Teachers who have watched 'Adolescence'- what are your thoughts?

[Fstt1978]

Had an interesting experience this week after watching this at the weekend

sanctioned 4 boys this week with a demerit each - for pushing and shoving in the corridor- swearing loudly and generally being gobby to me.
All 4 boys parents have written emails to say it's unfair/ I'm picking on them etc etc. As it was 4 of them- none of them can be singled out.
We also have a boy caught on CCTV physically assaulting a much younger student unprovoked - it is categorically an assault- with the victims parents pressing charges. He has been permanently excluded and his parents have instructed a solicitor to contest this.

What is going on with parenting boys? Girls sanctioned rarely have parents like this - this is NOT a goady thread- I am genuinely really interested , and open to discussion about it

I guess society view boys as being more rough than girls. So a group of boys pushing/shoving isn't deemed unusual (depending on the circumstances- were they messing around or was it the start of a fight?). Whereas a group of girls doing the same thing might be seen as something that needs to be broken up?

Surely it depends on what the boys told their parents about the situation for the parents to feel it's unfair. As a teacher you only see a snapshot, whereas 1/2 of the boys may have instigated it.

What does a demerit mean for the boys? It's a bit much for the parents to email stating it was unfair for that alone if it's just a "point" system.

It also depends on the parents themselves and how they view the school rules, I wouldn't say it just parents of boys.

Edit to add: not excusing the behaviour of the boys mentioned in OPs post, simply wondering why the parents feel the need to intervene.

Again its not the taking of the register, its all the other crap that the SLT/HT wants done at the same time.

If the school has had to push for kids to be getting on with work from the beginning of the lesson, I imagine it’s because too many teachers have been faffing about and taking too long to get started. It really should be expected that the lesson starts as soon as possible.

If the schools wants a teacher to greet pupils at the door, then the learning will start late.
If the school wants a 60 minute lesson to be a 60 minute lesson and the pupils working to the bell then the next lesson will start late.
If the school adheres to a 'every second matters' teaching policy, then it goes against every piece of teaching pedagogy of how children learn and how long for.

As has been said many times on here one of the things that makes teaching stressful is poor management and their unrealistic rules.

Do you think stabbings only occur in the state sector? The parents of Yusuf Mackie would disagree (except his poor mother has since died).
Knife crime affects all sectors.

What about the boy who attacked 2 other boys and a teacher with a hammer at Blundells?

It the lovely headteacher and her daughter killed by the husband? Or the lad that violently attacked his fellow roommates and a teacher at a boarding school?

This is a male violence issue that intersects class don’t think you can buy your way out of it.

Quite.

An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction.

Liberal has its own meaning
Extreme liberal is a new term intended to relate to ideas which probably originated in or were inspired by liberal thought, but which are now being applied in such an extreme way it is to the detriment of most of society and society as a whole.

The ideas are generally promoted by extremely well funded activist groups.

I have seen this from the other side though. A child talked to parent about how a teacher is with the kids, parent speaks to school, parents told this could not possibly have happened - no possibility a teacher would be screaming at the child.

You can hear the screaming from outside the school as you walk past.

Can be bit of a nightmare both sides.

He was being a git, yes, but this was a while ago, when he was a property developer, and the comments are pretty much par for the course for property developers - and many other professionals. So, not great, no, but not comparable to shitshow situation he has inherited, and he isn't - de facto - misogynistic in his current work or policies. He is also against armed conflict, and personally I don't care what he said in 2005 if he can get us out of our current quagmire.

Examples of extreme liberal - like suggesting kids don't need to be taught maths or grammar, or like teaching 5 year olds age inappropriate facts about adult sex choices, or that including pornographic material in manga aimed at 11 year olds is okay. For starters.

I think this is staggeringly wrong thinking. To learn about subjects like science or history or any academic subject, you start with learning basics and you build on knowledge slowly over time, and ultimately specialising. To get to grips with a subject you'd need a broad base understanding and you would then be able to build on detail in certain subject areas. You learn to make connections and think critically, and understand patterns and theories. None of this could come from AI.

No you could not get the sort of depth of understanding you'd need at university level based on some things you find at your "finger tips".

And a lot of information on the web is incorrect.

And we can and should build in creativity into the school day - it isn't one thing or another.

I am really shocked to read this coming from a teacher.

On private schools. I worked as an external examiner, largely in private schools. I went to one very, very expensive private school where one of the lads turned up late completely unprepared. He didn't swear. He wasn't aggressive. He was charismatic, but 'difficult'. I expect you could call him 'cocky', 'full of himself'. He gave an off the cuff presentation on drug law. It was, I presume, designed to be 'edgy'. I was suitably unshocked. I got the sense he had been indulged for a long time. He seemed taken aback that I'd actually like him to do the things he was there to do.

The next I heard of him was when he was convicting of stabbing to death a school friend at another school. I guess I'm saying males who will go on to commit violence may not all present in the same way.

I work in a Primary School & we get countless parent emails complaining about literally everything - it's never their child's fault, they wouldn't lie, they didn't do anything wrong, we're being unfair, etc.

