Northampton College — Local services in Great Britain

couldn't be much worse to be honest

the one good part is that a couple of my teachers were okay, particularly my form tutor who was an actual gem of a person

other than those few exceptions though, most teachers seem to just not care. some would barely explain the fundamentals of the topics, some would just breeze through all the bullet points of a topic with zero elaboration, and expect us to somehow understand. often they have zero flexability with the assignments, there were multiple occasions where a teacher expected me to include things that i had never been told i needed to include, and even at least one time where my assignment was being rejected literally due to how i had formatted the document.

the students in my class were also mostly terrible, openly admitting to being racist and homophobic, and one person was openly recounting how they were telling a trans girl to kill herself (all of this being well in earshot of a teacher, who obviously blissfully ignored everything, which was of course a very comforting sign as an lgbt student myself).

on the topic of lgbt+ students, there is no additional support, not even a basic social club or anything. the closest thing they have is a small ✨️ gay books ✨️ shelf in the library. though to be fair, this lack of support is hardly surprising given what i've heard from disabled people's accounts of the place.

also, my head of department can genuinely only be succinctly described by one word, which i'm probably not allowed to use here, so to describe her un-succinctly, she was incredibly vindictive, completely unsupportive, and almost actively discouraging at times. she'd refuse to address any of my problems and would just insist that she is correct - in the way that you just know she thinks she is perfect - and has literally zero room for accommodation of anyone else's ideas. there were even occasions where a vast majority of my teachers agreed that what she was saying was illogical or counterintuitive, but since her word is final i imagine they've all accepted that her tyrannical ego is the only thing that actually matters in their department. the fact that she has a job as a head of department should honstly be taken as an insult to every teacher seeking promotions in this school.

the final nail in the coffin for me realising how terrible this school is, is when i was removed from my course - albiet, on a fair basis - and they didnt inform me until one week before we came back for the second year. it was even I who had to reach out to them regarding whether i'd be returning, as i'd noted weird behaviour in their automated emails that didnt make sense to be sending to returning students, and i dont feel like i should have to explain why only telling a student they have been removed after THEY ASK YOU is terrible management, particularly given i'd had people tell me prior that there was nothing to worry about, and that I should be returning.

there are also many, many other problems with this college, but I would like to still have some of the essays I wrote for them be longer than this review lol.

overall, this place is genuinely terrible, and would likely have far far fewer students if it wasnt for a severe lack of well-known alternatives in the northampton area. if you have an alternative option, then id STRONGLY recommend taking...

I would strongly suggest going down different routes for further education, in my four years of being at this college i’ve never been so disgusted and ashamed to have went there for my education, i had one of my teachers tell me to get a grip and gave me their unsolicited opinion on my work all because it wasn’t their style, I went to report this behaviour to the head of the department and all they did was blame this teachers poor behaviour on their physical health, as if thats a reasonable excuse to act like a horrible human being and said that i should stop being too sensitive. They lock both gendered bathrooms as well as disabled bathrooms randomly on different floors and sections meaning if you have a toilet emergency you have to run around to find a bathroom that isn’t locked, as an autistic person and someone who suffers with IBS and anxiety this is disgraceful behaviour from the college and should be keeping all toilets easy to access unless being cleaned, this was all done to stop students vaping and skipping classes but instead of telling off the students doing it they punished the whole college for it, they also have no vaping/smoking signs all over the college, yet even as someone who doesn’t vape/smoke, how come the teachers are allowed to smoke on campus but the students who are the majority 18+ have to walk all the way out the college gates to vape/smoke?, because surely it is not setting a good example for students walking right past their smoking area every time they have to go into campus. Also had the principal tell me my outfit on the hottest September on record in 2023 was too revealing when all i was wearing was some shorts, with tights underneath and a top that only showed my back when i bent down, she told me “this isn’t her sexualizing me” or “being sexist” when it clearly was as other students both male and female were wearing considerably less clothing than me that day as it was really hot.

My last complaint would be that somehow always a couple of the lifts dotted around college will be broken at a time, and it always seems to be the case, you can expect every month one of the lifts to be broken, meaning if you have a disability, you have to walk around college to find a lift that actually works, and on top of that, there are students that use the lifts that don’t actually need it and are tagging along with their friends yet they have enough time to lock all the bathrooms in college to stop people vaping and skipping lessons yet not to make sure people who don’t need the lifts don’t use them?. So in conclusion, I would choose your options wisely for your further education, any other college or sixth form can do better than this place by miles in respect, kindness and understanding for their students, they pick and choose with whatever suits them and not the general student population, save yourself the hassle of even trying to apply here because your experience will be below average especially if you are a student with disabilities, needs extra...

I'd only recommend this college to people who don't have much more choice. There are some benefits here, such as the food is quite good albeit expensive, low entry requirements and in my experience, great teachers.

But the management can be flawed. It isn't able to handle changes even over the period of a year, I submitted a complaint about a staff member and was brought into a meeting with that staff member sat in the room, alongside a senior staff member who I was meant to talk to. It feels like the higher ups are too busy feeding their ego and patting each other on the back rather than doing their jobs or bringing change for the better of the students / teachers.

Due to this, an entire year of the course I had partaken in had a lot of ups and downs, with new hires sorted out in the middle of the year, content all over the place, assignments given out in bursts with shorter deadlines, and lessons not being taught with good timing. In the end I think most people were able to overcome this change, but being Autistic made it a lot more difficult.

On the topic of that, the mental health support is a very mixed bag, as I knew people who had access to support quite often, whereas seeking it out I was left on read for months, even with check ups to the library I don't think I ever had one meeting regarding this.

A lot of my college experience was quite dismal due to the inexperienced management in the department I studied in, where the more senior non-management staff (tutors, teachers and such) had both better ideas, and brighter opinions in the eyes of most of the students. The teachers and (most) of the students in my course are the only real reason I gave this a two star.

It's really down to luck whether you get a good class or not, whether your department teachers are good at teaching, which in my case, most of them were very good at teaching and making reasonable adjustments / amendments to coursework where they actually want to see their students do the best they could in their modules.

I am glad I finished my course here however, I managed to finish with high grades and have made some good friends...