Jess, UK

From the moment I set foot in high school, every day I spent there was a living hell. I’d never come across bullying before, but I had a rude awakening when I was bullied every day of my five years of high school. I entered that school completely my authentic, unfiltered self, it had never occurred to me to be anything else. When I left school I was an anxious, self conscious, quiet, broken shell of the girl I used to be. I was seen as a ‘good’ kid at school, because I was quiet and obedient and did my work. Nobody noticed how much I was suffering because I was quiet and wouldn’t speak up for myself. When I did eventually feel brave enough to tell someone about the bullying, I was told to ‘ignore it’ and that the bullies were ‘jealous of me’. Nothing was done. But when I got to my final year of school, and started expressing myself a little more, through my hair and my clothes, school came down on me like a tonne of bricks. My headteacher grabbed me by the back of the blazer when I was walking to form to ask why I had pink in my hair and that it better not be there when I came to school the next day. On another occasion, I was walking into school one morning when I was stopped because my trousers were ‘too skinny’. I informed the teacher who stopped me that these were brand new school trousers my mum had just bought me because my others didn’t fit. He then made the comment ‘you’ve managed to squeeze yourself into those’. Little did he know, or care, that I was already starting to develop an eating disorder. It has taken me years, to heal from my time in school, I am still in the process of healing and I left school 13 years ago. I will never ever send my child into a state school and I will never allow my child to be broken, the way I was.

Not deregistered

I think that schools are completely unfit for purpose. We cannot use a one size fits all system and bend and break children to make them fit. Learning has to be individual. It has to be child led. Children deserve the freedom to discover who they are and what they enjoy without the constant belittling, judging, manipulating and soul sucking of mainstream school.