to think parents have no idea what goes on in schools

[dogsnotsprogs]

I am nearing my end of sixth form (A Levels) and I was just thinking that parents might not understand the pressures school gives children/young people as well as what goes on, on a daily basis.

I am just going to give a few examples of what has happened in my years at a state comprehensive school.

1. A boy (think this was year 10/11 so 15/16 years old) came into the classroom at lunch with a vibrator/dildo and was waving it about before he ran up to this boy (same age) and rammed the vibrator near his asshole through his school trousers. The second boy told his mum and then the first boy nearly got arrested for sexual assault. Nobody cared about the second boy and people started to dislike him, as the first boy was suspended for a week.

2. I know a lot of parents worry about porn / the Internet. I was aware of porn and sex for pleasure rather than to pro-create, at about 11? Boys had it on their phones and were sending it to each other.

3. I don't know if you've seen the videos on Facebook but there are some gore/shock sites that contain images of weird fetishes, gay porn, infected vaginas and Mexican men getting beheaded with a chainsaw. We (us being my year group) saw these pictures and gross videos so much throughout year 10-12 and still today. We have become desensitised to violence, sexual violence and gore.

4. I watched my first horror film (rated 15) at 6 years old, as did most of the people at school.

5. Swearing is frequent. Now I'm in sixth form it's also used more commonly by teachers who we call by their first names.

6. Seatbelting and peanutting someone? Does this still happen?? Seatbelting someone is where you pull as hard as you can on their backpack and hopefully usually they will fall to the ground. I saw someone have their bag completely ripped from the handles earlier today. Peanutting someone is (if they wear a tie for uniform) pulling/tugging in their tie so the knot gets super tight and is often impossible to get off.

7. Teachers have thrown stuff (chairs etc) at students.

8. A girl in my GCSE English class got drunk in the double lesson after drinking vodka in full view of the teacher.

9. The majority of people in my year lost their virginities at around ages 13/14 and some have up to 12 partners at the age of 18.

Was it like this in your day? AIBU to think you are unaware of this sort of thing occurring in your child's school?

BTW - My school is shit, I know that.

There's loads more but I can't think!

Wow, I must have been very lucky this is all alien to me. I mean things did happen, but not all the time.

To the poster above who asked, I'm definitely female. As to the group sex stuff: the stuff that was consensual: fair enough - although we were damn lucky camera phones weren't a thing back then. Some of the other things I remember though, I look back in horror at. Particularly the 'non-consensual' incident I mentioned earlier. It is weird that we all took that in our stride back then.

I was raped by a teacher at my school.

SuperFlyHigh and catfart that sound pretty shit.

ifgrandmahadawilly re "To the poster above who asked, I'm definitely female." That was me. Sorry, I realised afterwards you had said it was an all girls school. It just struck me your acceptance of sex that was not consensual as part of teenagers experimenting was rather alarming to me!

But.....

Re "As to the group sex stuff: the stuff that was consensual: fair enough - although we were damn lucky camera phones weren't a thing back then. Some of the other things I remember though, I look back in horror at. Particularly the 'non-consensual' incident I mentioned earlier. It is weird that we all took that in our stride back then."

Thanks for clarifying, I apologuise if my response was a little strident. You seemed to be taking it all in your stride now and that alarmed me.

I know when I was at school there was under age sex and one girl had a naked photo of her boyfriend to show at school (no phones then!) and obviously pregnancy scares and bullying, drunk teachers, a teacher who hit a pupil, fights, etc but you sounded a bit too OK with how it all happened, but I can see now that was me reading into that, and I apologuise.

What is actually giving me some hope here is that the OP is asking is this normal, maybe something we did fail to do when things were happening at school for us, and more than is it normal, is it acceptable.

Maybe now young people, especially young women, are asking if they should have to put up with this. (I am not forgetting women can be violent too, at my school bullying always seemed to be boys bullied boys and girls bullied girls!).

Anyway, the bit of hope I have dug out of all this shit is that people like the OP are questioning is this right.

My dd starts secondary school soon and I know I will be more aware than my mum was of things that go on when I was younger.

In my school days (a long time ago) these things weren't happening at school for me but at 16 I was coming into contact with alcohol and drugs and could have come into contact with the occult and sex too if I'd wanted to, luckily there was no pressure for me. Just some very late at parties who knows where (I certainly didn't know where I was as I was throwing up into a bath - took me years to like brandy again!) Anyway, I guess now this has reminded me to know more about what my dd is up to, and what pressures she may be under.

Rinoachicken that is so awful, I am sorry I missed your post. Can I ask what happened. I mean did you press charges? Can I ask how long ago it was? I am so very sorry, that is just so awful.

It was 18 years ago. The head didn't believe me and it was all covered up by the school and I was expelled.

He was eventually charged when I reported it to the police 5 years later and police discovered evidence of the coverup etc but it was decided by the CPS not to continue with the prosecution because I tried to kill myself and they decided in their great wisdom that it was not in my best interest to have to give evidence.

So he was able to go back to teaching in the same school (no other school would have him I suppose).

I did try and get it looked into when all the historic cases were being reviewed, and my MP was fab at helping me contact the right people, but the CPS have 'lost' the files so that's the end of that.

Rinoa sorry you had a similar experience to my friend as I don't think her attackers were brought to task over her attack.

I will say this, I wouldn't hesitate to punch or report to the police my attackers and thank fuck I don't know them now.

Rinoachicken I am so sorry, that is awful. It sounds like the whole 'pedophile priests' type covre up thing is just much wider than we ever knew with schools covering up this type of thing. I am so sorry.