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.

I started secondary in 2001. I remember there being an assembly in our first week about 9/11.

It was rife all through my school years, some entire classes were just sitting there as the teacher screamed until they were hoarse trying to get the rowdy kids under control. Fights were common (I was attacked several times unprovoked), kids would throw chairs and tip over tables before running out of class. Heckling the teachers was common and there were kids who would start a row over every request trying to stall out the lesson so they didn't need to work.

I was born with some disabilities that held me back academically and while I was very good at maths and science (and was in the top set for those) I was in the bottom set for english and other "soft" subjects like RE. The experience between the two sets was vastly different. The higher set classes would get a disruption maybe once a month, where as my bottom set classes were disrupted several times per lesson.

If other schools were like mine you might get rosy picture of how amazing kids were back then from those who only experienced the nice top set classes but it was going on in the classrooms around them.

Very little in mine - maybe a bit of surliness if someone was in a very bad mood but it would be noticeable and everyone would be slightly aghast that you weren’t respectful to the teacher. FWIW: it was abroad, our school had an excellent rep they protected fiercely (no doubt they’d expel anyone who behaved that badly), and I recall our British teachers regaling us with tales of their experiences in the UK and why they were so happy to leave. So it must have been happening in the late 90s already.

I was in an average state secondary school in the 90s. It wasn't a terrible school but it was a typical crap one in an inner city.

Plenty of fighting and teenage boys being arseholes. The classrooms weren't feral though. The teachers stood their ground and if you misbehaved you'd get detention/suspended/excluded depending on the nature of the offence. If you shouted at the teacher you'd be kicked out the class, no questions asked. It's not like there was corporal punishment or anything like that, just basic discipline.

As someone else said though the general mood of the class depending on the set you were in. I was in top sets for some subjects and there was no disruption at all and you just got on with the lesson. The bottom sets by year 10 and 11 the kids had basically been written off academically, in that subject, and you might get more disruption, but shouting and swearing at teachers would never be tolerated.

The problems today stem from a lack of boundaries and discipline. And as for the nonsense parents complaining that their child has been punished. There was none of that. They really need to be given short shrift.

I was shocked by the depiction in adolescence too.

I was working in a state school until a couple of years ago and now work in private.

The state school I worked in never had anything like these kids and the useless teachers. I was absolutely horrified. I imagine a Katherine Birbalsingh is onto something if this is common in large comprehensives.

Kids will push boundaries and do what they can get away with - that's what children do.

Parents, schools and teachers are failing them if firm boundaries isn't forced and basic respect.

In my secondary, in the 90s as above, kids would have loved to have shouted and swore at teachers. But they'd kicked out of the class and probably suspended so it was rare. Also the general rule of the lesson would depend on the teacher. If the teacher was weak then the class would take advantage. A firm, strong teacher and nobody would muck about.

I went to a grammar and there was no rudeness at all to teachers - no one would dare, even though, realistically, there was nothing the school could do to punish you other than give lunch time detention.

Rough schools and rude kids aren't new though. My mum turned down a teaching job in the '60s because the kids regularly ran riot and thought it was a great laugh to throw furniture from the roof/balcony at teachers and younger kids walking beneath them.

Loads. I went to a rough comp in the late 80s early 90s and there was loads of answering back, stropping off and a fair amount of violence.

I went to a large comprehensive school and bad behaviour was mainly seen in the lower academic bands (we were banded throughout) but it wasn’t excessive, just playing up and back chat.

my dad taught in a rough comprehensive and one of the reasons he took early retirement in 1992 was the parents, he had a couple just storm into his classroom whilst he was teaching demanding to know why he’d asked their little darling to stand outside the classroom for being disruptive etc. He was punched by a parent once.

Grange Hill always showed bad behaviour at school, to the point many MC parents wouldn't let kids watch it.

I think deprived areas where the community isn't education focused have generally more disruption. In my all girls bad behaviour was rare but as ever kids who had problems at home were more likely to act out to get attention. Most kids doing it randomly just want someone to ask if they are OK. It's different when they are in groups and dominate in certain areas.

I taught in a couple of 'bog standard comps' (charming terminology) in the 90s and, while low level messing about was definitely a thing, any full on rudeness would have caused gasps of shock from the other (perfectly normal working class) children. There would have been immediate, quite serious, consequences.

I left school in 1989, so just shy of 1990. I went to a large Catholic school in a leafy suburb of Liverpool. There was no shouting out, talking inappropriately during lessons etc. There wasn't really any major troublemakers that I remember. The teachers weren't overly strict but the main difference between them and some schools now is that everybody in school respected the teachers and their authority. I myself almost feared the them and nobody at all wanted their parents to be contacted by the school because your parents would be disappointed in you and back the school. Rightly so. Almost everybody behaved and respected teachers. Fast forward to the same school 30 years later and my dc (who left school 4 years ago) told me how a 14 year old boy had crawled under desks during a lesson, under the teachers desk, removed her shoes and then touched her feet. Actual assault. We were really shocked as was dc and it is still referenced by us today.

I started ssecondary in the 00s. I witnessed two teachers being assulted by students. Swearing at teachers was not uncommon. Students would walk in and out of classes as they pleased.

90’s secondary in an affluent area

teachers and kids getting bricked, female teachers being made to cry, male teachers resorting to violence against pupils. Bullying of staff from pupils, with comments about personal appearance or smell.

