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

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.

My daughter has a teacher who does exactly this!! Turns up late and when he turns up he puts on videos

I've a boy of similar age and watched it. It's a programme that has made me think a lot about what more I can do as a parent as DS transitions into secondary and getting his first phone in a few months..

If anyone's got some good resources please link them, especially the tate stuff. I feel DH and I need to take the lead, and honestly I don't know a huge amount about it. I've got a few podcasts but not much else.

He's always been supervised online, I've google family link, no screens allowed upstairs and gaming only in the family room with children he knows, and who I know the parents. But I need to get my head around the manosphere stuff as I've really only a vague overview of it and that's not good enough.

I work in a state comp and agree with her completely. Scarily accurate.

I watched it. During the school scene, I commented to DH that it was quite an accurate portrayal of school. I have also experienced misogyny.

I teach in primary (not the oldest ones)

No it isn't. Don't engage if you are struggling to understand it.

That's not what this thread is about.

I think they're two different issues.

The school environments are very very different to that portrayed in this drama. There is a very different level of discipline.

It is however absolutely true that the issues around social media/Andrew Tate/incels etc affect children at private schools as much as those in state schools. Social media affects all teens.

I'm sure OP means the parents have gone to the police about it. Stop trying to disrupt the thread.

When I was watching the school scenes, I thought "most schools can't be like this, surely this is hugely exaggerated for dramatic effect". The idea that it's a broadly accurate representation of our schools is bloody terrifying.

I have DS (mild, undiagnosed ASD, probably gay, highly strung, anxious and alternative/a bit weird) heading to secondary in September and I'm absolutely petrified of what will become of him there.

It began with someone saying it doesn't happen in private schools

I've watched it and it was brilliantly acted with a concerning message around online influence.

As a single parent to an older boy, I can say that my instinct has been to protect him and that this has risked defending him when he needed to be held to account. He is neurodivergent with a suspected learning difficulty and due to lack of support in the classroom (due to lack of funding rather than lack of interest from teaching staff) he preferred to be the class clown than the "thick kid" who struggled to process, stay on task and read/write. All that said, he only ever had one sanction which I backed the school on publicly even though I privately disagreed with it.

On the toxic "manosphere" I know some middle aged men who find this quite appealing - it's not just teen/tween boys and it's also not just Andrew Tate. It is permeating some levels of society and is within the "kick against authority" theme. We are politically in the time of the "hard man".

I really want to highlight the divisiveness between some parents and teachers. A Them v Us culture benefits no one and actively fosters hostility and lack of respect. I have friends who teach who on entering the profession are keen to make a difference to the kids they teach. After a few weeks they are talking about how awful parents are as if they are a homogenous group and labelling kids as either angels or devils. And I've been a parent in the playground who has listend to parents adopt a similar attitude. I tried to work with school for my son but the issue was a lack of time and funding to find the right support for him to thrive.

As always, complex problems have many strands to them. Tackling it will require a whole of society approach.

Don’t recognise our large comp at all from that programme!

• the school is calm, phones are banned so no phones at all used past the school gates, children don’t shout at or talk back to the teachers, there’s no fighting. It has a high % of SeN, higher than average pupil premium. watched it with teen DC who go to the school as students and they were stunned at the behaviour portrayed.

I teach in a lovely primary but my partner works in a secondary school in a less nice area of our city and he has to break up fights between boys regularly upon many other things and then gets a regular stream of what can only be called abusive emails from parents berating him for following the behaviour policy. Fuck knows why he does it. It’s even grinding him down at times and he’s the sunniest person I know.

You’ve experienced misogyny from little kids? That’s insane! How old? What sort of thing?

friends son has just been thrown out of his private school for constant fighting, and from what his parents say - and they KNOW he’s partly to blame- fighting and disruptive behaviour is fairly common in their school, with parents generally taking the pupils side against the teachers.

My son is a secondary school teacher and said all teachers should watch it and he also says Andrew Tate is causing huge problems

Because numerous posters were stating this sort of thing did not affect private schools!

Because multiple people have said it doesn’t happen in private schools but it does. It’s rife and that needs to be acknowledged when discussing such issues in schools, especially when it comes to boys private schools and their attitude towards women and sex.

Many of us, myself included, haven’t said it’s one vs the other but that they both have their issues and these issues all need to be discussed instead of the posters on here saying that private schools are amazing and they’re the answer - they’re absolutely not.

I have worked in a much more challenging school than the ones my kids are in, and I would say that there is space for kids like your son - he sounds like the type of the kid who might join a lunchtime society. Use the library at lunch and breaks, do the more arty stuff or the more tech stuff.
In my experience the rowdier, physical kids tend to head to the playground to play enmasse football games etc and don’t bother then younger ,quieter ones…

There is no getting away from the fact that the Internet providers are not regulated enough , also see what Gareth Southgate has to say on BBC news website today, I think we are sleepwalking

This is it. I thought it was very well done. It was harrowing. As a teacher and a parent of a boy myself, it honestly made me just want to give up. I know that’s not the right approach and there is probably loads I can do, but the problem is just so huge and widespread I literally do not know how to contain. DS isn’t yet an adolescent and all I can think is how much worse things will be by the time he is. There is only so much minimising screen time and checking phones we can do. Once they’re out of the house, it’s a free for all.

Like most parents, I have always tried so hard to raise DS as an empathetic, considerate and “normal” boy, but even at only 9 years old there are things he says and does that just don’t sit well with me. I try to address them in the most age appropriate ways as possible and can only hope that I’ve done enough. As for the children I have taught over the last decade or so, I can definitely see an increase in misogyny.

There was misogynistic name calling at our primary school

I have had a year 1 child tell me I can't tell him what to do because I'm a woman. As soon as the dad came in to discuss, it was quite obvious where he got the attitude from. Another in year 2 refused to clean as that was the 'girls job.' During Parliament Week some of our year 5 boys said women shouldn't be allowed to vote as they aren't smart enough to think about it properly, same boys called Andrew Tate a 'hero' and a 'truth speaker.'

I clerk exclusion panels. I have quite a skewed view of what secondaries are like I think. The parents generally seem beaten and desperate for help.

I’m not a teacher but I’m a parent of two boys. Eldest is almost 17.

Dh and I couldn’t relate to it at all. I’ve asked ds1 to watch it as I’m interested to know what he thinks. He’s been through a rough local secondary.

Did ds miss the worst of what’s going on with teens at the moment?