Teachers who have watched 'Adolescence'- what are your thoughts?

Because multiple people have said it doesn’t happen in private schools but it does. It’s rife and that needs to be acknowledged when discussing such issues in schools, especially when it comes to boys private schools and their attitude towards women and sex.

Many of us, myself included, haven’t said it’s one vs the other but that they both have their issues and these issues all need to be discussed instead of the posters on here saying that private schools are amazing and they’re the answer - they’re absolutely not.

Because numerous posters were stating this sort of thing did not affect private schools!

My son is a secondary school teacher and said all teachers should watch it and he also says Andrew Tate is causing huge problems

friends son has just been thrown out of his private school for constant fighting, and from what his parents say - and they KNOW he’s partly to blame- fighting and disruptive behaviour is fairly common in their school, with parents generally taking the pupils side against the teachers.

You’ve experienced misogyny from little kids? That’s insane! How old? What sort of thing?

I teach in a lovely primary but my partner works in a secondary school in a less nice area of our city and he has to break up fights between boys regularly upon many other things and then gets a regular stream of what can only be called abusive emails from parents berating him for following the behaviour policy. Fuck knows why he does it. It’s even grinding him down at times and he’s the sunniest person I know.

Don’t recognise our large comp at all from that programme!

• the school is calm, phones are banned so no phones at all used past the school gates, children don’t shout at or talk back to the teachers, there’s no fighting. It has a high % of SeN, higher than average pupil premium. watched it with teen DC who go to the school as students and they were stunned at the behaviour portrayed.

I've watched it and it was brilliantly acted with a concerning message around online influence.

As a single parent to an older boy, I can say that my instinct has been to protect him and that this has risked defending him when he needed to be held to account. He is neurodivergent with a suspected learning difficulty and due to lack of support in the classroom (due to lack of funding rather than lack of interest from teaching staff) he preferred to be the class clown than the "thick kid" who struggled to process, stay on task and read/write. All that said, he only ever had one sanction which I backed the school on publicly even though I privately disagreed with it.

On the toxic "manosphere" I know some middle aged men who find this quite appealing - it's not just teen/tween boys and it's also not just Andrew Tate. It is permeating some levels of society and is within the "kick against authority" theme. We are politically in the time of the "hard man".

I really want to highlight the divisiveness between some parents and teachers. A Them v Us culture benefits no one and actively fosters hostility and lack of respect. I have friends who teach who on entering the profession are keen to make a difference to the kids they teach. After a few weeks they are talking about how awful parents are as if they are a homogenous group and labelling kids as either angels or devils. And I've been a parent in the playground who has listend to parents adopt a similar attitude. I tried to work with school for my son but the issue was a lack of time and funding to find the right support for him to thrive.

As always, complex problems have many strands to them. Tackling it will require a whole of society approach.

It began with someone saying it doesn't happen in private schools

When I was watching the school scenes, I thought "most schools can't be like this, surely this is hugely exaggerated for dramatic effect". The idea that it's a broadly accurate representation of our schools is bloody terrifying.

I have DS (mild, undiagnosed ASD, probably gay, highly strung, anxious and alternative/a bit weird) heading to secondary in September and I'm absolutely petrified of what will become of him there.

I'm sure OP means the parents have gone to the police about it. Stop trying to disrupt the thread.

That's not what this thread is about.

I think they're two different issues.

The school environments are very very different to that portrayed in this drama. There is a very different level of discipline.

It is however absolutely true that the issues around social media/Andrew Tate/incels etc affect children at private schools as much as those in state schools. Social media affects all teens.

No it isn't. Don't engage if you are struggling to understand it.

I watched it. During the school scene, I commented to DH that it was quite an accurate portrayal of school. I have also experienced misogyny.

I teach in primary (not the oldest ones)

I work in a state comp and agree with her completely. Scarily accurate.

I've a boy of similar age and watched it. It's a programme that has made me think a lot about what more I can do as a parent as DS transitions into secondary and getting his first phone in a few months..

If anyone's got some good resources please link them, especially the tate stuff. I feel DH and I need to take the lead, and honestly I don't know a huge amount about it. I've got a few podcasts but not much else.

He's always been supervised online, I've google family link, no screens allowed upstairs and gaming only in the family room with children he knows, and who I know the parents. But I need to get my head around the manosphere stuff as I've really only a vague overview of it and that's not good enough.

As for the portrayal of the school, some details were exaggerated and some just incorrect. No teacher just wouldn’t turn up to class (and then put on a video when he does!) without the class being supervised. I’ve also worked at and with a wide variety of schools, including more “challenging” ones and behaviour like that of the students wouldn’t be accepted, if it occurred at all.

My daughter has a teacher who does exactly this!! Turns up late and when he turns up he puts on videos

I think it is in response to posts up thread about the school in Adolescence being nothing like poster’s childrens private schools, and some of us are trying to illustrate that the main issues raised in the show are not exclusive to state comps. Which I fully admit is a de-rail from the thread itself, which I joined in with.

You've never been in my local secondary then

Why does this thread have to deteriorate into "posh boys are horrible" FFS. Kids are kids. Some are great, some are troubled. Those affected by these issues (social media influenced) come from all walks of life.

Several friends lovely state school lads are going out with girls from the local top name public school. Girls there are voting with their feet.

Dd has come across boys from this school at parties and some are hideously sexist and misogynistic. Worse than the state school boys she knows. The girls from the public school are lovely however.

I'm primary based but a lot of the stuff on the show we are really starting to see in our older boys. They spend a lot of time online, majority of free time is spent on games, many of the boys have talked about Andrew Tate, they are increasingly quick to over react and lose their temper. Many parents are quick to deflect and blame the teacher if they are given any consequences for their negative behavior.

Also my sister is a secondary teacher in an inner London comprehensive and she said the depiction in Adolescence was the most accurate one she had seen on tv or a movie.

I'm a TA in a state primary school. Episode 3 gave me chills: I can absolutely see some of our boys ending yelling at a criminal psychologist in a few years time.

She didn't say the victim's family were prosecuting them, she said they were pressing charges.