The school in adolescence really reminded me of the school I attended in years 9 and 10. However this was considered a good state school and there was an enclave of high achieving students.
But there was also bother like the heckling and shouting.
I think the school in adolescence was realistic but a slight exaggeration for dramatic purposes. I think you'd get a bit of that but not all over the school in every lesson at once.
I did find it awful to watch that bit because it brought back some of my worst school memories.
My school could be like that at times. I still got straight As at GCSE along with many other students. It wasn't a bad school just very big. And with big non selective state schools you will get a lot of kids who do not want to be there and act up.
There was no knife crime but there was a big problem with cars being stolen I recall. A few lads in year 10 died after hitting a tree in a stolen car. I remember we had an assembly about theft and joyriding.
Another one of my memories is of my favourite drama teacher quitting due to having a breakdown after a group of kids locked her in a cupboard.

I went to an all girls 'very good' comp in the 90s. There was definitely rudeness to teachers. But not on the same level. Lots of bad behaviour, heckling teachers, bullying, smoking and being ridiculous. Some teachers couuld command the room and respect, others it was like a free for all.

I was teaching in the 90s in East London and in another UK city.

Yes there was a lot of bad behaviour especially for some teachers if they were new or on supply. Fortunately if a teacher was more established and had built a good relationship with their classes, most lessons would be fine. Corridor behaviour and lunchtimes could be horrendous. Senior staff would generally deal with that.

When I started all my jobs (four different schools) the pupils would be awful and insulting for the first week or two. When I had been around for a couple of weeks, they would start to say ‘hi’ and be friendly, then i had no major problems in the thirty years I taught.

Fortunately all the schools were very tightly run and I would say that was the main factor in my generally good experiences.

As for when I was in school as a pupil myself - awful education and awful behaviour all round.

A relative was a maths teacher when they were supposed to be in short supply, but he left teaching well before retirement age, finally tried too far by a habitually disruptive pupil who threw a dart (a real dartboard one) at him. And although it was the latest in a long line, the head refused to exclude him.
Relative largely blamed the head - in his words, a ‘wet, useless, hand-wringing type’.

I left secondary mid nineties.

it was an ex secondary modern.

lots of disruptive boys, who mostly stopped attending in year 10/11 and nobody really cared.

lots of fights. Not a safe environment. Kids brought knives to school.

I was top set which didn’t see too much disruption but friends of mine were bottom set and that was a zoo.

lunch and break times had a smokers corner.

Same.

All girls, high-performing, grammar school. The bitchy clique would occasionally find a vulnerable new teacher to be horrid to, but generally our tiny head teacher was terrifying enough to keep everyone in check.

I'm very glad for numerous reasons that I went to that school, rather than the state secondary I could have gone to.

At that school there were issues among the pupils (fights, etc), but I never heard about bad behaviour towards teachers.

Teachers seemed a lot scarier in the 90s IMO!

Sounds like you're witnessing what's known as Dramatic Licence. Otherwise known as Making this Shit Up.

We had all sorts at our (generally pretty nice) 90's comp. We had a fake bomb scare phoned in by someone in my year group, a teacher locked in a cupboard, poisoned fish in the science lab, pupils commenting on appearance of teachers and telling them to do something about it, kids did 'chicken scratches' where they scratched themselves till it bled, fights on the field. It wasn't anything like the complete chaos in Adolescence though.

DS's secondary is currently absolutely nothing like it either, I'd home school before I'd send my kids to a school like that!

Unlike a lot of posters I did not go to a fairly good school so am perhaps the other end of the spectrum but mixed school, inner London and it was diabolical. A lot of rudeness to teachers, although some commanded respect, I remember a few teachers (male) threatening to fight parents. It really was out of hand, I ended up moving and went to single sex, all girls in Hackney and while it was obviously less boisterous I wouldn't say the behaviour was better, in fact on a personal level I had a much worse time.

I was just after this so 1998-2004. And it was quite lot. State comprehensive. Rough as arses.

I remember one of our teachers used to be brought to tears regularly.

At least 2 did no teaching whatsoever - for a quiet life. Those classes were carnage. One of them was years 10/11. So GCSE years. I used to bring a book to read instead and I wasn’t the only one.

One student used to smoke in class.

One class (PE - I was shit at it - likely dyspraxia only they didn’t know that then) I especially hated so quite often I didn’t bother going. No one noticed .

Pupil on pupil violence was common but pupil on teacher was rare. I can remember someone bring a knife but only once.

TBH I can’t imagine any actually good teaches wanted to teach there.

I left school in the 80s. As far as I remember, teachers mostly sorted out what happened in the classroom themselves. They had far more authority and students would often police each other, telling a noisy student to be quiet because they were disrupting the lesson. It was the same in the playground at breaks and lunchtime, no playground teachers around (They may have taken a quick look around then gone back into the school building), just kids of different ages sorting out disputes, then the next day it was all forgotten about. I was shocked when I had my own kids and realised how many adults seem to be involved with every sometimes tiny dispute - teachers and parents. Students play up because they know they can go home and tell mummy and daddy, and the schools are terrified of students telling their parents. So the kids play up even more.

I attended mid 90’s.
There was still a fair few older teachers employed that you knew not to test boundaries with.
It was a hot topic for more than a week when one boy called the head master a bald headed cunt. He was expelled for that one.
I personally don’t remember any chaotic class disruption but (and there’s no nice way to word this!) I heard of things happening in some of the lower set classes.