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’ve been into secondary schools as part of my work and the ones in deprived areas really are like that. I was shocked at all the teachers shouting at the top of their voices and kids been sent to isolation and just sitting there. I don’t know why they can’t do something whilst there.
My dcs tell me stories about kids who throw chairs across classrooms and vape behind some trees and their school was rated outstanding.

The Kent / London border

It was not the school’s fault in that way. It happened because the boy was radicalised.
The bit that concerned me about the school was how clueless the teachers were about incels. It’s not a new issue.

My DC said that their school was a bit like that but not as bad. The bit that got me was when one of the characters said there is no learning going on in there- I have said this before about DCs school- they are constantly dealing with behaviour issues.

I love that all the parents saying “absolutely not my child’s school” and all the teachers saying “yep, that’s pretty accurate!” 😂

I’ve spent a lot of time in secondary schools and found it to be a pretty realistic depiction. I commented to my husband as we were watching it that I felt the only unrealistic part was the way the boys behaved in front of the detectives. On a daily basis, in front of their regular teachers, the behaviour absolutely reflects real life but I don’t think most kids would have been bold enough to behave like that in front of the police!

I was especially affected by the comment made by Bascombe at the end saying something like “did it seem like any learning was going on in there? It feels like a holding pen”

I thought the plot around his own son was interesting. The very first scene of the series is a text received by the detective from his son trying to get out of going to school. He jokes with his colleague about how he thinks his son knows he’s the “light touch” and then gets to see firsthand what his son is experiencing on a daily basis.

Kids spend most of their waking hours in school so I absolutely felt the school environment was a key concept to the story. The use of social media was an extension of what was going on in person at school. The overstretched teachers and oblivious parents were so disconnected from the kids and their experiences that they were blind to what was going on right in front of them.

I found it really improbable that the teacher and investigator hadn't heard of incels and Andrew Tate

Yes this was my main issue. But then I do have colleagues who are totally unaware.

We used to live in SW London. It's why we paid.

It's the most accurate depiction of secondary school I've seen on screen. Perhaps not all secondary schools, but certainly mine in the 90s.

@Whateverfloatsyourgoat notice how many posters are saying it was their experience of schools in the 1990s? The writers of Adolescence are aged 46 and 51 so would have been in secondary school around that time. It is probably a combination of their memories and anecdotes from the worst secondary schools today. The comprehensive school my children attend certainly isn't like that.

It was a representation of a very poor, ineffective school - not of secondary schools in general. I’ve been a secondary teacher for 15 years and the worst school I’ve visited wasn’t as bad as that. They exist but Ofsted intervene pretty quickly.

Completely depends on the area. If you have selective schools and a few that take the "rejects" then yes, at least one of those is likely to be like this and have a local reputation. It's why a lot of people in grammar areas with kids who narrowly miss 11+ pay for private education.

I was a supply teacher for years.

Some schools are like that, some are worse.

And yes kids play up to supply teachers.

I worked in one school where the kids threw food at the Ofsted inspectors. That is unusual.

At my kids' school a boy pulled his pants down to the Ofsted inspector. They still got rated Outstanding though. All schools have difficult kids. But when they aren't balanced out by decent kids, many teachers understandably flee and then the issues just get worse.

My son, now 19 and in uni, went to the same comprehensive as I did in the 1980s. A big one, over 2000 pupils, for context. Its been interesting to hear his experiences compared to mine, I'd say on the whole the kids' behaviour in years 7/8/9 has got worse.
I remember him coming home sometimes saying the noise & disruption in the class meant he just couldn't concentrate. Kids climbing up on desks, whilst the teacher is actually in the class for example. Shouting at the teacher. Once he said that he ended up just sitting with his hands over his ears, and the teacher asked him if he was alright! That didn't ever happen in any of my classes, we'd have been crucified if we did any of that. I couldn't believe it, and so I think I must be very naive about what goes on these days.
I say 'my' classes because I'm aware my classes didn't represent the whole school, but given both my son and I were in the 'top set' or whatever it's called these days, it's a similar cohort to compare.
So yes, I can believe there are schools similar to the one in Adolescence. Certainly schools were some classes are like that. But I have to say all my son's teachers were great, when they weren't dealing with feral kids. They were always encouraging and approachable and never seemed to resent my (somewhat nerdy) son chatting to them about the topic at the end of the class, even though they probably needed to be rushing off to another class. I certainly don't remember any like that new teacher in
Adolescence who strolled in late and just seemed to have totally checked out.

It’s certainly true of the schools in the deprived area where I live. Both me and dh work in education (not in teaching, but for the LA where we live), and it’s horrific what goes on.

I thank my lucky stars that dd passed her 11+ and is going to a grammar school away from this shithole. We don’t live in a grammar school area by the way - dd is one of the few in the area to take 11+ and the only one in her school for 20 years said her teacher who has worked there that long. The grammar schools 45 mins away in different counties don’t affect the schools here.

Ex teacher...accurate..but it was just as bad in the expensive Catjolic private school I taught at....if not worse! I never got pens hurled at me in the staye svhool.
It's our fault as parents for mollycoddling our kids.

State school*

It certainly makes me hope that mobile phones are banned from schools by the time my DD goes to secondary

I think it's you that missed the point - which is that (as the show creator has confirmed) there were multiple influences on Jamie and boys like him that led to what happened - it's not just influencers like AT and "truth/red pill/incel" websites, but family life, school, his peers, lack of discipline, popularity, social media, role models (i.e. the contrast between the teachers - the tall, built, alpha-male type in the DI's son's class who kept order by being strict and shouting and Jamie's newly qualified form tutor who was struggling and seemed close to quitting/having a breakdown).

Why do you think they bothered focussing a whole episode in the school if they didn't want the audience to take anything away from it?

I'm surprised at people thinking it's completely unrealistic - obviously not all schools, but watch any reality tv like the 'educating' series and you see similar scenes, and they aren't even the "worst" schools.

They devoted a whole episode to it for a reason. I thought it was to show how out of control life around him was. No one had much of a clue, including the teachers.

It's a perfectly reasonable takeaway. How our children are educated, the environment in which that happens, is a huge issue.

My teens are in state secondary and say it is nothing like the one in Adolescence. Phones are confiscated if they are seen, fights are rare and teachers and the behaviour policy are mostly respected (their words!). There’s incidents of vaping in toilets and daft behaviour on the school buses now and again, but school seem on top of it pretty quick.

It makes me really sad to read of all the schools that are not like ours, for both the adults working there and the pupils living like this.

Exactly this. We live in a grammar school area. Both our DDs went to the all girls' grammar and there were very few incidents of bad behaviour.

But I worked temporarily in one of the local secondary schools for the pupils who failed the 11+. There were pupils yelling and swearing at teachers, fights in the corridors, nightmare parents randomly turning up to abuse staff. Some days I genuinely felt on edge and I am not easily intimidated, at all.

My school was much worse. We had a teacher beaten up by a student (all girls school). A student in A&E after a serious beating...some state schools can be terrible. This was 25 years ago though and my school actually got closed down.