William Ellis — what's it like?

[Pinkglobelamp]

I'm asking about all the schools on my list, really.

William Ellis sounds interesting because it seems parents say good things about it, yet it had the recent Ofsted downgrading.

How is it for behaviour, bullying, noise, etc.? Pastoral care?

Academically not so good?

Any update on William Ellis? Thank you.

I’m sorry to say but my son’s experience at WE was so bad, we’re paying the price years later.
We were enticed by the plus points: the Heath, ex Grammar etc, but the reality was a hugely toxic atmosphere, felt immediately on entrance.
They try to bed year 7s in with a camping trip. DS was bullied immediately, his sexuality questioned as well his atheism. Back at school the bullying continued relentlessly, he was punched, shoved, pushed in the road, shown porn and snuff videos, filmed crying and told it was put on Snapchat. There were other things that he still won’t tell us about. It took a year and a half to get him into a different school and that was only possible with an EHCP.
Our experience reporting incidents was very poor, even with cctv evidence, it was obvious the school was more concerned with how these accounts would influence their Ofsted report so were minimised and we felt we were gaslit.
If I’m honest I’d say it’s a holding pen for boys who are brought up around misogyny and machismo as the norm.
We’re still working through the pain years later.

DS1 was there for 2 years having been excluded from another school. It is quite a rough environment (DS mentioned fights in the toilets) but the teaching is good and the teachers genuinely seem to care and go the extra mile for the students. The school gave my son a second chance and the HT and other heads of year were particularly good. My son really enjoyed his time there but he is quite confident and used to dealing with people from all walks of life. I know of several other parents with kids there who are very happy. The intake is quite heavily Muslim in case that's a factor.

Sounds very similar to my son's experience, took him a couple years to get over the trauma of being there. Such a shame as he had such a lovely primary school experience. He is back on track now and doing well, biggest regret sending him there.