Page 6 | Teachers who have watched 'Adolescence'- what are your thoughts?

Fstt1978 · 2025-03-19T14:47:41+00:00

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

Redpeach · 19/03/2025 16:57

Tangerinenets · 19/03/2025 16:46

I asked my teens. They are 17 and 18 and neither of them have heard of them had heard of most of the stuff in it like the emojis and the uncle stuff.

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Reliable source

EasternStandard · 19/03/2025 16:57

MrsMurphyIWish · 19/03/2025 16:39

What I find sad is that we are calling the lad a “normal boy from a normal family” but he was hanging round the streets late at night at 14 and the mum admits he was in his room alone watching a screen at 1am. This shouldn’t be “normal”.

I’m a teacher and that school is exactly like my last place!

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True out so late and 1am screen.

Redpeach · 19/03/2025 17:00

ButThisIsMyHappyFace · 19/03/2025 16:32

I don’t think it makes a difference boys versus girls. I’ve been a teacher for 10 years - equal numbers of little shits on both sides. Some of the girls were truly terrifying.

Although, this is about male on female violence, murder and assault and what have you

opendoorsopening · 19/03/2025 17:02

Greywhippet · 19/03/2025 16:47

I can see you might be part of the problem the OP outlines.

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Yes indeed. My dc is never rude to teachers and never gets into trouble and has a near perfect report. And I ask my dc to be polite and respectful to all teachers, and he is.

But I am part of the problem, Greywhippet, I can see that now.

Redpeach · 19/03/2025 17:02

MrsMurphyIWish · 19/03/2025 16:39

What I find sad is that we are calling the lad a “normal boy from a normal family” but he was hanging round the streets late at night at 14 and the mum admits he was in his room alone watching a screen at 1am. This shouldn’t be “normal”.

I’m a teacher and that school is exactly like my last place!

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I agree, it's not what i call normal

Pomegranatecarnage · 19/03/2025 17:03

Justapunta · 19/03/2025 14:49

My sister is a teacher at my children’s’ secondary private school (with children there herself) said very very little in her experience resonated with adolescence. She has taught at two private schools only

Quelle surprise!

Munchymunch · 19/03/2025 17:04

The one bit that did ring true is how kids live their lives online and even very young teachers won’t fully grasp some of the most dangerous potential influences. This is the case even in schools which successfully ban phones during the school day as they’re still on them most of the night. We’ve had pretty good CPD on forms of extremism (including INCELs) but some of the emojis I’d never heard of.

As for the portrayal of the school, some details were exaggerated and some just incorrect. No teacher just wouldn’t turn up to class (and then put on a video when he does!) without the class being supervised. I’ve also worked at and with a wide variety of schools, including more “challenging” ones and behaviour like that of the students wouldn’t be accepted, if it occurred at all.

opendoorsopening · 19/03/2025 17:05

Kingoftheroad · 19/03/2025 15:40

I can’t believe what I’m reading with some of these comments.

teachers need to have control of the classroom not the pupils. Swear at a teacher: parents called in suspended
assault with a weapon - expelled and police matter. If a child can’t behave in school then the school isn’t the appropriate place for them.

shouting in the corridor : demerit

these places must be kept safe for other children. Teachers deserve and are entitled to respect.

I may be missing the point I don’t see how anyone can hold school responsible for what happened in the programme. Did they not see the interview with psychiatrist? The boy had serious mental health issues, an unhealthy relationship with women. He would have gone on and on possibly being a serial abuser of partners. He took no responsibility and lied without conscious.

Evil had gotten in somewhere along the line

There is a lot of evil in the stuff the kids are seeing on the net and sharing between themselves as normal. It is a really serious problem.

Redpeach · 19/03/2025 17:05

OldTiredMum1976 · 19/03/2025 16:44

i supply in many secondary schools are lots are as bad if not worse than the one depicted. They are better in wealthier areas. Hence why both of mine go private - it’s a world away from schools like that.

Or they're better at hiding it

howchildrenreallylearn · 19/03/2025 17:05

I think it’s far too easy to blame parents without looking at the bigger picture.

As an ex primary teacher, even 20+ years ago myself and a colleague used to regularly talk about how the whole education system is just not set up for most boys (or many girls for that matter but we’re discussing boys here).

