LETTERS From Mrs H. Baker, St Helens:
WE moved to the Island in December and our son was given a place at Sandown Bay Academy.
He has been shocked by the behaviour of pupils because it is so very much better than the behaviour at his previous school on the mainland.
He did not attend an inner-city school but a mainstream secondary school in a smallish seaside town.
At that school, whole lessons were regularly disrupted by bad behaviour and our son was even threatened with a knife. The behaviour at Sandown, he says, is 100 per cent better and he has not had a single lesson disrupted.
The staff and children have also been very welcoming and helped our son settle in very quickly.
I have worked in school as a TA and so have witnessed the children’s behaviour for myself.
One child at Sandown was suspended for swearing at a teacher. When I mentioned this to two teacher friends I have, who work on the mainland, they both said if they did that at their schools, there would be no children left to teach.
Sandown was not our first choice when we moved here but we are pleased with the school as it is a massive improvement on our son’s previous school. We have written to both Ofsted and the school to tell them of our impressions and to offer our support to Mrs Khan-Jones and her team.