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!

'But meanwhile the kids are busy with dildos, gay porn and seatbelting.'

I work in a school. Never seen a dildo there

Should be this one!

Went to a naice all girls school, but as far as I remember...
-teacher lost my GCSE coursework, informed me two days before deadline that I never did it (first piece we all ever did, in class! over a year earlier, had to cobble it together whilst revising)

• "pervy Mr ***" busted as part of a paedophile ring, the upskirt photos were not just a rumour. Bra pinging by male teachers not unusual.
• affairs with married teachers were rife. Lesbian teachers managed to refrain from affairs with children, well done them.
• porn vids and video nasties were passed around including early internet frontrunner "executions"
• someone always got drunk in lessons every year
• the girls who got pregnant young were 50% family abuse i.e. Step dad was responsible, one time it was the grandad
• chemistry teacher sniffed bromide with us, science labs were usually full of poppers sniffing anyway, E's sold in locker room
• teachers swearing and throwing things not that uncommon
• choking type game, tripping up, compass stabbing, hair pulling out (bleeding scalp) earrings ripped out all fairly standard
• girls working as prostitutes
• girls taking overdoses
• a LOT of pervs wanking outside classrooms, think at one time we closed off a pathway between some rooms as there was a different guy nearly every day come up to the school to wank
• in my group of friends we all had sex by age 14, and many partners by 18. At around 15 I think we were bored of the same old pubs and clubs and decided to cut down on drinking to within the 21 units recommended (for men) per week

Meanwhile, on half the other threads on MN, women are torturing themselves over the long term impact of BF vs FF and how many Haribos their DCs eat. This thread is giving me a bit of perspective.

Don't think a posh school will protect your children from sex, drugs, and rock. My all girls school had girls who could afford cocaine habits, slept with many boys, and did many other bad things. Bulimic puking by general agreement was restricted to a remote third floor former prefects' bathroom. This was thirty years ago.
At the same time, we had many petty restrictions. One local supermarket was off limits without a parent by school rule. A bookstore in a forbidden neighborhood was in bounds while in uniform, as it was run by a Old Girl.

My math teachers threw chalk, were bitingly sacra sticks, and referred to us in Jane Austen style when specially annoyed. "Miss Erica, would you care to tell the class what you and Miss Jean find so amusing?" We were both younger daughter, so referred to as Miss Firstname.

Sarcastic!

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.

Interesting that you bracket knowledge of 'sex for pleasure' in with porn. I was always at pains to emphasise to my 9 and 10 year old DC that sex was fun and enjoyable with a partner you trust (disgrams and talk of babies can be quite off-putting without context, I think). That's fairly standard, isn't it? Nobody's teaching kids that you DTD just to have babies, are they?

But extreme porn, yes it's a worry for your generation and your parents, me included. (Vanilla porn being viewed by teens, I can't get worked up about, TBH, although much of it is tacky depressing shite).

Also, teens being filmed in compromising situations (BJs etc) and that footage being shared. Awful.

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.

It's not necessary to watch to be aware, you know.

This was an epidemic in my middle child's OFSTED-beloved, top-rated, 'flagship' leafy comp in the London suburbs, along wit extreme porn, and it is true that some other parents seemed determined to remain in deep denial about it, along with the school leadership. A very knotty problem to tackle anyway.

( I removed my DC from that school and cancelled younger child's application and they both chose to resume Home Ed, BTW, which has cost us a bomb)

Your other points, however, isn't much different to the 70s/80s/90s, as you've been told. (Although maybe students are a bit more open about their shitty little ways now that fewer sanctions are available.)

Isn't it the case that every generation of teenagers think that

A. They invented sex / drugs /,rock and roll
B. Their parents have "no idea" though I'm 48 and I still try to believe this

What area is this in OP? Vaguely. North? South?

Have you done OK academically? My school was bad but not THAT bad. The internet stuff bothers me a lot.

My children go to a school in Australia where no internet or phones are allowed on campus. I know kids have them at home but they haven't in school.

I remember a girl drinking mini bottles of vodka in our history class during year 9

I am interested to know why the OP feels she can't tell any of this to her parents.

Dd tells me. Not in 'oh my god mum you have to stop the horror' kind of way but in a 'oh my god let me tell you what happened at school today!' More like gossip. Tbh I get a full run down of the stuff that's gone on. She always seems shocked that we aren't shocked and have pretty similar stories.

OP if what you have been through at school is so horrifying and effected you so badly why haven't you spoken to anyone?

I'm 38 and none of this sounds wildly different from my standard comprehensive education. I do feel slightly horrified when I recall the stuff that went on. It's not great, is it? And yes, it does make me worry for DD.

Not sure if the OP is still around, and I haven't RTFT, so someone might have already linked to it. But this www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2584415-worst-thing-that-happened-at-your-school may give them an idea of what has gone on in schools in the past.

Yes YUBU to think parents don't know what happens in schools. DS tells me about some off the shit behaviour/stuff that goes on in his school too.

My very good friends at University lost their virginity at 13/14 via sexual assault. My best female friend at home told me she'd lost her virginity at 12 - unfortunately I didn't believe her.....her step brother was sexually abusing her for years. I had 2 friends with step siblings that this happened to. My other best friend's brother abused him for years too. I get the feeling from speaking to parents around here that they think their teens are totally safe and sheltered - I think they are deluded.

Aww just read OP update of 21:33.

You are not a twat, just a teenager who thought we should know

which is fair enough. As many have already said, most of us when we were teens thought we were the first generation to rebell.

I am nearing my end of sixth form (A Levels) You're at least 25 45

I get enough teensplaining in RL then find they are on MN too. Is there no escape?

Good luck with the English lit degree, enjoy your many years teaching teenage reprobates

Sadly am all too aware of this kind of stuff
I too went to a Crap School and all sorts of vile stuff went on. Me and my friends were sexually harrassed daily and nobody in authority every tried to stop it, even now it makes my blood boil.
I think digitalisation has made things so much worse, gore/shock websites worry me as does the proliferation of porn. Makes me very worried!

Yep, all souds very familiar (apart from the mobile technology), and I went to an 'excellent' single-sex grammar school in the early 90s.

There's nothing new under the sun.

OP what about watching the horror film aged 6. Where were you when you did that?

I have to say, sometimes I think it's better to have had to be close to, and aware of, these things in the senior school years, so that you have a bit of sense at the point you leave and some warning as to how to work with these things if you encounter them again - or the variations that happen when you're no longer in school, and probably more 'on your own'. I also think that a few spurs to healthy rebellion/thinking for yourself are better to be applied before you leave (not too early, but don't become a ticking time bomb that goes off spectacularly in your 20s or 30s).

I think my horror moment was when I was going to the loo or something during school time, and in a quiet corridor, noticed a boy of about 12 clinging to a banister as if handcuffed, and raging like I'd never seen. I was out of view I think, and a teacher asked off-handedly 'What's up with him?' Reply (from whom, I don't know, couldn't see): 'Oh, his father's been abusing his sister again'. Never forget it.

How were you able to watch a horror film at 6yo? Surely that has more to do with what went on at home, rather than in school. Unless you are saying you were sat down in class in year 1/2 and the teacher put the horror film on for you

The OP is going to be so shocked when she goes to uni and gets a job.