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!

It's the idea that it's widespread and everyone thinks "ho ho, so normal" that is freaking me out a bit. Some of these schools sound like an episode of Cell Block H. There was all sorts of random stuff at school but it was random and not viewed as normal. At primary school we had:

• the aforementioned "hedge porn", a one off in my childhood
• someone brought three bullets in (rural area in early 1980s) and we all gathered round as the kid bashed them with a stone (teacher found out, parents were told)
• very small school and bit of an own personal fiefdom for head teacher so he could be a bit shouty etc but nothing major

Secondary:

• 10 miles on bus each way so bums being jabbed with poppy pins through the gap in the seats not unusual, some twatting about but mainly the boys sitting at the back, was generally easy to avoid
• rumour someone I knew from another school was shagging from 12. Am sure others were but not people I knew, all much later. Someone found out her sister was actually her mum but can't remember any pregnancies though would be naive to think there wasn't.
• someone I was quite friendly with married a teacher the year after she left school
• rumour one of the teachers had a meltdown at one kid and chased him around the classroom. Didn't see it and don't know if exaggeration, nothing like that ever happened in classes I was in.
• two teachers had a drink problem
• a teacher went to some kind of court or tribunal thing for putting his hand on a pupil's leg. There may have been more to it but that part involved a girl in my year so that's the bit I remember. I don't think it was taken any further (which is not to say it shouldn't have been).
• the odd fight watched by a big mob of people but not often.
• my friend used to get pressured into wasting her morning break queuing to buy a mars bar for a girl who had a rep as being well 'ard. Stopped after a while. Don't remember any bullying to the point of violence in my year although some people were arseholes but not unusually arseholey.
• plenty of smoking in the toilets but there was also a fug of a smoke belching out of the staff room every time the door was opened.

No teachers swearing or throwing things. Four boys were suspended in S1 for nicking pens....

I've heard the school has improved a lot since I left so after the posts above I think I might move back.

Some of these schools sound like an episode of Cell Block H

Ours was. It was also a very high achieving, well rated Catholic school. These things happened. But it wasn't everyday.

40 out of 40 pupils got sent home on the first night of a retreat to foundations abbey. The teachers found vodka, whiskey, poppers and weed in most of the rooms.

I enjoyed school on the whole.

I went to a bog standard comp 5 years.

Nothing Happened. It Was the Most Boring Five Years of My Life.

OK, there were a few things. The most memorable being the male teacher who, ion his last day at the school, stripped off to a basque and suspenders at the last assembly of the year.

Ugh.

And I saw a teacher hitting a child too. He was pretending to hump a school desk. The form teacher saw him, she hit him round the head. To be honest we all thought it was hilarious.

Yes, I expect I would probably find out other things if I googled around and asked a few friends. But to be honest I didn't see them and I doubt they would have either. I read the other thread with a very large pinch of salt, bearing those points in mind.

I went to a tiny private girls boarding school and there were girls letting boys/ young men into the dormitories at night when I was 15, having sex with multiple boys on the same night, a very high number of suicide attempts and girls removed to mental health residential facilities given the tiny size of the school, a massive obsession with the occult that had a lot of people in the lower school properly terrified - mass hysteria takes hold among a fairly isolated boarding school population and was made worse by the (religious - it was a religious school) staff body taking it far too seriously and therefore giving it huge credence...

I had a lot of (innocent - I was a bit naughty in class and a bit of a nightmare for certain teachers I suspect, but basically a good girl) fun too...

Decades later I heard about horrible bullying though I was oblivious at the time

Obviously nobody ever told their parents anything negative at all.

Private isn't always better...

Our Geography teacher threw board rubbers at people. We swore constantly - that's pretty standard, isn't it? Loads of people shagging in early teens, a few pregnancies by GCSE. We all knew about porn but I worry a bit about what kids can access online now. My mate in sixth form used to shag people, smoke weed and do poppers in the nearby fields in her lunch hour, used to come to class drunk too. I was good re. drugs and sex (chance would have been a fine thing), only smoked from 16, but was bullied horrendously, self harmed and attempted suicide at 15. I would not go through my teens again for anything and I do worry about what it'll be like for my kids. Why do you think parents are unaware, OP?