It's beyond ridiculous sometimes & you wouldn't believe the appalling behaviour, language, violence, rudeness & disrespect that we see on a daily basis from kids as young as 4-11yrs old!! (But obviously none of it is their fault! 🤦‍♀️)

Yep!

Exactly why bodycam is a GREAT idea

I don’t deny teaching is a stressful job.

But standing by the door as the students file in, closing the door once the last person has entered and then walking about 7 steps to the front of the classroom does not prevent the lesson from starting on time.

I haven't seen the programme yet but this comment really stands out to me. My sons go to a state run boys' secondary and the difference in how they're treated compared to their mixed sex primary is staggering. At primary so often the boys (not just mine!) were treated as troublesome, too rough, too energetic, and needing to get used to 'banter'. Basically it seemed a bit like girls were the standard and boys were the aberration, behaviourally. At their single sex secondary they are treated so much more holistically, with clear expectations for behaviour but also an understanding - and liking- of boys as human beings. I never in a million years thought I'd like a single sex school, it wasn't our choice. But it's been so good for ours.

interesting how many teachers have issues taking the roll. If I’m explicitly teaching I will quickly do the roll calling out the names. But if they are working on a task then I just look round the room and find each student myself.

I think the problem now with bullying is that it is 24/7 and visible. In my day if someone said something nasty to someone a few people may hear it, maybe others might hear about it second or third hand. Now it’s visible and obvious to everyone. Katie’s comments on insta everyone could see. So it wasn’t just the embarrassment of him asking her out and being rejected it was the public shaming after. Not that it’s an excuse but that’s the difference now they were trying to highlight.

My dds are in high school in the countryside (small town in Cheshire) and it’s nothing like reality for them.

Stereotyping is very unhelpful

I have a relative who works in a college helping those that don’t achieve any GCSEs
She has a similar approach and thinks even doctors and teachers don’t need a University degree.
She thinks doctors should ‘learn on the job’. If so called teachers really think this what hope do we have

So true
Pre conditioned attitudes to boys puts them on the back foot
Im sure we all remember the backlash certain supermarkets got over their stereotyped branding of boys and girls clothes.
Its still happening
Its still detrimental
Its still perceived as inevitable that boys are always the aggressors and trouble makers…..I thinkAldolescence showed us it’s not so.

@opendoorsopening I am shocked that you’re shocked.

Teachers know that the curriculum is outdated and rigid. In fact the government have just undertaken a major review and published an interim report. The headline of the report is that “the curriculum needs to respond to social and technological change”. It goes on to say “attention is needed to address opportunities and challenges created by our fast-changing world. The rise of AI and trends in digital information demand heightened media literacy and critical thinking as well as digital skills.”

It goes on to say “the current system is not working well for everyone”. It talks about how life skills should be brought in to balance the ‘knowledge rich curriculum’. Things like financial education, digital skills and creative thinking and problem solving projects. One of the main aims of the review is “to enable children to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing and AI enabled world”.

How well the outcomes of this review actually addresses these challenges remains to be seen. The government’s don’t have form for making education progressive and relevant. The elites in power like to cling on to their own ideology of how their (likely private) education was decades ago.

You are not a teacher in 2025

@howchildrenreallylearn Totally agree that financial education, digital skills, creative thinking and problem solving need to be better covered in the curriculum, but who is going to teach those classes? You could make a case for saying that they are not in the teaching profession now, or those subjects would already be delivered (at least in part).

A quick read of the Money Matters board here shows clearly that too many people reach an age when they need to make adult decisions without the skills to evaluate the pros and cons of different approaches. I did a PGCE as a second career (after working in FS), and wrote quite an extensive SoW for y9/10/11 on financial education, but I don't think it was ever used again after I completed it -- because in a humanities faculty, no other teacher had the background knowledge to deliver it.

With some parents standing up for their kids come hell or high water is about their only mark of being 'a great mum/dad'. They have chaotic home lives which knock on into irregular mealtimes and no enforced bedtimes for the DC, their DC come to school late/dirty/hungry, they hear their DC read once a term if ever, they put them in front of a screen from the time they can sit up...

And this is not just a poverty issue. Mum has nicely dyed hair and went on a fortnight's holiday to Tenerife, and Dad went to Thailand and has a gym membership. The DC don't even get taken to the nearest zoo. People's priorities are screwed.

I used to be much more right-on about this sort of stuff and think of reasons and explanations. Then I worked in a school and saw the fallout for the poor bloody children. Cheap leaky school shoes while Dad has expensive trainers, that sort of thing. Some parents are just mind-bendingly selfish, so when the kid comes home howling about how Mrs Smith isn't fair, I never done it, they can recoup some self worth by saying, it's alright, I know it wasn't you, I'm going to give Mrs Smith a peice of my mind tomorrow!

And then you get the ones who want their child diagnosed with something because they've screwed the poor little tot up to the extent that she won't talk to them.

I wish I was making it up.

Edited for SPAG.