There are two secondary schools in Skegness, The Skegness Grammar School, which is obviously a grammar school and St Clements College a comprehensive school.
The unfortunate thing with St Clements College is the Skegness Grammar School is selective and pretty much gets the top 25% of students from the Skegness and surrounding areas. This has resulted in many of the students at St Clements College listed as requiring special educational needs, lost the source now, but read about 1/4 of their pupils are SEN! From the BBC website almost 35% of the 171 students who sat GCSE’s at St Clements College in 2008 were special needs! In comparison of the 111 students from Skegness Grammar School who sat GCSE’s in 2008, none of them had SEN. So it’s unfair to directly compare these two schools.
St Clements College was closed a few years ago as a failing school, after reopening Ofsted reports indicate the school is improving, but still needs to improve further.
Our Experience of Schools in Skegness
My wife and I are not big fans of the school system in the UK and have home educated our three children from birth. Eldest son is 18 years old, never attended school and left Skegness earlier this week to attend University to study computer sciences at Nottingham University.
Son number two is 15 years old and was home educated up until a few months ago when we decided it would be easier to obtain qualifications at school, rather than go the same route as his elder brother who didn’t get GCSE’s, he had to study early with the Open University on merit.
Our youngest son (13 years old) who has never attended school and is very happy with home education.
Son number two is not as academic as our other two children and wasn’t working particularly hard at his education at home. It’s not that he’s not capable, but he’s developed a bad attitude towards education and with that sort of attitude our style of home education doesn’t work (mostly self led study requiring self motivation and discipline). If we’d have carried on until he was 16 he’d have no qualifications and no plans to study beyond the age of 16, we couldn’t let that happen which meant he had to go to a school (one of the hardest decisions we’ve ever had to make)!
Since the Skegness Grammar School wasn’t an option and to be honest in our minds there was the possibility he wouldn’t work hard for a school (any school) either, we decided to try St Clements College to gain GCSE’s with a tentative plan to join the army to become a veterinary technician or dog handler at 16/17 years of age.
He attended St Clements College for the first time summer 2009, he had problems immediately with multiple fights (lost count how many!) between him and other students and in one case a non student in the nearby church grounds on the way to school, (he entered school covered in this other persons blood!). If he wasn’t able to look after himself it would have been called bullying, he’s not a big kid (skinny as a rake, which probably doesn’t help, looks like a wimp), but he knows how to defend himself.
He was used to dealing mostly with adults and mature people who generally don’t start trouble for the sake of it. At St Clements College almost everyday in the first few weeks someone took a dislike to him and started chastising him. We taught him to look after himself “take no bullying” and “don’t be a victim” and so this resulted in multiple fights/altercations: fortunately he’s not been hurt badly (odd bruise here and there) during the fights, (some with multiple pupils attacking him) the same can’t be said for some of the kids who took him on (they apparently learn slowly at St Clements College!).
The summer holidays have come and gone and things have settled down, so no more fights so far.
Poor Quality Education at St Clements College
From an education perspective he’s found the work easy, which suits him as he’s not that interested in gaining a high quality education, very disappointing for us, but the old saying “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” holds very true for our second born!
From what he’s told us the level of work is what I was doing at 11/12 years of age at an ex grammar school ~28 years ago! I went to a school called Swanwich Hall in Derbyshire until I was 13 years of age. This was not an exceptional school (it was a good comprehensive school) and I wasn’t an exceptional student, far from it, I completely messed up my school education and had to study hard at 17+ years of age to eventually get into University as a mature student to study genetics at The University of Sussex.
IMO successive governments (Conservative and Labour) have dumbed down the education system so year on year it appears that schools are always improving: better GCSE results every year, NO WAY! This however does not result in a high quality education for our children and long term is damaging our country!
Our son has found the work so easy he’s caught up with a years worth of missed work in weeks and attends extra courses that he finds more interesting: because he started near the end of the first year of GCSE work he had little choice of what to study. Where he has interests in sport (very athletic) and science, he was given courses like business studies and engineering which he has NO interest in at all.
He’s been getting comments from teachers his work is very good, when if he’d have given it us as part of his home based education he’d have been expected to rewrite it. We expect a very high standard of work and this school appear to expect a very low standard.