Sounds like my school (private) which was ten-ish years ago.

But why is this OK? Its not a competition, I don't think the OP was inviting you all to say oh ner ner I am a really nice grown up adult and I've seen LOTS more than you little girl. But that's basically what most people are saying. So anyway, forget them, but everyone else who has half a wit about them - are you saying that shit happens therefore we shouldn't worry?!

Do you not realise that is exactly why shit like this happens in schools? Because most of the adults are sitting around going oh well it doesn't matter, its a giggle. If your child's school is like this, why are you in there 24/7 complaining? (Maybe that's why the OP thinks parents don't know and don't care, as no bugger bothers going to the school about it)

why AREN'T you in there I mean!

Burning I think the general message people are putting across is not "ner ner ner ner ner" but that nothing really changes (except the availability of technology in the form of all things mobile phone/ internet)... Some schools are better/ worse than others. Some people have utterly different experiences whilst at the same school at the same time and don't even know the "other half" of what is going on...

Secondary school kids generally don't tell their parents about a lot of stuff even if they talk endlessly to them about other things, so parents don't always know what is happening at their kids schools, and I think a lot of parents have some kind of cognitive dissonance going on in order to cope with their kids being at secondary school - they have their own experiences but choose to believe their child will not experience any of the negative things that they themselves did/ that they know were going on when they were at school but were not a part of... Many parents also believe they have chosen or are paying for a more protected/ better environment for their kids than they had themselves.

For the most part the "shocking" things are exceptional and not the day to day of school life for most kids, and most parents hope and believe that their own child is not exposed to them even though some part of their brain knows that some of this stuff is likely to be going on somewhere at their child's school at some point...

If parents believed their child was in the thick of the negative things descried here most of them would certainly be kicking up an almighty great fuss...

Yes it all sounds familiar, except for the phone porn, we didn't have that in the 80s / 90s.

I hated school and I didn't find university similar at all, or work! I always felt under threat at school. Threat of random violence, sexual assault. Not unfounded.

Life as an adult is much better! Good luck in your degree OP. :)

Agree with schwarb

I know that stuff like that is going on at school, if they tell me about it and it either affects them or they know who it is happening to i will ring the school

But sometimes they dont tell me, or they saw it hapoen but have no names or in the case of dd2 recently they dont want me to do anything about it (something that affected him only...hopefully) as they want to deal with it themselves

I dont find it funny and IF i had told my parents they wouldnt have found it funny either

I hated secondary school and recognise your description rather too well!

One of the worst things about that whole 7 years, was the way adults kept telling me that it was better than real life. Ffs telling someone who is living through a nightmare that this is the best time of their life borders on vindictiveness to me. That ray of hope that I might get out of this terrible life to one I could make better was really rocked by these stupid ignorant adults.

For some very odd reason totally bought in to the 'best days of your life' bullshit. It was also very circular reasoning, as if I Couldn't be terribly unhappy because... School is the best time of my life. Or maybe I was just Not Appreciating It Properly because... School is the best time of my life. And if I couldn't cope at school, I would be a complete failure when exposed to 'real life', because... School is the best time of my life. And of course, they didn't need to do anything to help me, because nothing I said or experienced could be that bad, as...School IS the best time of my life.

That has stayed with me longer than the actual bad experiences, the cutting off of hope and help. So I do get where your original post was coming from :)

They were, thank God, completely wrong by the way.

If you trap 1000 or so teenagers in a confined space and take way their independence and control, and it's not surprising it doesn't go well!

I get the OP. I must admit that sometimes when I read posts on here from concerned parents about their 11/12/13 yo DCs possibly being exposed to porn, violence, 18 rated films and games etc I do think to myself "unless they are home schooled or blindfolded they probably saw at least some of this years ago".

It definitely all went on at my school. I went to a VERY good state school might I add, and the kind of students that engaged in such behaviours range from school drop outs to students that went on to study at Oxbridge Uni's. I do think some parents on here can be quite naive.

