I am very familiar with this school, knowing many past and present pupils. This description is bizarre and would be reagrded as very unfair and unrealistic by any one I know who knows the school. It is strict, the boys work hard, but there are very many extra-curricular activities. As for sports facilities, how many inner London schools have much space on-site? The school uses playing fields a couple of miles away for games. Inspections rate the school as 'excellent'. However good a school is, some children will inevitably be unhappy, as it may not suite them, but this scathing judgment is unfair. By the way, there are girls, if only in the sixth form. Almost all the boys want to stay into the sixth form, so they are obviously happy.
London Oratory School
Earls Court, London
- Address:
-
Seagrove Road, London SW6 1RX
Tube:
- West Brompton Tube Station (0.2 km)
- Fulham Broadway Station (0.6 km)
- Contact us:
-
020 7385 0102
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5 reviews of London Oratory School in English
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From the outside, this is probably every parents dream of a school in which to send your son, the reality is somewhat different, and also rather dark.
from the very first day, as a young 11 year old child, extreme discipline is drilled into the pupils. not after they have done something wrong I must add, in fact before they may have even dared to walk up the 'wrong' corridor on their lunch break for example. these lunch breaks aren't much fun either, for the first 2 years pupils are lined up in the playground in single file, not permitted to do anything else, until they are frogmarched to the relevant houseroom to be fed.
The school has a whole booklet of insane rules, which every pupils is required to carry round with them at all times, and yes you guessed it- detention if they dare leave this little white booklet at home.
some of the things in this rule book, which are banned:
- any kind of hair product
- running, shouting or whistling, at any time
-ball games
-wearing the school tie incorrectly
-using a specific tube station
-any kind of food or drink
-visiting any shop on the journey home, outside of school legislation
Some of the teachers actively target pupils they dislike, bullying them for as long as they remain in the school, less able pupils are often grouped together and written off as troublesome.
It is not a good environment for any child to grow up in, in my opinion. spending their pubescent years being constantly told off and not receiving any praise can really mess people up. there is no empathy, no accepting of individual pupil personalities, and harsh discipline for any pupil who steps out of line, even if this happened to be accidental.
There is a strange and sinister teacher-pupil relationship. Pupils are encouraged, almost forced, to grass other pupils up, or they may get the blame themselves.
This is just a warning to anyone who may be reading. School years are meant to be the happiest and most memorable of a persons life. unfortunately the regime in place at this establishment may well be detrimental and potentially dangerous to a young persons development (just look at the suicide rate)
Be very careful before sending your child here. the exam results may be outstanding, but you have to ask yourself what is more important- an extra A or two at GCSE, or the personal development of a young adult.
from the very first day, as a young 11 year old child, extreme discipline is drilled into the pupils. not after they have done something wrong I must add, in fact before they may have even dared to walk up the 'wrong' corridor on their lunch break for example. these lunch breaks aren't much fun either, for the first 2 years pupils are lined up in the playground in single file, not permitted to do anything else, until they are frogmarched to the relevant houseroom to be fed.
The school has a whole booklet of insane rules, which every pupils is required to carry round with them at all times, and yes you guessed it- detention if they dare leave this little white booklet at home.
some of the things in this rule book, which are banned:
- any kind of hair product
- running, shouting or whistling, at any time
-ball games
-wearing the school tie incorrectly
-using a specific tube station
-any kind of food or drink
-visiting any shop on the journey home, outside of school legislation
Some of the teachers actively target pupils they dislike, bullying them for as long as they remain in the school, less able pupils are often grouped together and written off as troublesome.
It is not a good environment for any child to grow up in, in my opinion. spending their pubescent years being constantly told off and not receiving any praise can really mess people up. there is no empathy, no accepting of individual pupil personalities, and harsh discipline for any pupil who steps out of line, even if this happened to be accidental.
There is a strange and sinister teacher-pupil relationship. Pupils are encouraged, almost forced, to grass other pupils up, or they may get the blame themselves.
This is just a warning to anyone who may be reading. School years are meant to be the happiest and most memorable of a persons life. unfortunately the regime in place at this establishment may well be detrimental and potentially dangerous to a young persons development (just look at the suicide rate)
Be very careful before sending your child here. the exam results may be outstanding, but you have to ask yourself what is more important- an extra A or two at GCSE, or the personal development of a young adult.
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Well… Our son is looking forward to attending the Oratory school in September 2011 and we are absolutely delighted!
We are practicing Catholics and are very active in our church community. Some people may consider us to be very strict … We are not. We just believe strongly in the ethos of our faith and our daily lives display that.
