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!

Agreed Toad..

For example two good friends of mine were all having sex at a young age, years later it turned out that actually they'd had fumbles at 13/14 which is fairly common, but no proper sex till about 18/19.

Lots of fibs at school.

Thinking back to when I was in sixth form...
A lot of the boys were very worried they were going to get called up to go to the Falklands War.

Male sixth formers often had girlfriends who were 14/15 year olds, and nobody batted an eyelid, because it was normal. Fast forward to today, and I know of sixth formers being suspended for having such relationships!

I went to a party with my then boyfriend, and a girl who had just finished upper sixth turned up with her boyfriend...a young physics teacher from our school! Turned out they had just got engaged, and I heard they did get married!! Nothing happened about it...we were all a bit but again it was not thought of as shocking.

I was allowed to only take Two A level courses, because I wasn't interested in University. There was absolutely no pressure.

To be fair, there was hardly any pressure on the build up to any exams...it was your problem if you didn't do any revision, NOT the school's!

My History teacher( lovely woman) invited all the A level History group to her house for dinner towards the end of sixth form.

The worst thing I can think of was sixth formers ( not me obviously, I was far too sensible!) grabbing Un-suspecting year 7 's and bundling them into the toilets, (which were basically used as a smoking room) and keeping them there,terrified, till break was over! Then they would release them, smelling of smoke, and shaking in their boots...!Those were the days when the younger years had respect for the older ones!!!

I went to a state primary and a private secondary, and taught at 2 UK state secondary - one good in a nice middle class area and one just coming out of special measures in an inner city with very, very poor but improving GCSE reults (and a private German primary). There was nothing to choose between either of the primaries, or either of the secondariness, though undoubtedly primary and secondary are very different. There is no significant difference IME between a private and a state secondary school in the UK, in terms of amount of unsavoury / dangerous / unpleasant -/ shocking / illegal stuff a child might experience if unlucky or interested/ might never experience...

As a tutor in both secondaries I don't think any more young teens came to me thinking they were pregnat than I had been aware of at private secondary (none of them actually were, though my state secondary was multiple times larger in terms of pupil numbers and we had one 15 year old who did actually have a baby and come back to school on a reduced timetable in time to take Maths and English GCSE, versus the one 16 year old at my private school with only 28 girls in the year who got expelled 8 weeks before GCSES and 14 weeks before her baby was born...)

I will say that DW (not from UK) taught supply in some London primary and secondary schools, and she described some of them as battlefields. I think there was only one that she thought was approaching OK.

We live away from the UK (in NZ) and she refuses to return because she doesn't want our DCs going through the UK school system.

I used to get drunk before school in year 10 and had sex at 14. I used to drink gordons gin in a water bottle at 8am, surprisingly I don't drink gin now! I also did it with port, advocaat and sherry, again haven't touched any since! I used to steal it out my parents and my nans drinks dresser. On the evenings we used to drink 20/20 and white lightening. I don't sit in with either of them nowadays, so It really hasn't made any difference to my life.

It was fairly standard at my school. Plenty of people taking drugs at school and we used to have people coming up in the lessons. That was in the top sets and all those people are just your average joe now. It's just being a teenager.

I woudn't say teaching supply gives you a good impression of any school.

I think there are always going to be people who say this or that happened, but as I've previously said unless you saw it with your own eyes, don't believe half of it.

I don't know how far things vary between school, but kids' experiences certainly vary: we have oversight of DD's mobile and internet usage (senior programmer DH so far remains way ahead of pre teen offspring tech wise) and BIL has the same for his same age DSS, and the kids are the same age, but DSS has had his phone taken off him for looking at hard core porn (knowing DSS, who is immature and insecure, this is due to peer pressure not anything personal) but the worst we have had to talk to DD about was signing up to but not posting on a chat room... Might be'/ probably is gender and personality bias but also different but same age kids having different experiences in different friendship groups and different schools within a fairly small geographical area.

I think it does happen a lot Lurked. I can't imagine many people waiting until 18/19 to have sex, but that is my experiences. I am sure there must be some people that do wait until they are a lot older.

There are a lot more than you'd think!

I think of course there is an element of sex, drugs and rock and roll going on, but its no where need as widespread as experiences on here show.

The average age of virginity loss is 16 for girls and slightly older for boys. Of course that means there are a lot doing it under age, but just as many not doing it till later on (probably more when we take into account people who fib).

Although ones thing does plague schools more than in our day is bloody sexting.

Back then if a boy wanted you to take your top off for him/fool around you'd have to have been alone and that would be it no evidence, if you'd done it you could always deny it later.