Those of you who say all this happened frequently at your school but it was a very good school, what is it about the school that made it good? Am interested in the positive aspects of the schools that offset the other parts. The OP is unhappy about her school, describing it as shit. I would only describe my school as ok but as I've said above, little of this happened. I'm feeling a little sad for my 9 and 6 year old DCs if their near future is very likely to include experiences above such as the constant fear of physical and sexual violence at least one poster mentioned and would like to hear something that would suggest their teenage years will be something other than an exercise in damage limitation.

All this shit and more goes on in my kids 'outstanding' secondary school every day. And yes I do go down and raise it every time I am aware of an issue. What keeps it outstanding is the results (naice area) and a heavy dose of denial amongst a lot of the parents about exactly how widespread the porn/drug/self harm issues are

Eddie I was going by leaderboard statistics, exam results, alumni success etc. In that respect I think it is the top London state school (might be wrong there though).

I got a good education, outstanding results, but only mentioned the fact it was a "good school" to drive home that its not just struggling schools in under privileged areas where this happens.

As for positives I found whilst at the school:
-We had endless funding, amazing resources (latest technology, amazing classrooms, fully equipped dance studios, great PE and swimming facilities, all expenses paid trips abroad, great subject choices - you could chose from 6 languages for example rather than the standard French or German)
-It is in a lovely affluent area
-We had great teachers as it was a great school to work at career wise.

It just so happens that teenagers will be exposed to all sorts wherever they are educated imo.

I suppose that's where my confusion lies. My school was the best in the area in terms of exam results and would probably have been rated reasonable highly by external bodies but at the time and looking back, I wouldn't rate the experience as particularly great. To give it credit however, it never felt chaotic or particularly unsafe.

I'm more concerned with my DCs feeling secure (as in not frequently being exposed to situations which fall outside that which they could be reasonably expected to have the emotional resources to cope with at that age), as happy as is possible for your average teenage to feel and for school to be a broadly positive experience.

I really don't want it to be a string of experiences which if posted on the MN relationship board would be greeted with a sea of horrified responses. If the experience would be shit for an adult, it isn't going to be any better for a 14 year old.

Eddie the fact these things happen at school doesn't mean there is an all pervading atmosphere of fear, or that they are the norm - as I said before, for the most part, kids know they happen but they are not in the forefront of their minds not being experienced very often/ ever by many kids - a lot of kids only know about most of these "shocking" experiences second hand through the rumour mill ...

There is no reason to think your children will be experiencing all of this stuff on any kind of regular basis, but at the same time parents who choose to believe that their school is "not that sort" or that because they pay fees or have chosen an Ofsted outstanding school or just because "things have changed" since they were at school are probably wilfully deluded. This stuff goes on... but all sorts of shit goes on in life, in the wider world, in our towns, in public places and on public transport etc. etc. cars crash, horrible diseases strike indiscriminately, terrorism and crime exist... as you know most of the time we do not let it dominate us and keep us locked in our living rooms, or go around feeling permanently sad despite the fact such things are sad - it is human nature not to think about it the majority of the time because stuff needs doing and lives need living and the alternative is unsustainable...

"a lot of kids only know about most of these "shocking" experiences second hand through the rumour mill"

A lot more of this goes on than the OP would have you think, there is a murky side to school life we all know that, but kids are great gossips and they will believe anything.

The OP: " 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. "

Yes of course they did dear.

i went to school you know, may have been 18 years ago ab=but we got up to much the same stuff.

Come on OP, admit you live in Blackpool - sounds familiar {grin}

I have taught in several schools and this is not the norm although I cannot comment on some of the stuff as as a teacher I wouldn't have observed it

I recognise some of this stuff and I would have expected most of this to happen as one offs across a school but I didn't expect the whole tone of "yeah, happened all the time". Am glad to have read this as will ask friends some questions as no one has ever recounted events like much of the above to me so I'd assumed my experience was pretty standard.

I went to state school and work with lots of people who went private. I've spent a lot of time over the years telling bemused privately educated folk that state school isn't like Grange Hill but hmm, what the fuck do I know!

I think a good half of what's been described never happened, or at least didn't happen while the people posted it.

For example, I could say there was a paedophile at my school, or that there were savage inter-school fights out of hours. But it would just be stuff I heard on the rumour mill, and probably before my time.

"while the people posted it attended the school"

(apologies for not proof reading)