Forcing them to sit down all day at a desk with a pencil in hand goes against everything we know about the development of boys. Most boys need to be moving their bodies (a lot), to be using their hands, building physical strength and creating. The education system singularly focuses on the brain and academics (yes I do know they get a token gesture P.E. lesson from time to time) and forces them to sit still for most of the day. Research clearly shows this isn’t good for boys learning. Yet schools double down on this and wonder why they are having issues.

The education system has just got gradually more and more pressured and academic since then (especially since Gove in 2014) and the ramifications of this are now showing. Particularly since the pandemic when the ‘contract’ between schools and families broke down.

Add to that the awful trend for toxic masculinity (which I believe has flourished in part BECAUSE of the issues with the overly academic, sedentary, boring, rigid, dry, pressurized curriculum and the draconian controls in schools) and it’s going to implode.

Factor in child poverty and the dismantling of the family, communities and services like Sure Start and it’s the perfect storm.

ridl14 · 19/03/2025 17:05

marsaline · 19/03/2025 14:52

Interesting. My sister is a teacher and head of year at a state comprehensive and said it was one of the best and most accurate portrayals of a state comprehensive she's ever seen on TV

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Really? I've only taught at state comprehensives and thought the school and teachers in episode 2 were shocking. Could happen but it should be a school that deserves to be shut down, definitely not representative of the schools I've worked in.

For example why you'd have an ineffective, handwringing teacher from the 'junior' school, unknown to a child who's traumatised from her best friend being murdered, sitting in as a safe (but unknown) adult, walking detectives around school and asking the kids to 'please' behave without sanctions.

IME girls' parents are just as bad at phoning in and asking for detentions to be written off and giving excuses, a real problem among parents of children of any gender.

Moglet4 · 19/03/2025 17:06

Wecantkeepthisup · 19/03/2025 16:37

The thing that struck me about Adolescence was that the boy was from a normal family, with normal parent, who let him have a normal amount of time online. They could not have foreseen what he was looking at on the internet.

I've seen a massive decline in parenting in the last 20 years and an increase in entitlement and lack of boundaries.

That's got far more to do with it than Adolescence.

I agree apart from them thinking that being out until 1030 at night was perfectly normal and acceptable. He was 12!

ShaunaSadeki · 19/03/2025 17:08

The awful toxic masculinity/manosphere stuff is just as rife in private schools as it is state. DD has friends from all types of school and has heard this type of thing from boys at private school.

She actually first heard boys talking about Andrew Tate at primary school 😨

MissyB1 · 19/03/2025 17:08

MrsMurphyIWish · 19/03/2025 16:39

What I find sad is that we are calling the lad a “normal boy from a normal family” but he was hanging round the streets late at night at 14 and the mum admits he was in his room alone watching a screen at 1am. This shouldn’t be “normal”.

I’m a teacher and that school is exactly like my last place!

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Agree. My ds is 16 and has never been allowed to roam the streets in the evenings. There are mumsnetters who will throw up their hands in horror no doubt at that statement. But we have to know where he is, who he is with and what they are doing. Going to the cinema? Or out for food? No problem. Roaming around for hours with no purpose? Zero chance. He has no problem with our rules.

MBL · 19/03/2025 17:08

Ketzele · 19/03/2025 16:20

I'm not a teacher, but my youngest is at a comp in a leafy suburb that is considered good and just got into the 'top 50 happiest schools in the UK'. My youngest runs with the rough kids (and is on Alternative Provision) whereas her older sister was top sets, excellent behaviour and attendance.

It's like they were at two different schools. Dd1's experience of school is nothing like Adolescence, whereas dd2's daily stories make my hair stand on end and make me want to send in a rescue party for the teachers.

Fighting, stabbing, sexual assault, police, social workers are all part of life for dd2's friends, and absolutely unheard of for dd1's friends. Dd2 seems to be surviving, though, and is liked and well supported by her teachers. She gets notably fewer punishments than her friends, despite very less than ideal behaviour, and I reckon it's down to three things.

