Waterloo Road

[zanzibarmum]

So that's what teachers get up to in the staff room; tell me Waterloo Road is not based on some seeds of truth

it is not

I wish staff rooms were quite so exciting in school, lol.

Where to start?

So far removed from reality it's actually a comedy show. Only two 'seeds' of truth;

1. Grantley Budgen - yep, every staffroom has one or two resident unionised cynics, and he is played/portrayed well by the actor.

2. 'Food Technology' (aka home ec!) always to the fore on open days, regardless.

However, I have been out the staffroom some time now, to the extent that the kids I used to teach would probably be my head of department if I went back as a main-scale teacher.

Every school I have worked in has had a Grantley Budgen

I taught in a school that was very much like teachers.

Waterloo road is daft though.

I do wonder if the writers of waterloo road have ever been a school. It is SO silly.

Yes, but to be fair - to show a real school life and staff room on TV would be pretty boring!

I don't think Grange Hill was real to life either, lol.

It's meant to be watchable TV. Of course it's not particularly true to life.

The first series of Teachers was broadly representative of school life in my experience, allowing for TV exaggeration. I can't watch Waterloo Road because every time I have caught a second of it, something outrageously unrealistic has been happening which makes me grind my teeth.

I watch Waterloo Road. It's harmless. Doesn't bother me that it is so OTT. I know that most staff rooms are nothing like - have been in enough, lol. Don't they just chose certain personalilty traits and exaggerrate them.

Surely most people realise it isn't real to life?

Bit like the NHS bloke getting all het up about Casulty and Holby because they are too OTT for him and not true to life.

True to life would be boring TV for the most part!

I didn't find Teachers true to life either.

But it does have an impact. Eg. NHS stuff, people feel hard-done-by when they realise their MRI scan will take 2 years not 5 mins.

Like any soap opera, whatever they show could happen, but they can't have that drama week after week.

It does not show comprehensive schools in a good light, though. It looks like jungle law!

Teachers was a lot more realistic than Waterloo road. All the characters in Waterloo Road are so one dimensional.