The Staff at St Clements College Skegness
We’ve had a mixed bag of results from our dealings with the staff at St Clements College, some are good, others are not, I’ll not mention any names (mainly because I didn’t note the names down 
)
Generally speaking the school staff did not follow through with what they agreed to supply/do. For example when he was due to join we were told we’d be contacted with a list of course options, what was available etc… We’d discussed it in a meeting and was told at the time they didn’t know exactly what courses were available, (great planning, that was the reason for the meeting) so they would contact us later in the week with a list of available GCSE courses. This call never materialised, they wanted to sit down with just our son to decide on his GCSE courses: we suspect this was to make it easier to talk him into courses like engineering that he had no interest in! In the end he had choices between courses like engineering and child care, not a great deal of choice for a 15 year old boy interested in science, animals, sports, sign language (taught himself sign language)!
If it wasn’t for his attitude to the way we do home based education he’d have never been sent to St Clements College, the courses are awful choices for him.
Some of the St Clements College Staff lie to Students/Parents
One member of staff in particular will lie her ass off to get what she wants. For example after an altercation between our son and another pupil (in the first weeks) we’d been asked to keep our son at home a couple of days (not a suspension, he’d done nothing wrong IMO) to let things settle down (the other pupil was hurt) and give them time to come up with a plan. Since he was only going to a couple of lessons a day (they were easing him into school life) we agreed.
We were told we’d be contacted by the end of the week with a plan, we got no call and so on the following Monday morning we sent him to school for his lessons. He was sent home not long after, he’d been told by a member of staff that she’d called me (his Dad) and that I’d agreed he should be sent home until things are sorted out (so he came home).
This was a bare faced lie, she had NOT called me! I gave her a telling off over the phone for lying to our son, she also lied to me saying she’d left a message on our answer machine on Friday, we don’t own an answer machine! I sent him back to school for the next lesson and made it clear NOT to punish him, for a time they had two teachers following him through his lessons!
What sort of person lies like this in front of impressionable teenagers, if it’s alright for adults to lie surely it’s fine for kids as well! Not impressed with this lack of setting a good example.
I mentioned this to one of the higher members of staff and he basically said she’s not part of the teaching staff so nothing he can do about it!
A couple of weeks ago he left his school shoes in the sports changing rooms by mistake, he realised after getting home and assumed it would be safe over the weekend and planned to go in his trainers and get his shoes before the school day started on Monday. The school staff he spoke to for assistance refused to help him find his shoes and instead immediately sent him to a place called the Bic which is for misbehaved pupils at St Clements College!
They called us to complain at the lack of shoes and we’d need to get him new ones before he could leave the Bic, this was before they’d even checked the changing rooms/lost property etc… to see if they could find his shoes!!! That was completely unacceptable and I insisted they either send him to his lessons or home, (he was sent home!). I’m not having a child punished for an honest mistake, what sort of message does that send!
A week or so later he was playing rugby in the dinner break and a pupil accidentally stood on his thumb, the school nurse suspected the thumb might be broken and we understand under those circumstances parents should be called and the school will take the injured child to the local accident and emergency department.
We received no call from the school and our son was left to walk home at the end of the school day (almost 2 hours after the incident) which meant by the time he got to the A&E department in the Skegness Hospital the X-ray machine was closed down for the night (closed at 4pm)! He had to go back the following day with his hand in a lot of pain and wrapped in a flimsy bandage!
Turned out he’d dislocated the thumb and a doctor popped it back in, (didn’t need an X-ray, just needed to see the right doctor) fine now, but had it been a break (it looked quite bad) immediate action was required! The school completely failed in protecting our sons health.
An English teacher at the end of last term was impressed with his work and said he would do better in a harder class. Our son has chased this up, but so far nothing has happened.
St Clements College is lucky I’m recovering from an operation on my back and don’t want to waste my time dealing with a school. Also our son made this bed (he didn’t have to ever go to school) and so we are taking a big step back and letting him deal with the problems he created himself. If he wants a good education he’ll have to fight for it himself.
Take into account we’ve only had dealing with St Clements College for a few months with almost half of that time the school holidays, I can only imagine what it must be like for students/parents who have been dealing with this school for years!!!
Unfortunately St Clements College is a very low quality school, I feel bad sending one of our children to a school like this.
Comments are open for your positive and negative experiences with St Clements College Skegness.
David Law
8 responses to St Clements College Review
I couldnt agree more Mr Law, st clements is the most dreadful school i have had the misfortune of letting my 3 children attend. The school wants shutting for good. They keep changing the name but its still same old same old. Never improvements.
