Parent
My child attended BSG for two years. The school advertises itself as a provider of exceptional teaching and experiences. That isn’t the case.
Major points:
- quality of teaching varies greatly. The teacher my child got on their first year was OK. They were an observant and empathic person, and my child enjoyed learning with them.
- The second year teacher was not good. They shouted the children down. They told them not to argue or answer back, even if the children got confused with contradictory instructions. Bullying went on inside the classroom without eliciting any action from either teacher or assistant. Both had no empathy. The teacher also failed in their duty of care when my child got a small but quite painful injury and was denied access to the nurse. They mocked my child’s effort and scolded them for doing too much work rather than praising them. They even blamed the children for not winning competitions. They routinely dismissed and prevented them from communicating their feelings or concerns. The assistant wasn’t a very empathic person either, who, amongst other things, denied my child access to water, a basic necessity.
- The classroom is not a supportive and nurturing environment based on all the above.
- Bullying happens in the school, both in the playground and in class.
- Senior management was not effective in dealing with bullying in the school, which kept happening. In the cases involving my child, this was fuelled by teachers’ own children who continued to get away with it, even after several complaints. Senior management (head of primary) did not respond to an email from us and eventually refused a meeting, so we had to direct our complaints to the head of the school. Response from the head of the school included justifying the bully’s actions. My child had to move table because the bully sat at the same table, rather than the bully being moved. This passed the message that my child was being punished for complaining.
- Terrible and delayed communication is extremely common in this school.
- Extra curricular activities, called ASAs are advertised as being exceptional and with a long list to choose from. Be aware that you can only choose the activities from Year 4 onwards. Before that they have what they call a carousel of activities that is offered by school teachers. The quality of these is very poor indeed.
- My child’s end of term reports have a downgraded grade that wasn’t even real. One of the teachers downgraded them in term 2 and when we spoke to them to try to understand what was happening (my child was being bullied at this time), the teacher admitted it was a mistake and that they continued to be strong in their subject. This grade was never corrected.
- Organising meetings with some teachers was incredibly difficult, sometimes taking more than a month. In one of the occasions, the teacher simply did not turn up at the meeting.
- The swimming pool is another selling point of the school. However, children get very little use out of it. They have four lessons in the pool in any academic year. On my child’s second year they got only three. The excuse for this ranged from rain (Guangzhou?) to not enough PE teachers available.
- The much advertised partnership with Julliard in New York is mostly that, advertising. In my child’s second year there was someone who came briefly to the school and taught a short workshop to one of the classes (according to my child, their class was the only one that had the workshop in their year group). On my child’s first year there was no such provision.
- The food in the canteen isn’t the greatest quality. There are a lot of rather economic offerings. The school doesn’t allow lunch boxes, even in cases of dietary requirements (perhaps if you make a big fuss they will). My child ate the same food almost every day. And when they went on a sports competition, even though I enquired about their lunch due to their dietary requirements and was told there was provision for them, it turned out that there wasn’t.
- Residentials were full of hype. But for my child’s year group, the accommodation was in shipping containers converted to rooms. As the people that organised described it, they are rustic. A friend with a child in the year above mine relayed how the accommodation had been quite dirty in the previous year, so that the children decided themselves not to shower.
- During my child’s first year, homework had to be printed at home every two weeks. As we don’t have a printer, we requested for homework to be provided already printed. The teacher obliged, while the head of primary suggested we buy a printer. There wasn’t even a case for being green, as someone had to print it anyway. On the second year, we requested this from the start, which was then provided for everyone.
- Every year, classes have an opportunity for a class assembly, which work like a show put up for parents and fellow pupils. These are lovely. General assemblies are not open to parents, except when children were having remote learning during lockdown. One of the ones I witnessed was from a teacher that seemed more concerned about describing how much they had travelled. It felt very self-centred, rather than child-centred.
- There was once a workshop for parents that discussed what children were going to learn in maths during the year. It was mostly about maths challenges ranging from year 2-6. Incredibly, the maths leader for the whole primary couldn’t complete the challenge correctly.
- The music teacher is excellent.
- Outdoor space is good, although supervision is sometimes lacking. At one point, children were pushing others from a climbing frame and no one noted until my child relayed this to me this and I alerted the school.
- The building is light and bright, with large windows.
- Location is very far from city centre.
- School starts at 8:00. If your child takes the bus, this runs very early. In our case, the bus departed our stop at 7:00, but some are earlier.
