Boxhill School

[TishS]

Does anyone have comment on upsides and downsides of Boxhill School (Secondary).

Our son is joining Year 9, in September. Our decision to move schools was made very late in July(bullying), by which time we had missed the boat ,at other schools. We would be quite keen to keen to hear from other parents as, I 've been told that the school has improved quite significantly since 2019, when there was a high teacher turnover and kids not being pushed academically. There 2019 A level results were below the national average although IB seems to be the preferred route.

'Their 2019 results' , I meant.

I’m afraid pastoral care leaves a lot to be desired at Boxhill School. The leadership team are extremely superficial and self serving. The HM has little stature, and appears to rely on slick management speak to compensate for shortcomings. Certainly little confidence in their ability to act in the child’s or parent’s best interests. For example, bullying is rife yet the policy appears to remove the victims and cover their backs, rather than deal with the perpetrators. As for support to special needs or pupils with individual challenges.. forget it! The pastoral team are only interested in the majority, and are ruthless where a pupil’s face doesn’t fit or where tailored support is required. Many stories of contrived behaviour contracts, and building evidence on school record to facilitate managed transfer. On the plus side, the quality of teaching overall appears generally sound.. as are the facilities. However, the ‘round square’ scheme (promoted as the school USP) serves only to markedly reduce pupil time on core subjects, and at the detriment of academic progress. Hence the unimpressive academic results!