I AM a pupil at the Ridgeway School, and I was extremely angry when I got home and saw six pages focusing on the incident with Henry Webster.

I think everybody will agree that what happened to Henry Webster was awful, and it was a big deal, but the press that Ridgeway School has had ever since that day, had 99 per cent of the time been negative. Whenever anybody asks me what school I go to, and I reply ‘Ridgeway’, everyone responds with ‘Oh, the ‘Hammer Attack School.”

It seems to me that the Swindon Advertiser does nothing but publish and exaggerate the few bad points that my school has. Ridgeway got an ‘outstanding’ report from Ofsted, and it also gets excellent consistent GCSE and A level results, year in, year out. Ever since I joined the school I have been fully supported by the staff and any problems have been well taken care of. The school has offered me a great experience with things like the Duke of Edinburgh Award, a fantastic gym and dance display every year, a huge range of enrichments on offer every lunchtime, revision sessions when pupils are in need of support for exams, an excellent PE department, and up-to-date technology for ICT, music and technology. The school also has a new building to replace the old mobiles, and this proves that the school is constantly improving in every way it can. The staff at my school are brilliant, always willing to give up their time to teach extra sessions. I love all my subjects, and given the choice of Ridgeway or the other secondary schools in Swindon, I would always choose Ridgeway.

I am fed up with all the bad press that my school gets because of your newspaper, the view of my school that you have given to the local community is very biased and unfair on the school, its staff, and its pupils. Maybe you should spend the day at Ridgeway and you can see how outstanding it really is.

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