Where do I start? I began my first steps towards secondary education in the year 2003. For the next…read more3 years, I can see why Bristol Cathedral School (Was formally known as BCS) had such a reputation for educating its students to their potential. However, during my second year, the lovable headteacher Mr. Riley left to become a headteacher somewhere in London. Who was Mr. Riley replaced by? Mrs. Ann Davies. At first, she was very quiet. But as the days, weeks and months passed, she began to make poor decisions. When all the respected staff members such as Mr. Williams (Mathematics teacher) left, she made the wrong decision by employing the wrong staff such as the wrecked Miss. Choulerton. But those minor teacher mistakes were minor compared to the Business Studies department. The so called "Mrs. Andrea Ballance" was a right old b****. She only taught the brightest and smartest Business Studies pupil, leaving the ones who were struggling with the subject to fall even more further behind. The Business Studies department is one of the worst department I've seen in my life. During those 2 years of GCSE, my class experienced a high Staff-turnover rate (Ironic, Business term), with 6 different so called "permanent" teachers with 4 "trainee" teachers "helping" out with our education. A poor decision by Mrs. Anne Davies. I've had false letters from her that I apparently did not do the homework.
Mrs. Jenkinson, is another poor teacher. She teaches modern Languages. Her style of teaching is pretty poor as she spoken German (I took German for GCSE) all through the 35-70minutes we had with her. The whole class did not understood everything which were required (I was in the top set of German as well). But at the end, she saw her flaws and managed to help us (Even if it did mean cheating for us, on our German coursework). But the killer blow is to come: Mrs. Ann Davies, who made all the wrong decisions, went on maternity leave twice. The first time was temporarily. But the second time seemed to be permanent. That's right, she kept getting pregnant and can't even have proper commitments. She resigned 3 years later, with the school touting her as the "worse headteacher ever to Bristol Cathedral School". It made Mr. Andrew Munroe, the next headteacher, attempting to pick up the pieces from what Ann Davies caused. What I don't understand was that a fellow and bright student named George Noad, who interviewed Mrs. Anne Davies that she wasn't the right person for the headteacher's role. He even told the school Governors that, yet the Governors ignored it and employed her, as much to George's dismay.
The worse was the come. Just after I started my GCSE, drugs-taking become more frequent within my year. This was the worst drugs-consumption groups I've seen in my entire life. There is a saying that everyone knows around 1 or 2 people who consumes drugs. Me? As being one of the only clean ones (Out of 20-25 members) out of the whole year group, knew everyone who took drugs and it was around 80-90%. Much to my surprise, Deputy Head at the time, Mr. Folland, even caught someone with weed in his wallet, yet, he wasn't expelled, but was not allowed to go to lessons and he came in to take his GCSE! I would have expelled this student, if I were in Mr. Folland's position. But obviously, at the time, the school was still a private school, Mr. Folland was a money grabbing thief, who let greed took over him, so he could gain £3.5 grand per term, from this drug user's family. This is a disgrace, as I'm pretty sure other schools across the world would easily expelled drug users (Who left all in their groups to Redland Green a.k.a North Bristol post 16).
I'm glad I've left this 'shoddy' school. Although I really enjoyed my first 3 years of my life in this school, my last 2 years were crap because of poor decisions from the headteacher/school governors and with the drug users, which caused many problems in class, meaning I gained the least of my potential at the time.
