But if you're a good kid, who never complains and just does your work then you don't exist. Some teachers are nice and actually made some of the awful subjects bearable, however, most teachers probably only went into this line of work so they would have some semblance of control and power in their life as they just scream at the children they can't control and when the child answers back to their screaming the teacher will turn into a tomato and throw a tantrum. Not to mention they don't care about bullying 😀. Go to park.

Leah W.

This school is awful!!! There were 7 emos in the corridors and 3 furrys barking at me whenever i walked past them. If I was you, I wouldn’t come to this school because mr hudspith is secretly an emo and he fancies mr burn!!!

KerrTheSheikahchampion

Don't send your kids here. I'm in year 9 and no one cares about you unless you're... They actually don't really care for the kids at all! The only staff members who actually care are the SEN/LSA staff! Fights are way too common, the school will phone your parents up EVEN IF YOUR ABSENCE IS AUTHORIZED and try and deny everything. This is coming from someone with autism and a possible seizure disorder, the discrimination here is unreal at times. I GOT TOLD AS A YEAR 7 THAT ME BEING HIT DAILY AND BEING DEATH THREATEND WAS JUST A JOKE! IT GOT SO BAD THAT MY ATTENDANCE WENT DOWN BECAUSE I FELT UNSAFE THERE, BUT DID ANYONE CARE!?!? NO! NOT REALLY! Unless you want your kid to be bullied just because of their year group, don't send them here. The older kids WILL pick fights, bully and do not nice things to your kids in the corridor.

IrishWhipper S.

I think people accidentally pressed 5 stars instead of one. The whole system at the school is in shambles. Glad to be long gone. Though I did hate finbarr o callaghan (a kid who hid his vape in a sock)