Now there are girls who send these pics and it comes back to haunt them, every boy in the class can have seen your private photo, and the silly sods who do it can end up getting told off by the police!

I think it's more a case that in some areas it is widespread and others are not. I take surveys for these issues with a pinch of salt. I wouldn't have admitted any of this at that age for fear of being in trouble.

But loads of people would have fibbed in the other direction too to save face!

I'm not naive, I'm very aware of what happens and what some children get up to, but this thread makes it out like its almost all teens, when in fact its the other way around. Most teens still have fairly dull existences cause they have parents like us :)

I think we will have to agree to disagree on that one.

Of course, cause you were an exciting rebellious teen..not average at all.

I spent a long time in a child protection role, I've seen my share, I've also investigated lots and lots of things that have been reported, but when you dig deeper turn out to be far tamer than they have appeared on the rumour mill.

Sadly of course there are lots that are far worse, but they tend not to be public knowledge :(

I work in same area. I think maybe it is more where you live and certain places it is much more common. Factors vary massively regionally and I would say most of the stories on these thread are similar to what I know personally. Not to say your experiences aren't just as valid.

Schools in inner and North East London?

Kids are actually a lot better behaved than when I started back in the stone age, this thing about them getting worse is not true.

Lots of stuff that used to occur because kids gathered on the street after school has stopped because many of them are now bedroom dwellers and always online (who am I to talk?)

I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm saying its not as common as is made out on this thread and that people ought to take "what they heard" in school with a pinch of salt.

For example, every time there is a y11 party the stories that come back are of the last days of Soddom and Gomorrah. Think drugs, police raids, everyone drunk etc.

Dig a bit deeper and you find out that (4 times out of 5) it wasn't quite that bad, and in most cases quite tame but embellished for effect. The 5th one is always a bit of an eye opener though.

I don't think they are getting worse, as it's always been the same. I am not too concerned about mine messing with alcohol, I think when the time comes I will be worried about them getting in to class a's at 16/17. I don't want them doing it at school, as even though the vast majority of my generation in the local area did, only some have made a success of their lives.

Class As in school are very rare though, even in the wealthiest areas.

Cocaine is a worry if you are in a wealthier area, its so widely available, poorer kids tend not to use it at that stage. In fact white, middle class folk are more likely to use class As.

I am probably lower middle class but most of my school were working class. Most of our school were on ecstasy/amphetamines, if not at school then they were by college age. I do think a positive of the facebook generation is people aren't so open with their drug use as it can be recorded on camera!

I think in the 90s ecstacy use was far more common than it would be today, just because it was more available and relatively cheap, but certainly in Inner London in the 90s it wasn't the drug of choice, that was still alcohol, and even then very few kids used it during school, as very few do now.

I would also probably think that fewer people than you imagine were on them, again lots of talking about it, acting it out, less doing it.

This generation do less of everything it seems to, there are less pregnancies (certainly fewer scares that we hear about), and less casual use of alcohol (you know getting pissed of a week night due to boredom).

At the top end though, kids with a bit of spare cash can get in a lot more trouble.

I am not old enough to have been doing it in the 90s but I know my friends siblings did. Lots of people were definitely on it here, absolutely massive dance culture at the time. Not so many clubs now but I think the culture is still here but it's more hidden from plain sight.

I think the difference today is that children and teenagers see far more extreme porn, than in my day. I have heard young people talk about certain things in porn as if they are normal, and they are things I had never heard of. So yes, I do think teenagers are getting a very distorted idea of what normal sex is.

I'd agree cleaty, but I think the availability of it all, and all of the information leads to them talking a far better game than they actually play. In lots of cases the kids are talking the talk, but not walking the walk.

Hi dogsnotsprogs just read your opening post...

"Was it like this in your day? AIBU to think you are unaware of this sort of thing occurring in your child's school?"
No school was not like this for me. It was much better.

I don't have time to read all the posts right now but we are discussing porn and it's damaging effects on

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2610074-Anybody-up-for-a-general-chat-about-the-damaging-effects-of-porn-on-young-people?pg=9

Your thread got a mention so please do come and talk to us, if you wish to.

I really, really hope you can tell your parents what goes on at school and I really hope you and your friends can be a force for change. These bullying and abusive behaviours you speak of are immoral, wrong and in some cases illegal.

Your generation has the chance to help change things. Don't accept the lie this is normal, or acceptable or unchangeable, it is not. But do take advise, find wise guidance, get organised, these boys (am I right in thinking most of this is done by boys not girls?) will be future leaders in our country.

Most of all for now, keep yourself safe, look out for yourself, don't watch things you don't want to watch, don't do thing you don't want to do. Don;t listen to people who tell you this is normal. It's not.