Fairmont High School

My grade 8 child is complaining of senior vapers in the school toilets, preventing them from using the toilets during school hours🤷🏼‍♂️

A lot of the teachers seem to have anger issues towards every students and some of them are the best teachers you will ever meet so it's really up to luck on how your academic experience will go however the students are generally welcoming and you will have no problem fitting in as there are many different groups to choose from.
There Is a lot of academic pressure from most teachers.
Even though they claim that they "Only want you're best" they often expect the whole class to be straight A students and they tend to not care about embarrassing you about your academic level.

There is a big problem with vaping in Fairmont but you can expect that from any school however the way they try to deal with problems just causes more problems.
For example in 2022 they tried to address the vaping problem and thought it would be a good idea to not allow students to go the bathroom at all during lesson times meaning that you could only use the bathroom before school, during breaks and after school so if you needed to go out of those times its tuff luck for you so overall pretty bad school 8/10

Average school, a few of the teachers are kinda cringe ngl. So yeah send your kids here, or don't. idk. Not a based school.

Fairmont is very much your basic high school but has a quite problematic side. I and many others have dealt with homophobic comments from other students and when brought to the teachers was not taken seriously. A specific incident is when a friend of mine was called the f slur by a matric whilst walking down the halls and when we reported it and said what class the boy was going into the vice principal told us "we can't do anything cause he'll bully you". This school claims to be a progressive school who will take students concerns seriously when in reality they really don't. The extreme pressure that is put on the students is also a huge problem. Students are constantly compared to others based off of academic skill and are expected to achieve high grades no matter what circumstances you are dealing with. I was medically booked off of school for a portion of the year and most of my teachers expected me to catch up everything in an extremely short period of time whilst still having to excel academically. Teachers in Fairmont are either amazing people who take their job seriously and make an impact on students or are unprofessional, unorganized people who are clearly only there for their paycheck. I have dealt with so many teachers who are extremely unorganized with their teaching which affects students academically, and teachers who have unpredictable outbursts and lash out on students. An example is a teacher bursting into tears due to a students performance because it wasn't up to their standards. The school also has a new policy of not allowing students to use the restrooms during classes unless they have a doctors note because of a vaping issue, which personally is a poor approach to the problem. It is a basic right of a student to be allowed to use the bathroom. I know students have also dealt with racism by students which teachers didn't take seriously and teachers themselves saying racial remarks but I personally cannot speak on this issue as I am a white student who cannot represent a problems poc students sadly deal with. Fairmont isn't a terrible school, I have met amazing people and teachers and have had a decent time so far but I think they sweep their problems under the rug to be a perfect school in the public eye.

I am a Fairmont high school student and as a whole the school is decent the hockey coaching is extreme and eventually made me hate the sport the athletic coaching is decent as long as your doing a track event.
The Afrikaans department is a steaming pile of garbage

My experience with the school had a lot of ups and downs. A standard portion of the teachers know what they're doing in terms of education but have no idea how to communicate genuinely with their students on a more personal level when they're in need of someone to turn to which I think should be a very important aspect to being an educator; whether in primary school, high school or university. Teaching is a calling. However, the teachers who are emotionally available and are there for their students are pure, absolute angels and desperately deserve a lot more recognition which I unfortunately cannot give here.