Portslade Aldridge Community Academy (PACA) brighton

Ok... I have just left this school to move to a better school. My experience here has been awful, teachers picking on children. I have been called an idiot, ghost for just standing waiting for my friend. I have had experiences of a child being called stupid and dumb for not understanding a question and a teacher saying a child has Tourettes. ( if you want to find out the teacher I will email you). Paca focuses on the negatives, kicks children out of classes too often, there are so many people walking around the school from walking out of lessons. I know around 10-20 people from year 7 that have moved schools due to how bad the school is. I feel bad for the teachers that try hard and focus on keeping children in line and giving them a good education, which must be hard when all the other teachers cause negative impacts in 3/4 of the lessons. Paca makes many children dread coming into school everyday. The SLT staff are threatening and scary and overuse there power of telling children off. People being put in isolation for wearing trainers even though they have a note from pastoral and home. The uniform especially for girls is hideous you feel restricted in the skirts, you have to walk like a penguin. They handle bullying so badly and mr postern really doesn’t do his job. To all the year 7s coming up good luck you really need it. And all the parents choosing this year if you read this DONT GO TO PACA! take this from a child’s point of view. Paca doesn’t deserve to be a school, I can’t beleieve it’s ever passed offstead.

Poor behaviour, high staff-turnover, focus on negative C-Points because staff can not control classes, limited homework checking or feedback, the school drains any aspiration or joy from children, box ticking & box fitting. Poor child behaviour and teachers often only manage to crowd control. With the new SLT this school is rapidly going backwards from improvements made before. Hope they can focus on what is best for the children or it will be a very long & challenging 5 years. Would I recommend this school? Only if you have no other choice, your child has no additional needs & has a really focused/strong character to navigate the negative behaviours & seeming lack of control. Most teachers are very nice, good & want what is best for the children but seem to have a lack of support, communication and/or structures to work with from their Senior Leadership Team. It is a real shame as the school had great potential & I feel they will be riding high on the previous Heads results & hiding behind these results for a while to come. I really hope they prove me wrong as you can’t get these years back for your child.

Very good school much more better than 3 or 4 years ago

Teachers are quite mean and over all a bit too focused on c points. Me personally I have had about 9 I, not a bad child and I don’t get told off that much but teachers like to point out. Some teachers are good for instant mr Knox, miss Austin and miss mcbrien.

I applied to one of their adult education courses. It states Students should have qualifications in English and maths, equivalent to at least GCSE grade ‘C’. This is not true as you will be asked to do a compulsory literacy and numeracy assessments before enrolment and you must get either the first or second highest level result in their list. Although there is no time restrictions for these assessments but they expect you to complete each of these assessments within 40 minutes. I advise you it can take over an hour to get a good result in the Maths assessment as you will have to do all the calculations by hand. Calculators are not allowed in this numeracy assessment and the computer only marks the final answer of each question in the assessment so you have to be careful about what you write down in your answers as it can time you out if you make a lot of errors. After you complete these two assessments you will then have a phone interview with a very mean tutor who will either accept or refuse your application, so it is a complete waste of time. I would advise applicants to avoid 'PACA' and look to the many other colleges locally that are more organised and offer a better service.