Secondary school in the 90s - how much rudeness to teachers was there?

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I was just watching the Netflix series Adolescence with my secondary aged kids and asked them if the depiction of behaviour at the school was like their school. They said it was. In one scene a boy shouts “shut up miss” at a teacher who tells him to get back into class, she does nothing and walks on. In other scenes the kids are just all shouting and messing about in class to the poking the teacher can’t be hear. My kids say that is normal both from the student and the teacher who ignored it.

I went to a very average state comp in the 90s and there were many kids who didn’t work, messed about etc but I don’t remember rudeness to teachers. I don’t even really temper kids disrupting lessons except with a couple of really useless teachers. Am I just blocking out memories of rudeness and very disruptive behaviour or was it not common in the 90s? I don’t remember my school ever giving detentions, let alone isolations, as they weren't needed, a good shout was as bad as punishment got, but at my kids’ school they are using detentions and isolations in large quantities each day.

Virtually none. A few incidents of bad behaviour towards teachers stand out :
flcking pen ink at the teachers back
Making a buzzing noise
making up a rude song about a teaxher
drawing a mean picture of a teacher

but I can’t remember one incidence of the direct rudeness and defiance that my son reports happens in every lesson now.
It’s very worrying

Old skool teachers could be really scary- when the head of maths shouted, the whole building shook. Students were disruptive and behaviour was poor in my school but you rarely targeted a teacher. Nowadays, teachers rarely bawl out a student or risk a stroppy email from a parent demanding a meeting to discuss the 'incident'.

Loads, and I started teaching in 2003 and the behaviour was terrible at the school I was at.

One thing that’s worth bearing in mind is that schools can be almost like two different places if you were to follow a child around the top sets around and then one in the bottom sets. A bit like London and the difference between Knightsbridge and Hackney.

The school I went to in 1970s/80s was quite wild. It was an inner city comp but in quite a leafy area. I remember people just walking out of lessons because they'd had enough; playing absolute havoc when a trainee teacher was in. One was reduced to tears and quit. Pupils bullied teachers, put drawing pins on their seats, gave them fake Christmas presents with nothing inside, rigged up waste paper baskets on top of propped open doors to fall on their heads when they came into class. One boy set fire to my friend's hair with a sunset burner because he was racist. One teacher exposed himself to a pupil snd the Head told her not yo make a fuss or he'd lose his job and it would be her fault his family had no dinner.

I hated school. I am left eing but I sent DC to a private school because our local comp reminded me too much of yhd human zoo I'd endured. (Again, in a nice leafy area but discipline was dire and disruption rife.)
I think giant schools aren't fit for purpose.

I think it should be remembered that in the school in the programme very traumatic events had just happened of the kind that rock a school community. The teachers wouldn't be bringing their A game to work and the young people would be cut more slack than usual.

I went to a comprehensive state school in a rural area in the 90s.

Yes, at times is was totally out of control. One teacher got locked in a cupboard and would regularly cry. Several couldn’t cope at all. Lots of rudeness and fights.

When my kids tell me what happens at their school they think I’ll be shocked. But it’s all just the same!

As I got further up the school I was in top set for everything so I didn’t see it so much, but in lower sets I heard it was awful.

Very rarely was anyone rude to a teacher at my very normal high school, in the midlands, attended 1991 to 1998. It just didn’t happen and when it did it was from the very small numbers of kids we all considered to be ‘troubled’ and even then was seen as controversial.

I was in secondary school from 1997-2003 and as a parent whose oldest is starting secondary after the summer Adolescence terrified me to be honest!

My school was considered rough. We were the school where the kids that were excluded from other schools in the local authority were sent and that was reflected in the league tables, exam results etc.

But it was nothing like the school in Adolescence. There were teachers who could silence the building if they really wanted to. Some low level disruption, some cheek to teachers yes but to be honest more often than not pupils would tell the offenders to shut the hell up before the teacher needed to. Thinking about it now I don’t remember anyone being suspended. I’m Scottish and the school leaving age was 16 so the trouble makers all left after fourth year and the rest of us got to sit our highers in peace.

