"THIS beast of a woman expects us to be polite to her when she is the rudest woman I know."

"I never worked in her lessons. I hated her and she hated me. Loved messing around in those lessons."

"Worst teacher in school, can't stand being in room with him."

These are just some of the comments that Swindon pupils have made about their teachers on the controversial RateMyTeachers website.

But two Swindon schools have been named and shamed by the American site for banning its students from accessing it.

Churchfields School and Wootton Bassett School are both on the website's Wall of Shame for blocking access to RateMyTeachers from school computers.

The website has been blamed for affecting staff morale and has even resulted in members of staff threatening to quit the profession owing to the way in which the site allows anonymous pupils to grade and criticise their teachers.

Steve Flavin, headteacher of Churchfields School in Salcome Grove, condemned the site for its policy, but said that his pupils' inability to log on to the website was due to his school's hi-tech computer system.

He added that Churchfields has a policy of listening to pupils' views by way of a biannual questionnaire and the school council, and pupils are also involved in the teacher interview process.

"We have a new internet system in the school which has got a number of firewalls to protect the system from spam and viruses, so the students cannot access the site," he said.

"I don't think the approach of naming teachers is very helpful and it must breach some sort of policy and impinge on teachers' human rights. I'm glad our school is on the Wall of Shame."

Phil Baker, Swindon branch secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said he was appalled that such a website should be allowed to publish potentially libellous material from anonymous pupils.

He said: "It was interesting to see a teacher being rubbished for their teaching when they actually get outstanding results.

"A number of the statements on there about some of my colleagues were slanderous and inaccurate.

"Someone was described as a headteacher when they were actually a head of year.

"It would be interesting to see the reaction if teachers started going on about their pupils through a RateMyPupils website."

RateMyTeachers, which was founded in the US five years ago, is growing in popularity in the UK.

The UK version now features 454,000 ratings for 95,000 teachers at more than 5,600 schools.

But the comments reflected on RateMyTeacher are not all derogatory. Bradon Forest School has been ranked 82nd on the website's Hall of Fame with pupils scoring teachers at an average of 3.263 out of five.

Comments included: "Best teacher at Bradon by a long way, she helps you so much and really cares about her students".

And: "Couldn't find a nicer guy, we used to have our run-ins but he always came out on top."