Adolescence - surely not

[Whateverfloatsyourgoat]

Surely our secondary schools are not like the one depicted in Netflix’s Adolescence? I certainly don’t recognise it in my child’s one. The teachers are all pathetic and pupils running riot!

I asked my teens if their school was like this- they said “mostly not” but at some points there has been chaos and violence ongoing and disruption to their days from unruly and unmanaged behaviours. But it’s not ongoing all the time.

My school was like that in 1990s Brixton. I think there are certainly schools like that now. We used to have fights in the corridors (not me, other people, I have never had a fight in my life!), pupils tucking knives into their socks, pupils trying to attack teachers, all sorts.

It depends on the area. My friend is a teacher and she says it is incredibly accurate to her experience. She has been recommending it to everyone (which is how I heard about it).

Pretty accurate.

my school was same in 90s

If this is your main takeaway and sticking point then that's concerning

It reminded me of our local school. I ran some extra curricular classes there for a while. Didn't seem like an exaggeration.

My DD has just left her mainstream teaching role - she says it represents her experience and she wasnt in a particularly tough school.

What do you mean? It was my main takeaway... it's a big factor. They school comes across like a hellscape. Terrifies me thinking of my year 6 son going into year 7 sometimes..
Even back when I was at secondary school just the sheer size of classes and the school itself could make it an extremely difficult and lonely experience if you were a bullied child or a misfit in some way.
The social media aspect is actually less concerning to me tbh..

Well, aren’t you Mother Superior?

It was eerily similar to my experience of school in the early noughties

I went on a tour of my sister’s children’s secondary school in Ireland (we were/are thinking about potentially moving there).

Everything seemed under control there, teachers certainly appeared competent and in charge. Nothing like the school in Adolescence.

Totally realistic even down to the EQT being overwhelmed by the behaviour. I taught in a generic comp on the south coast in a moderately affluent area - students chose to sink to the LCD of behaviour as raising their heads above the parapet to either “be normal” or try to influence others to behave acceptably was met with scorn and ostracism from their peers. This was a school fed by about 15 primaries, most of which were absolutely lovely.

I am now in Ireland and the behaviour and individual knowledge of the students is a total contrast to English comps that I either taught in, have experience with as latterly a PRU teacher or that my son attended. Like night and day.

Did you not watch Grange Hill ? It’s an updated version

I was particularly impressed by the fact that pupils did not use their phones during the school day. Apparently, they are not allowed to use phones at all, and it is common for their phones to be confiscated.

The secondary pupils I know here (mostly older siblings of my child’s friends), keep their phones on hand during school! I wonder about the impact of this fact on their overall learning.

My comprehensive school in the 80s wasn't dissimilar to the comprehensive depicted

Very accurate sadly. I worked in a Home Counties school with mainly white kids, 90% were great, but the 10% stopped learning in most classes for all.

When the worst that can happen is they go to isolation and sit doing nothing all day apart from being on their phones as they wont give them in, you are on to a losing battle.

Get them scrubbing desks and being seen and shamed by their peers - and you stand half a chance of them not wanting to behave like feral prats

Growing up it felt familiar - only difference is most teachers were pretty on it and could control the room. But the pupils made it chaos.

I don’t think all schools are like this - but I do think schools are pretty chaotic.

Teaching is still a decently paid and sought after career in Ireland and I think that makes a huge difference. Education has always been a priority and social mobility through education is real. We moved here and moved our kids from a London comp which reminded me a little of the school depicted in the series, behaviour was better but only because the school had a zero tolerance approach to everything which caused my eldest to become quite anxious and they hated school despite being academic. Teachers in England are underpaid and schools are underfunded, and the pupils pick up on the lack of respect that society and government have for the teaching profession. What compelling viewing though, it will stay with me for a long time.

It’s quite accurate from my perspective as an ex teacher

My. school, a co-ed grammar in the 70s was more like Mallory Towers than Adolescence. I don't remember a single fight in 7 years. 30 out of 32 in my class went on to university.

My ds' school, a small rural independent, is much the same. Phones are banned during school hours, smoking & vaping result in a suspension, violence means a last warning, drugs mean immediate expulsion.

If Adolescence is even close to reality, no wonder teachers are leaving in droves.

Yeah if bears no resemblance to my schooling nor my daughters. These were both in London - different parts. Definitely not posh parts!

Depends on the school.

Where I am (outer london) there’s two types of school. The one like on the show, or super strict academies where you’ll get detention for coughing at the wrong time. I guess they adopt that approach to avoid going the other way though so it’s not a bad thing. The teachers at the strict academies even patrol the streets around kick out time to make sure the kids aren’t messing about. I always say it’s like they’re dispersing hooligans after a match. They also actively encourage the general public to report to them if they see students in their uniform misbehaving as they want the kids to have the same standards of behaviour out or school as they do inside. One school we viewed has a rule that students have to move between lessons in silence. I thought that was unusual but maybe it’s needed to keep things under control.

I always remember a news article about an academy relatively close to me, a girl injured her foot so needed to wear trainers. They made her wear one trainer on the injured foot and a normal school shoe on the other!? 😂 I think they apologised in the end though once the mum went to the local paper… But that’s the level of strictness they are.

The schools round here that aren’t strict are very much like the TV show school. They are usually under subscribed… so only the kids who didn’t get their preferred school end up there (along with the kids that have been permanently excluded from the stricter academies!).

Where is this @BadgerHawk?