St. Catherine's British School Athens
Reviews & Information

My child is in lower school. We are a greek family. Because it is of high importance to me I will start with hygiene. When I entered the children bathrooms I was shocked !!! No paper , some sticky soap nothing to clean the toilets that even cheap schools have and in general. At a school that I pay this amount of money the toilets MUST BE at the level of grande Bretagne hotel at least. As a result children are not taught hygiene properly and they get sick all the time ! THIS MUST STOP . Call an expert company to provide the school with everything to protect the children ! Now to the major things 1) Teachers allow parents to affect their attitude and make better contact and pay more attention to some children . As a result many parents we are very disappointed. English is not taught properly and the accent my child has got is really bad. There are children in the class who insist to speak Greek and the teachers don’t do anything about that. As a result the other children speak Greek too . That must change immediately. The sports teachers are only Greek as a result they don’t know the correct terms used in sports in English. We don’t like that at all. Teachers are of Greek descent most of them therefore English is not a necessity. The school has gathered the 90% of the Greek gdp. As a result every morning there are body guards with dozens of cars creating an atmosphere that won’t turn good in the future for the children who just want a normal life. Very rich people in the school tend to make more play dates with equally rich people and the school now has three categories of children: the ultra rich Greeks , the normal Greeks and the foreigners that are not very happy and they try to build their own community. Parents act on a way that many children are secluded from other children because their parents arrange play dates not with who their child wants but with who they like ! Worst of all in any case is that the school is losing its British orientation. Also the school tries to present everything like fun. As a result the children don’t get the academic level they are supposed to get for the money they get. Facilities: in the lower school they are worst that the public school of an average neighbourhood in Athens ! Broken chairs filthy classes packed children. If that doesn’t change at least 20 children that I know we will head to another more normal

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This school is truly the best in the entirety of Greece. These low ratings are completely untrue.

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its an amazing school with amazing students, teachers, facilities and food. the care for students is amazing. they go on many fabulous trips and its generally the best possible school for a child.

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In PE they force students to swim and make them write notes, I think swimming should be a choice and especially shouldn’t exist in the upper school as most girls have their period and it is embarassing having to give a note everytime to a teacher to say that you can’t swim because of that. I also think the academic aspect isn’t good because they give us worksheets on stuff we haven’t done a lot about so at the end we just end up copying all the answers from the board and not learning anything which causes us to fail the test, it’s also not fair how they expect us to revise an entire term of a topic in 1 week for a test

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I study at St Catherine’s. For years I enjoyed my time at the school, as did my friends. I have friends at the school across different years and also some who have already graduated. Socially, I am generally happy as I have not been seriously bullied, unlike some other pupils at the school. It is a matter of making the “right friendships”. However, I have come to realize that I should have gained more opportunities to develop academically than have been opened to me during my time at high school. I feel that there were missed opportunities in middle school years to develop more serious academic skills as many subjects were presented as “fun”. Some teachers were either strict enough or were able to otherwise manage classes so that we could spend some time in a lesson learning what they intended to teach us, but many teachers struggled with pupils who would be so disruptive that only a limited amount of time in a lesson was actually spent learning. Worksheets were completed, but it was more an exercise of copying down the answers in a rush at the end of the lesson than them being completed because we knew what we were doing. The course I am most concerned about is computer science. The state of our class at this time is the main reason that I commenting on this forum. I have had a private tutor for this course since year 12 as I was concerned that topics we were being taught in school with too limited detail. I also felt that I was not learning programming skills that I was expecting to learn. However, many of my friends have not had a private tutor to rely on until year 13 and they are finding this year to be very challenging. They were convinced that they were keeping up with the course during year 12 because the course was being taught at such a slow pace, and the technical detail of many topics was lacking, that most were unaware of how far behind they were getting. We were not given exercises that would develop and test our skills in preparation for year 13. I am very upset for myself and for my friends that we are in this situation. I feel that it is purely a result of the inefficient management and teaching for this course. I should not have to be comforting friends who are breaking down because they cannot cope. This is not the first year that pupils studying computer science at this school have found themselves in such a situation but the number of pupils on the course this year is higher, and the panic is now more intense to try to “get through”. We should have been learning and not faking and not be in the position of having to hide this mess even if some of our parents are also promoting this. This situation will continue for years to come if it is not dealt with now. This is my cry out to those who have influence to act, so that those pupils that come after us will not need to experience unnecessary stress.