Probably worth noting that I live in a small town and while the local secondary has a lot of villages feeding into it the school roll was around 650, my sixth year class was maybe 15 kids. The school roll now is under 600. I fully expect I’d have had a different experience at a larger urban school.

I went to an all girls grammar. I don't remember any swearing, backchat or fighting. But I do remember stupid behaviour like playing card games under the table, most of the class humming and refusing to stop, the toilets being set on fire once, a few teachers crying, and a couple of teachers being treated so badly they were off for weeks with stress. The pupils locked up one out of the classroom. The teachers who were mistreated were very weak teachers but obviously didn't deserve it.

I went to a rough mixed comp, there was never any swearing or shouting at teachers. It just wasn’t tolerated!

I do remember a couple of times but probably fewer than now. We played a trick on one of our teachers though on 1st April that the kids I teach would never dare- we write there was a room change on the board then all his in the cupboard (tech room so big cupboard)!

I am a secondary teacher at an inner city comp and in 20 years I’ve never been sworn at or told to shut up. So it’s not like this everywhere!

I started teaching in the 90s. There was cheekiness, but not the out and out hostility you see in classrooms now.

I’ve been called a bitch by a child who was taken out of the class, given a jocular ‘talking to’ and sent back into my lesson. I gave him a detention, that he informed me he wouldn’t attend. He didn’t. And that was that.

We’re dealing with kids that have pushed it to the end of the line, and realised that nothing happens. Not really. If they get excluded, they just get a place at another school, probably a worse one, with an even more useless discipline procedure, who won’t kick them out because they’re under-subscribed.

The thing is, I don’t blame the students. They’re at the bottom of a shitty system, where government piles pressure onto SLT, who pile pressure onto staff, who pile pressure onto students. Add to that whatever they’ve got going on at home, plus all the pressure social media brings, and I don’t blame them for being angry and kicking off.

I work one-to-one in alternative provision now, and a lot of my job involves helping my students out of the anger they feel, letting them know I see them as a human, reminding them that teachers are human too, and then working with them to achieve some qualifications. You can see them visibly relax after a few weeks out of the hell that is mainstream education.

I was in secondary in the late 80 to early 90s and behaviour was nothing like it is now. Yeah you got the occasional back chat and now and again a badly behaved child but they were swiftly excluded and put in PRUs. However the school didn’t nitpick on uniforms, (still had basic uniform rules and lines or detention if you didn’t comply) but they didn’t care if you didn’t have the precise shoe, skirt etc, you weren’t made to throw food in the bin and given isolation if you didn’t have a pen or pencil or forgot your maths book etc

we had respect for the teachers and they respected us. I had undiagnosed adhd and yes I wasn’t brilliant in school, I. Was known as a low level disrupter and was always on report or given limes etc but I was never violent or aggressive, never walked out of class or told my teachers to fuck off.

the behaviour in my daughters school is awful, there was an violent incident at her school yesterday, towards a teacher and my daughter witnessed an arrest by the police. Sadly though this young person has many issues and shouldn’t be in mainstream.

this isn’t even inner city, just a big standard, normal rural comprehensive

80s/90s - the naughty kids made a couple of teachers cry or walk out. But then I was in the top sets after the first year so didn’t continue to see that behaviour.

when I go to my DC’s school for parents evening etc, what stands out to me is that teachers talk to kids as equals. A bit of banter. The kids are confident talking to the treachers, not a little bit deferential like most of the non-naughty kids were when I was at school. It might be that all the teachers are young (maybe I’m old??) But I’m sure we had lots of teachers in their 40s/50s when I was at school, seem to be all 20s/30s now. Probably the older teachers have burnt out.

A lot of cheek and a fair bit of rudeness in the school I went to. A fairly 'normal' secondary school, not rough, good reputation but not in a particularly 'naice' area of catchment either. Real mixture of kids from different backgrounds.