Mr. Law,
I taught at this school briefly in 2006, for 6 months. I am not British (Australian), and so this was my first introduction to the British education system. I feel that picking on the school soley is not fair. Not once did you talk about the area itself. While I accept that some teachers might not be exceptional (as with every school you have your good and not so good), how about a commentary on the area itself and some of the parents that these kids have. I am not suggesting for a moment that every parent is like this, but from my experience, many of the children at this school came from low socio-economic families who did not prioritise education at all. The demography of the area suggests that there is a big ‘spill’ from places like Nottingham, Leicester etc. Basically families who came to Skegness for a seaside holiday and stayed. So essentially, many of the kids are city kids. So SCC was much like a London or Nottingham comprehensive. I can tell you, I have taught at many schools, and SCC was by far the hardest school to teach at in terms of behaviour. That is a failing on the schools part, but equally (and perhaps more) a failure of some of the parents who have failed to teach their kids how to behave like normal human beings. Also, from my experience, home schooling is detrimental. It does not equip the children with the necessary social skills that schools provide each student, which is possibly why your son was in so many fights? Just a thought.
I have no allegiance to the school at all and I am often critical of aspects of it when asked about my teaching time in the UK (am now back in Australia at a very nice comprehensive). I would however, suggest that you think about how hard those teachers have it at that school before you write about it. Essentially, these teachers are paying (on a daily basis) for the incompetent role-modeling of many of these students parents. I agree that teachers should not lie and that was unacceptable and that they should have sent him to A and E- definately agreed. I do not agree however, that you should publicly advertise the fact that the school has such a high percentage of SEN students (regardless if its on the BBC or not) and the fact you put an explanation mark on the end suggests a mocking tone. How is that good role-modelling? These SEN kids are mostly amazing children, each with their own individual talents and most are well-behaved students, however, you seem to have lumped them together as just a ‘bad’ statistic. Remember these kids are someones son or daughter and are precious to someone.
The bottom line is Mr. Law, you seem to whinge and moan about this school in a public forum, but on the other hand say you are stepping back as your son has ‘made his own bed’. I am confused. How about considering the fantastic job that most of the staff there do with limited resources in a VERY trying setting. I personally think they all deserve some sort of medal for dealing with many of the problems in such a professional and patient manner on a daily basis.
Until the culture of the area is changed, the culture of such a school will not. Maybe the better option would be to home school him again? Or, even better, how about actually doing something positive for the school that your son attends, rather than criticising it incessently.
St Clements College Review
I’m not “picking on” St Clements College per se, I’m listing specific problems we encountered, I’m sure there are some perfectly able members of staff, unfortunately we didn’t meet many of them. Had the members of staff WE DEALT WITH performed their functions adequately we’d have not encountered so many problems in such a short period of time.
You can not blame your perceived ‘low’ quality of the parents of children at the school for the actions of teachers/members of staff when dealing with a family that considers education extremely important. We aimed for all three of our children to go to University, the eldest (never attended school) is at University and the youngest (hasn’t attended school so far) looks like he will go to University (he plans to study politics at Oxford University).
You read too much into my SEN comments, I found it surprising around 1/4 of children at the school are SEN, that’s it (you don’t find that surprising/concerning?). I’m not aware of the national statistics for children with special educational needs, surely it can’t be as high as 25%?
It’s a poor argument to say I shouldn’t discuss publicly available information about a school like the number of SEN children. I hope you don’t teach children this sort of attitude when dealing with institutions that are doing a below standard job? How do you expect the next generation to take on challenges if they can’t discuss them publicly?
I do find it amusing you say home education doesn’t prepare children socially. I’ll agree home education doesn’t prepare children for school based socialisation just like home education doesn’t prepare children for prison based socialisation. I draw this comparison because prison is about the only scenario in our society that I can compare to school.
A group of people who the majority of which do not want to be in that situation.
Physical bullying is rife and those in charge do not deal with it adequately.
You don’t ‘grass’ to the screws = you don’t ‘grass’ to the teachers.
I would agree home education is a different type of socialisation, where school children are expected to socialise within their peer group and that group is defined by their age and not shared interests, it’s a pseudo society that only lasts as long as a child attends school.
Home educated children socialise with people they have a shared interest with and not just because they were born within a 12 month period!
