Duke’s Aldridge Academy, London | Fees, Address, Admission, Vacancies, Reviews & More

I feel sadden by most of the negative comments about this school as my experiences have been nothing but positive.

The head teacher is a great leader and she runs a tight ship which is good enough for me.

I never had a problem with the teachers. They have a no nonsense approach which I think is necessary, but at the same time they are apporoacable. They are determined to get the best out of the children and will do their hardest to make sure they achieve in their subjects

The head of year Mrs Bailey is a straight talking, no nonsense teacher with a warm heart and is so dedicated to her work.She’s always on the go and gets the job done. Don’t underestimate her! .

As for the receptionist, Miss Lees, I never had any problems with her personally. She was always polite and very helpful each time I’ve contacted the school. I think she is just misunderstood.
I’m sure people would like her,as I do, if they took time to acknowledge, and get to know her.

No school is perfect at the end of the day, but if my child wasn’t happy/not doing well, then I would be sure to remove them.

People take for granted what goes on behind the scenes at school. I’m sure some people would be more respectful if they were aware of the additional hours that the teachers incurr after school has finished.

As a parent, I think you get out what you put in. Communicate with the teachers, and I dont mean just when there is a problem! Be polite, respectful and try to build a good rapport in the interest of your child. By doing so you may find teachers are more receptive.

as soon as you walk in you’re greeted with an extremely rude receptionist, you do not want that women as the face of your school. the teachers themselves cannot teach apart from a few good ones that they managed to keep. the school is extremely broke; having to make several teachers redundant, not having enough equipment etc. the school does not care about mental health at all, they say they do but they don’t. they’ll tell you that they’ll support you but they won’t. the school councillor is very unprofessional along with many other staff members. do not send ur students here. honestly i hope i get hit by a car before i manage to finish with this school.

I am reviewing as an external student who came to do the exams for one of my GCSEs here. The building and displays are nice, but I noticed the n-word written in Japanese Kanji on one of the walls. As this school has many black students and staff you would assume the teachers would catch on to this and remove it. All the exams that I went for started HALF AN HOUR LATE. Papers were not ready on the desks as is customary, but handed out 10 mins after sitting down (???). The Listening paper was conducted in a large, echoing hall with a metal roof that clangs every time water falls on it, I don’t know how that was approved.

The Head Invigilator is a foul woman. She treated the external students like dogs- one of the external students turned around to look at the back, didn’t talk, and she screamed at us saying we were going to ‘sabotage their student’s exam.’ They told us to LEAVE the hall and come back in silence otherwise they would disqualify all of us when none of us had spoken. Meanwhile their students were screaming and throwing stuff while waiting to enter the hall. After that fiasco the exam went on. At 5 minutes left there was no warning as is procedural in all exams, which threw some younger students when that lady told us to stop. The girl in front of me (also external) was very confused as there was no warning and wrote maybe 2 more words on her paper before shutting it. This woman berated her in front of everyone, repeating how the girl had to write a report and how she shouldn’t try and justify what she did. With everyone looking at this girl she broke down into TEARS. The invigilator could not care less. Absolutely heartless and completely biased to home students versus the externals. Glad my exams here are done. Shocking.

The rudest receptionist ever! Amazing school but the receptionist take the whole school down, very serious. Women without manners, and clearly without any respect for other people she doesn’t care what you are. I get people have taught days but this is every time I have to go to the school.
It makes you doubt what is the school teaching to the kids; bad manners, no respect for others….

DO NOT EVER send your child here.

I’m a year 11 student and my 5 years at this attrocious school has been a living hell. Tecently the school kept all year 11 students behind after school until 5:00, bare in mind the school’s regular finishing time is 3:10, without informing parents- I’m pretty sure that’s ILLEGAL.

Furthermore, their “standards” are absolutely rediculous. You can’t wear more than one pair of socks, or you’ll be made to waste your lesson time to take your extra pairs of socks off, even in the winter when your toes get cold easily as we have to wear kickers – or another school shoe – which aren’t very suitable fir the weather. You can’t have any colour in your hair that isnt “natural”, yet when i dyed my hair blonde i was told if i go any lighter i would be in trouble. They’re unbelievable as they let students walk around with blue or even platinum white hair, yet I’m victimised and so are many other students- i feel they’re very very biased. Even dying the under side of your hair gets you in trouble. Wearing a bow in your hair will get you in trouble if it’s “not the right colour”. there are countless additional rediculous rules, however if i listed them all this review would be miles long.

They are also very unreasonable. My 2 friends, lets say Jannet and Sharon, were in an incident where some girls pushed them, and Jannet and Sharon were excluded even though they did the right thing and reported the incident to a deputy head teacher. Sharon was excluded for over a week. This was also recent, and we are nearing our gcse’s.

Some teachers are very unresponsible. In year 7, i had a choker confiscated from me and i went to collect it a week later- as i was told to do- and he lost it! and didn’t even pay me back or replace it!! Many teachers also don’t listen to anything you have to say, and feel like just because they’re the teacher and they have the authority, you can’t have a civil conversation with them and take it to another level because you’re “back chatting”. some teachers are just plain rude, i won’t name specific people as if a teacher reads this they’ll probably pull me up for this rather than SORT THE PROBLEMS OUT. they don’t like it when they’re told about themselves. Another teacher who literally everyone in the school hates, is absolutely irrational and shouldve been sacked years ago. an incident happened where she allegedly locked children in a classroom when someone set a firework off, and it hit a child in the back of the leg and she was let off with a warning.

however some teachers do genuinely care about your education and well being. some teachers i absolutely love and wish all the best for such as my tutor, my maths teacher and my media teacher. My maths teacher is the funniest person who doesnt leave any child behind. if you don’t understand something, he’ll keep going over it until you get it. “maths is never hard” is his favourite phrase, and he makes it that way- he’s an amazing person and teacher.

In addition, they often don’t have enough food to feed their students by the end of lunchtime, and many kids walk out of the canteen starving because the school doesnt have food??? They’d rather spend the money they’ve collected from art students on new doors and carpets so “the school looks good”. Even if they do have food, it’s often burnt or undercooked.

To conclude, don’t even consider sending your child here as they’ll probably just get bullied by the teachers and no one will listen to your complaints because they genuinely couldn’t give a damn.