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A school that used to have a good reputation now has turned into a gang infested disgusting place. I have to start by talking about the teachers awful knowledge of the British language, which from early on, teaches young students to speak with an awful accent and poor grammar. In the upper school, the pressure in English lessons increases, yet some students still are learning what nouns and verbs are. With this in mind however, the Greek department is well organised and teaches foreign students and natives to speak excellent Greek. The teachers are also mostly young women with either none or very little teaching experience, since their responses to bullying or bad behaviour are very childish. Most teachers have favourites which are congratulated on just doing the things they are told to do. Another problem is the students. The school has a large part of Hellenic shipping business families, which have gangs created around them, and their "friends" (minions) listen to them more than they listen to their teachers. The children there spoke with foul language and some were racist (as well as having very low learning standards). The headmaster once gathered us in the assembly hall and showed us a video of another school in the U.K and told us that our behaviour should be like theirs, (after showing us a list of the things we were doing wrong). Ridiculous for a "prestige" and expensive British school. The school overall had great facilities, however they were poorly sustained. The bathrooms were foul and the hallways had slurs written on the walls. I would not recommend this school to anyone looking for good academics and discipline. I would suggest to look at other British schools in Athens, and for Greek families I would highly recommend Collegio or Arskeio.

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I joined at the start of the upper school, just as the new building was opened. After two years attending the school my family and I have decided to leave. My main issue has been the awful academic quality. Most of the teachers are from Greece and I had a big problem communicating with them in English, and there were rumours that the school had a big hiring problem since most of them were extremely young and evidently (with some exceptions such as the head of years and the head of key stage 3) had very little to no teaching experience. We would get through an 80 minute lesson and the most my classmates would achieve is throwing a paper airplane from one end of the classroom to another. They could not handle the class and were also often late to lessons; Me and my class once waited 15 minutes outside the music room as the teacher was rehearsing a play with the drama club. They rarely properly prepared us for tests and were either extremely strict, or extremely relaxed and careless about their students. When a friend of mine corrected my science teacher's awful spelling he got a detention and she tried to humiliate him in front of the whole class by asking him to spell complicated scientific words. Their handling of situations of bullying is horrendous and most of them had favoured students. Another problem were the other students; most of them were friendly, but a good lot of them were entitled stupid snobs. I took a long time to settle in with my new classmates (despite me being quite friendly and extrovert) as a lot of the friend groups are gangs. The language level was horrendous, as they used slurs as standard greetings and the things I heard coming out of the mouths of 12 year-olds (in front of teachers as well) was something I had never experienced before. A good lot of my classmates rarely did their homework and they got congratulated for not coming late class. The test score averages were astonishing, and their attention span in class lasted for about two seconds. Things were stolen out of other peoples bags, other's phones were broken. Somebody even threw someone's pencil case from the school balcony. The facilities were originally amazing, but were awfully sustained. The bathrooms were so filthy that they had to be cleaned 3-4 times a day and curse words were drawn on the walls. The chairs in the classrooms were also often broken or dirty. The school had collected some money to build new football pitches and sports facilities. Quite frankly the board of directors had lied (once again) since we have been changing for P.E in a dirty old abandoned warehouse for 3 years. But one thing I cannot complain about were the extra curricular activities. There are lot of interesting trips that we have gone to, and the school has hosted a lot of events. Plus, there is a very wide variety of after school clubs. Being a member of the football team we have gone to overseas tournaments and compete in league matches every weekend.