First, she's not a bully (thank god). In fact, she takes a lot of pride in protecting kids from bullies. (I say this while touching wood, none of us can ever be certain our kids won't ever bully, given peer pressure.) Second, she has learned that going back and sincerely apologising to teachers goes a long way. And third, I make a point of backing the school - I never query their right to discipline my daughter, even if it seems a bit over the top (more commonly, it's under the top - they have the patience of saints). I'm an older mother and that's the old fashioned way!

This is such a good point. I have more than one child and 'two different schools' really resonates not just with behaviour. I also think in a localised way one year group can be much trickier than another.

ShaunaSadeki · 19/03/2025 17:09

Moglet4 · 19/03/2025 17:06

I agree apart from them thinking that being out until 1030 at night was perfectly normal and acceptable. He was 12!

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DH and I were shocked about both the boy and the girl being out and about at that time of night!

SweetcornFritter · 19/03/2025 17:11

My mid 20s daughter said the depiction of behaviour in the school in Adolescence was similar to that which she experienced at her comprehensive/ academy school but she said the behaviour of the younger years was noticeably worse than in her own year.
I’m amazed there are any teachers left in the profession if that’s what they’re having to deal with week in week out. Kudos to them all for sticking at it.

AstroZomb1e · 19/03/2025 17:11

RunningScaredStiff · 19/03/2025 16:49

Someone I worked with until recently (20’s) brought her parent to work and they threatened the manager because she got told off a few times due to her terrible attitude and 2 hour lunch breaks.

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That’s mad! I’d happily tell that parent where they could stick it. People are wild.

MrsSunshine2b · 19/03/2025 17:11

neverhappenedtopablopicasso · 19/03/2025 15:26

Because it's the CPS that decide whether someone gets prosecuted not the victim

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She didn't say the victim's family were prosecuting them, she said they were pressing charges.

LyndaSnellsSniff · 19/03/2025 17:12

I'm a TA in a state primary school. Episode 3 gave me chills: I can absolutely see some of our boys ending yelling at a criminal psychologist in a few years time.

Matronic6 · 19/03/2025 17:12

I'm primary based but a lot of the stuff on the show we are really starting to see in our older boys. They spend a lot of time online, majority of free time is spent on games, many of the boys have talked about Andrew Tate, they are increasingly quick to over react and lose their temper. Many parents are quick to deflect and blame the teacher if they are given any consequences for their negative behavior.

Also my sister is a secondary teacher in an inner London comprehensive and she said the depiction in Adolescence was the most accurate one she had seen on tv or a movie.

TheaBrandt1 · 19/03/2025 17:14

Several friends lovely state school lads are going out with girls from the local top name public school. Girls there are voting with their feet.

Dd has come across boys from this school at parties and some are hideously sexist and misogynistic. Worse than the state school boys she knows. The girls from the public school are lovely however.

marsaline · 19/03/2025 17:17

TheaBrandt1 · 19/03/2025 17:14

Several friends lovely state school lads are going out with girls from the local top name public school. Girls there are voting with their feet.

Dd has come across boys from this school at parties and some are hideously sexist and misogynistic. Worse than the state school boys she knows. The girls from the public school are lovely however.

Why does this thread have to deteriorate into "posh boys are horrible" FFS. Kids are kids. Some are great, some are troubled. Those affected by these issues (social media influenced) come from all walks of life.

Nanny0gg · 19/03/2025 17:18

stanleypops66 · 19/03/2025 14:56

I have been in a lot of secondary schools at different times of the day and I didn’t recognise how it was portrayed. I’ve also done countless observations in classrooms and none of it resonated. I’ve seen the odd young person being verbally and physically aggressive but this was in alternative provisions/ special schools.

You've never been in my local secondary then

ShaunaSadeki · 19/03/2025 17:23

marsaline · 19/03/2025 17:17

Why does this thread have to deteriorate into "posh boys are horrible" FFS. Kids are kids. Some are great, some are troubled. Those affected by these issues (social media influenced) come from all walks of life.

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I think it is in response to posts up thread about the school in Adolescence being nothing like poster’s childrens private schools, and some of us are trying to illustrate that the main issues raised in the show are not exclusive to state comps. Which I fully admit is a de-rail from the thread itself, which I joined in with.