At primary school (in a much nicer area!) A kid once kicked a dinner lady so hard she developed a blood clot!

State girls grammar school in early 90’s and don’t recall any backchat or rudeness to teachers and I don’t remember detention ever being used.

My youngest dd has just finished secondary school which was a comp. None of that at her school.
However in Adolescence surely it was showing a failing school and the point was to highlight the parent pushing kids to attend school when it was unbeatable for them.

Unbearable

Often discuss this very issue with DD’s who teach and have certainly experienced levels of behaviour which simply never happened when I was at secondary school(70s), the difference appears relatively simple, absolutely no discipline or ability to apply same, shout at and be abusive to a teacher when I was at school and it would be lines if very lucky, more likely sent to the head where the cane wasn’t unheard of and didn’t have to be agreed beforehand with parents, don’t get me wrong, I don’t advocate punishment like the cane but it really seems there is nothing anymore that teachers can do to control unruly kids

I went to a fairly good school left 1994.

There was bullying - one poor lad was out in a bin and rolled down a hill. & I myself bullied because I didn’t have the right coat . Even back then the right type of coat was important - it’s why I would rather freeze than even bother with a coat!

There was fights in the yard & pupils hiding behind the bike shed for a smoke.

We also had two people expelled - one due to bringing drugs in and the other for his behaviour.

It did exist but was easier to control I feel, parents didn’t come in arguing to ‘defend’ their child. The kids that bullied that boy got suspended and rightly so - parents were embarrassed that their sons bullied another child. They supported the schools decision.

I think it’s more extremely shown in the program but maybe to try and make a point …if we carry on like this the behaviour gets worse…

I went to a good school in a deprived area of the valleys. I don't recognise anything that the programme portrayed neither do my dc. We daren't speak back to the teachers as you'd have the wrath of the head of year or even worse the deputy head. Isolation and after school detentions were unheard of when I was in school. Breaktime and lunchtime detentions yes, but that was normally for not doing homework or forgetting books. Don't get me wrong there was bullying, and fights broke out, but I'm guessing that's the majority of schools.

I was at secondary in the 80s. Girls' grammar. There were a couple of teachers that had lost control of the class who people were cheeky to, but other than that answering back was extremely rare. Parents complaining to teachers was also extremely rare.

I left school in 1988. I went to what I'm sure woukd now be considered an underperforming school in an area off social deprivation, but I was in top sets and my memories are largely positive, with decent teaching and good behaviour in class, although some bullying and lots of fights in the playground.

My friend, who was in middle sets, has very different memories, of a school where no one could possibly ever learn anything and teachers had no control at all.

I was at upper school in the 90s and the “naughty” kids, in hindsight, were just a little bit cheeky and gave minor backchat. I don’t recall anything too bad.

However, my dd (12) gives me daily reports of the awful behaviour in her school. Lessons disrupted by numerous kids attacking each other, throwing objects around, swearing at teachers, refusing to follow orders. A friend has started working at the school and she says most lessons she’s in (she’s an art technician) take at least 20 minutes to get started because it takes so long just to get through the register. And if a child attacks another or swears at a teacher they often then refuse to leave the classroom so more time is wasted whilst these situations are being dealt with. My DD’s school is a failing school and is under subscribed so the children excluded from any of the other 3 local middle schools are always sent to DD’s school and so the behaviour gets worse and worse. I’ve tried to move my dd to another school but the waiting lists are long due to everyone trying to escape her school. The only positive that has come from her being at this school is that she is so resilient now, and she’s learnt to drown out the noise and chaos around her, but obviously her education has been impacted.

There was cheekiness to the teachers. I remember there was one maths teacher with dreadful halitosis and one girl would just respond every time he asked her something 'but your breath stinks sir'.

There was another girl who was always throwing chairs and threatening the french teacher with violence. That one french teacher was incapable though. She couldn't control the class and couldn't even speak french.

But it wasn't normal for kids to tell teacher to shut up, or the whole class just keep yelling and mucking about after repeatedly being told to stop. The school from that show gave me nightmares!