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As a former student at St. Catherines, I must admit that my 2 year experience at the school was very unpleasant. To start off, the poor recruitment of teaching staff has been a major factor contributing to the downfall of this school. The education at st catherines was just unaccepatable. A whole lesson could go by and the students would have learned absolutely nothing while the teachers moved on to the next topic. Students were far from prepared for their exams by the very strict teachers. My classmate once accidentally released a tiny fart during an assessment and they were disqualified for "disrupting the class" and suspended for three days! The constant yelling and pressure added to students was extreme. I vividly recall one teacher in particular screaming and throwing her food in anger at me because I couldn't complete my homework. The mental scars left in my head from the abusive staff behaviour and the continuous shouting, will forever haunt me. In addition to the bullying from the teachers, there was also a lot of bullying being committed by the students that the teachers pretended not to notice. A bleeding child had once passed out on the floor after being strangled by another student, and the teacher on duty was sitting with their phone! Everyday I was afraid for my life entering that gang-infiltrated building, as I was sure that if anything were to happen to me, the teachers simply would not care. And don't even get me started on the hygiene of this school. I kid you not, children would catch diseases left and right. When I had my first PE lesson i was shocked by the quality of the changing rooms. We were forced to dress in an abandoned, filthy warehouse filled with cockroaches, scorpions, and other vicious creatures. A girl once fainted in the bathroom due to the horrendous smell and had to be taken to the hospital! Also, the bathrooms were hotspots where students were often seen sniffing sugar. If you are a parent who cares for your child please do not send them to this hell hole as they will literally be traumatised for life.

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I was a former pupil at St Catherines for two years. To start off with, I feel that the the school's poor choice of staff is the major issue! While i understand that there are few excellent teachers such as the head of science in the upper school and some english teachers, a large number of them are frankly incapable of controlling a class, let alone teaching pupils! There is a stark difference between knowing a subject well and being able to pass on the information to students effectively. During my time at St Catherines, i had to cover various syllabi on my own, specifically in Biology, as the teacher was absolutely horrendous. She couldn't teach to save someone's life. Generally speaking, i am of the impression (based on many of my past school-mates' opinions) that the school is seriously lacking in their biology department, as the good teachers left (probably due to not being happy). Why were my parents obliged to pay out this much money for what is known as one of the best schools in Greece, when I barely learnt anything? Also a major problem is the hiring of teachers from Greek descent, as many frankly cannot communicate in English and hence, can't answer any questions or teach!! My maths teacher was absolutely horrendous! She would randomly have mood swings and I was never sure as to whether she would make fun of me in front of the class or be reasonable. Her level of english was catastrophic, as was her pronunciation. If someone dared laugh at her accent (and try to conceal it) she would scream at them. She enjoyed humiliating people in front of everyone. I barely learnt any maths from her, as i couldn't understand her half the time and felt she rushed the syllabus as well as not explaining the content enough. Furthermore, the computer science department was seriously lacking in organisation, as the lazy teachers never marked homework or classwork, so i was constantly unsure about my academic standard for that subject. They never bothered explaining anything properly, as they left everyone off to do their own independent work, after a vague introduction of a topic. I must say that the only strong department is that of music, as i was very pleased with its head! Moving on, my Spanish teacher was horrendous. Despite being of Spanish decent (or a hispanic country) she could not teach. Overall, if you're a good student, aiming high and willing to work hard, i seriously don't recommend going through what i experienced. I had to spend thousands of extra hours covering syllabi. Apart from hard work, a good student requires a good teacher. It is good to bear in mind that I'm a top star-student, despite the many poor excuses for a teacher, as i taught myself a lot of the syllabi and had to do tutoring at home. I achieved high standards thanks to my efforts at home and the excellent resources the internet provided.

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Once a prestigious and high-performing School, St Catherine’s is now trading on it’s past reputation. The Senior Leaders are ineffective and lack vision or strategy, staff retention is poor and staff are demoralised. Facilities in the new Upper School are excellent but expansion since Covid means that they are now already at capacity. The Lower School occupies a tired, run-down and cramped site which is desperate for regeneration. The school is dominated by a privileged Greek elite whose children are effectively above the school rules, who speak Greek to the exclusion of non-native-speakers throughout the day despite the school’s learning language being English, and of whom the school are terrified because of their social and financial muscle. This is a school to avoid until the current SLT are retired.

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