In this respect home educated children are generally socialised in a similar manner to people at work/adult life. You don’t start a job and find everyone within the business you deal with is the same age, a person in work deals with all age groups.
Home education better prepares a child for adult life.
David Law
St Clements College Review
Mr Law,
I teach my children to question everything and to be critical thinkers. I teach them to question (respectfully) authority and institutions. I possibly did not word it clearly, but my main problem was not the fact you mentioned the 25% SEN statistic, it was the way in which you did it. Reading text is possibly not the best way to understanding sarcasm etc, however the exclamation mark at the end would have made me very angry if I was a parent of a SEN student as it implies that being a SEN student is a burden or massive problem to be ashamed of. Like I said however, you may have meant to imply something else. In regards to home schooling, I stand by my comments and from my experience of students coming into mainstream schooling when their parents finally work out that it hasn’t worked, or they cant adequately provide them with a good education, they generally lack social skills when dealing with other students.
Anyway, all the best. SCC is all but a distant memory for me and taught me much about classroom management.
Dave
St Clements College Review
hi we moved to wainfleet in july this year, my eldest daughter started 6th form at what was st clements, now skegness acad, while my eldest daughter got allowed to join my youngest has yet been allowed, she is year 8 and has been home taught for 5 months due to her last school where we moved from, treating her like dog muck. my daughter is asmatic and very very shy, she has also not had good health for years so her attendence is not brilliant. so the school need to have a “meeting” to deside if she can be allowed to go there !!!!!!!
St Clements College Review
I agree with many of the comments. The school is full of pupils whose parents cannot parent and blame many if not all of their offspring’s shortcomings on the teachers.
And also parents who criticise teachers for being awful when their own attempt to educate their child failed. “..he had ‘developed’ a bad attitude towards education”.
Wow. You are full of shit.
Furthermore;
‘If it wasn’t for his attitude to the way we do home based education…’
The reason your second son failed to respond to the ‘way you do home based education’ (p.s. it’s home-based), is because YOU failed to respond to the way you taught HIM. Every child has different needs, and if your ‘way’ doesn’t work, you need to change to accommodate, not give up, send him to a school and then complain that the school hasn’t adjusted to your son’s needs.
You couldn’t do it for one child.
Try adjusting the way you teach each child, for 30 children.
Per hour.
Let’s just say you wouldn’t make it as a teacher.
‘Our way or the highway’ doesn’t work with every child. Maybe the best way to help your child is to teach him at home again, only this time, change YOUR approach. Your son IS teachable at home, it’s a well-known fact that the more challenging the student is to teach, the harder you have to work…
I hope this is more helpful to you than ‘you are full of shit’, which was my initial reaction to your ‘blame-anyone-else-apart-from-myself’ mentality, and for which I apologise.
St Clements College Review
Tottaly Agree with this review
This is a spot on review of this school. I moved to the school from Leicester when I was 13 (Year 7) and found it really poor in education and students, I found it hard for a couple of months to integrate within the classes as the students had grown up together in such a small seaside town and didn’t really like to welcome new people. At the time the school was called Earl of Scarborough and had a very weird system of having the same people from your tutor in all of your classes this then making it harder to integrate with students out of your tutor. I had previously studied for most of year 7 at Beaumont Leys in Leicester which I consider a much better school considering where it is located. After the first year the school changed hands and name and things started to pick up even though it was still poor in standards, but I was able to mix in with some good and bad people but started to enjoy my time, as I was regarded as a bright student (just missing out on a place at the grammar school and having good SATS) I was put in the best classes so had the best teachers and could get my head down. But I was able to witness some classes that were constantly disrupted and never taught as the teacher would be chasing students down the corridor. This never really become better as the same people were still around, In 2007 the school recorded the lowest GCSE’s in East Midlands (Nottingham, Leicester, Derby and so on) which have some of the roughest areas in England. I completed my GCSE’s in 2008 when the school recorded one of the best GCSE’s ever, i had ok GCSE’s with bad scores in Science and French as poor teaching, i then moved out of Skegness to continue studies at Warwickshire College and are currently about to enrol at De Montfort University in Leicester.
So my conclusion on this review is to get out of Skegness if you wish the best for your child, I feel that I could have done a lot better in my learning if I stayed at Beaumont Leys in Leicester as some of my less intelligent friends got better grades than me thanks to a great school and good teachers.
St Clements College Review
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