Our children are well mannered and we are always very proud during parents’ evenings, when we receive A+ review about our children performance and behaviour at school. ‘Your son is a delight to teach… he excels at everything he does because he enjoys learning and will do exceptionally well at the Oratory School… the pastoral care there is perfect for him…’ This is what his teacher said to us at the end of the year.
All of the pupils who attended the Oratory from our primary school, to date… have done exceptionally well in life and our Church and School Community are indeed very, very, proud of their achievements. Thank you London Oratory for a job well done and we look forward to 8 wonderful nurturing years!
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charli87
1 review
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I had a bad experience overall at this school, I attended for 5 years and left with 11 GCSE's. A certainty is that the Oratory can get their pupils through their exams in good nick. I'm not the most academically gifted person yet they helped me to get a good set of results. This clear plus however is countered by what I experienced to be a school with an extremely strict attitude towards their pupils. I would go as far as describing the teaching staff as at times being guilty of bullying and of failing to stop bullying by other pupils as well. Excessive homework wass a theme right through the five years I spent at the Oratory and given the travel time pupils often do not have time to socialize with friends outside of school. I managed to remain largely unaffected by my time at the school but i know it stunted my development as an individual. Despite its strengths in its high standard exam results this school is stuck in dark ages as far as dealing with its pupils.
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martinio31
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This school used a strange type of psycological warfare to make children study excessively. This includes excessive homework. Many students travel long distances to attend leaving them tired and isolated from friends. There are no girls at this school which is harmful to children as they do not learn to interact with girls and this can cause problems later on. The school is an exams factory and is quite large. While the exam results are quite good there are hidden costs to the children that are far greater than the value of those exams. For example an unhappy period during school can be difficult to recover from and people can find that they are in completely the wrong courses at A level and university. There is a lack of green space and sports facilities. Students may loose their passion for learning after being exposed to boredom and excessive homework. To put it simply this is not a good school and had a lot of bullies including in the teaching staff. Beware you could do great harm to your relationship with your child by sending them to this school.
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ThorntonHeathen, 15 October 2010: -
The-Green-Fairy, 13 June 2011:As someone who knows the school (I'm a girl who left the sixth form last year), I'd have to say I recognise more of martinio31's description than yours. You're right that the sports facilities are fine for an urban school - in fact, on the sports front the school is actually very good; they take a lot of pride in their sporting achievements - but the ethos of the school, the teachers' attitudes towards the pupils and the working environment is very detrimental. When you see very intelligent 18-year-old boys in the sixth form common room having food fights as a regular occurrence, you know something about the school has stunted their personal growth.
It is strict far beyond what is necessary or healthy, and the teaching staff as a whole don't have any kind of supportive relationship with their pupils - it's more crowd-control. There are some exceptions, yes, and some of the teachers are very good; but in general, the boys are prevented from doing anything wrong rather than encouraged to do their best. Assuming the worst of pupils as a default is incredibly infantilising, especially when they reach sixth form, and it's not surprising that many boys end up feeling very unhappy here. The reason they stay on at the sixth form - and I'd like to point out that probably a quarter of them drop out - is that they are completely institutionalised into thinking that this is A Good School. The way they are treated is Good For Them. They don't like it; they've developed a kind of half-suppressed resentment of the teachers and the school and they stick with it because they don't know anything else. I've heard this kind of attitude to the school this over and over again with the boys in my year.
I couldn't comment on the lack of social life that martinio31 has talked about, because I don't know too much about homework levels in lower school. But "exams factory" fits the school very well, except that I'd add good behaviour to that too. They don't care in the slightest about their pupils' emotional wellbeing - yes, bullying is ignored and some of the teachers are bordering on it themselves - they focus on character-building, hence the emphasis on sports. Other things that are good for personal development like developing original ideas, student-led initiatives like school plays or charity events, and so on are actively discouraged. Everything is top-down in this school, and the pupils suffer for it.
It's not the worst school: the exam results are good, the sports and music facilities are very good, the boys are generally well-behaved and the level of strictness means that there is little or no violence, drugs or other things that might blight other schools. But you have to be a pretty resilient kid to enjoy the five or seven or eleven years of your childhood here. It's terrible in terms of the personal development it offers its pupils, and I wouldn't recommend the school to prospective parents. I wouldn't send my son here.
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The school is Catholic and quite strict about its entry requirements. It is very unlikely that non-catholics are allowed to attend. The school is highly over-subscribed as it achieves high results and is a state school. The school is all boys but has recently started allowing girls into the 6th form.
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