For several weeks now it has been hard to go even a few hours without something in the press focused on the hit show Adolescence.
The four-part Netflix series tells the story of 13-year-old Jamie Miller who is arrested for the murder of a teenage girl who goes to his school. The series tackles themes of incel culture, misogyny, and the treatment of women.
It is a fantastic piece of drama, but for schools it brings with it yet another societal expectation – that we know how to “solve” this issue in one fell swoop.
While the debate is important – vital even – we need to be realistic about the size of the challenge and understand what a “best practice” response might look like in a secondary school.
Netflix has worked with film education charity Into Film to make the series available for secondary schools to use as they see fit, leading to prime minister Kier Starmer saying: “I'm really pleased that Adolescence is now going to be shown in schools free because I do think young people should be watching it."
Personally, as a safeguarding and RSHE advisor this does make me a little uneasy for three reasons. Best practice in RSHE includes:
- Not teaching one-off lessons: This can prevent children from thinking it is okay to bring up issues they are worried about from previous lessons.
- Not using shock tactics: As traumatised children rarely remember the deeper messages.
- Not teaching anything that could be instructive: Arguably, showing the drama could be instructive.
There are a number of organisations providing resources to go alongside the “teaching” of Adolescence. In my view best practice is to adapt any resources for each group of children and not to take them “off the shelf”.
And of course Adolescence has an age rating in the UK of 15, meaning schools will need to be careful when considering any lessons in which the drama is to be screened.
Having said all this, what best practice should RSHE teachers and safeguarding staff follow in the wake of Adolescence?
A significant role for schools
The issues raised in Adolescence are already on our radar and have been for some time. Indeed, incel culture is something SecEd first addressed back in January 2022 and designated safeguarding leads (DSLs) and school staff have been talking about incel culture, the “manosphere”, toxic masculinity, and the pervasiveness of internet content in children’s lives for the last few years at least.
The crucial concept of contextual safeguarding is something all our staff should be aware of.
Until the release of this powerful drama, these topics hadn’t really been discussed in depth in mainstream media nor understood by society (and parents) at large.
It is a significant part of our role to communicate the intelligence we have about risks in children’s lives to those supporting children – be that parents or fellow professionals.
In schools, we are also often best-placed to really observe a child’s lived experience outside of the home, to observe changes, and to over-hear conversations. We are used to breaking down sensitive and difficult topics and teaching children how to keep themselves safe.
With some contextual safeguarding topics we might be aware of online activities that children are engaged in. Basic things such as signposting parents to information on how to put controls on children’s devices, through to newsletters dedicated to these topics, or drop-in sessions to discuss concerns are within most schools’ remit.
Some settings hold online training sessions for parents – for example sharing the specifics of terminology and how certain symbols or emojis have a different meaning in some online communities.
Nothing is ‘normal’
One thing in Adolescence that has been discussed a lot in the press is how the family depicted was “ordinary” and seemingly happy.
This concept seems to have shocked those who presume that criminal acts are only committed by children who live with adverse childhood experiences such as trauma, abuse, poverty or other family challenges.
Safeguarding best practice is to engage in regular staff CPD to ensure that all staff understand that anyone can be pulled in by these toxic cultures – it is an insidious grooming process that often starts out with seemingly innocently content or views.
We train staff to look out for children with particular vulnerabilities being put at risk of harm, but the statutory guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education (DfE, 2024) is also clear that some children might be more susceptible to harm, making us consider:
- Who are the child’s peers?
- What are their hobbies, topics of interest?
- Is the child left alone regularly and is the internet their only company?
Who in your setting is a gaming expert? Could we let them lead some staff training sessions about this often hidden world which so often provides the context where children are groomed.
When did you last refresh your online safety training with staff and did it include issues like sextortion? If you don’t have the expertise in-house – get it from trusted sources.
Remember the online world is ever-changing and child exploitation is becoming ever more sophisticated, so regular updates are crucial.
Back to basics
Whatever means we use to share our knowledge we need to balance the importance of information-sharing with the need to avoid fear-mongering.
Not every child who spends time online will be engaging in extreme conversations. However the risk is there for all internet users – and we know that the internet has few accurate and secure age restrictions in place. Equally, we cannot presume that this will only affect a certain “type” of child.
Incels culture has brought about a whole new terminology, including “red pilling”, the “manosphere”, as well as the use of certain emojis as depicted in Adolescence.
These are all new terms and no doubt there will be more emerging – but whatever the language being used women have been harmed by men since the dawn of time.
Harassment and violence against women and girls has been on the safeguarding agenda for years, that has not changed. The difference now is perhaps that the age at which males are being influenced is lowering due to the pervasive reach of the internet.
Role models
We need to look at what else is on offer in our society for young men. Again this is an issue that goes beyond the school gate. There are fewer youth groups, the cost of living crisis has led to social pursuits being less affordable, and the internet promotes people such as Andrew Tate as being “successful” in terms of money, partners, health.
It was interesting that 53 respondents in NASUWT’s recent behaviour survey specifically cited Andrew Tate as “directly impacting male pupils’ behaviour”, leading to an increase in misogynistic abuse of female staff and pupils in schools.
Yet not all young men are lured into this way of thinking. Our staff members can act as positive male role-models. Our safeguarding in the curriculum needs to be relevant and robust too.
We need to have these conversations and support parents to have these conversations too. We need to talk about misogyny and incel culture.
We need to educate ourselves about the terminology and the practice and allow discussion – instead of shutting down “alternative” views. If we never have these hard discussions, we will never have the chance to encourage children to share views and trust that we are interested in them as individuals.
Without trust safeguarding is much harder. That doesn’t mean we accept toxic points of view, but we listen and provide a different narrative – one that a child who only gets their information online, might not otherwise hear.
What are they sharing?
Another thing to recognise – and to teach children to recognise – is that we do not encounter extreme misogynistic viewpoints only when we search for them. It is more invidious that that.
Children see and share memes or silly videos, maybe chat on a gaming site, or follow health and fitness trends – all innocent enough, but this sets those online algorithms into motion, slowly drip-feeding more concerning content. This spirals quickly downwards into extreme views about women and minority groups. Our young people need to understand how this works.
We need to understand and teach how misogyny has evolved – teach parents, staff and children. For example, now many incels might laugh if someone linked them to Andrew Tate, as he has now become a Chad – another new piece of terminology that refers to a man who is “sexually active with attractive women, a man who has money and power”.
Careful with our language
One final point on our curriculum. The #MeToo movement brought to the fore important issues about misogyny in society and opened up a welcome discussion about informed consent.
One side-effect is that without careful consideration, these conversations could lead young males, who are perhaps about to embark upon their first intimate relationships, to feeling that they are already guilty.
Some boys and young men may begin to feel that they can never approach women with romantic intent, worrying about missing out on unspoken social rules and being called out for being a sexist or an abuser.
Many males struggle to share their feelings for fear of being seen to be acting in an “unmanly” way, which may make the negative online voices louder.
So we need to careful approach these topics in our curriculum. Put a budget aside for high-quality RSHE teacher training and encourage staff to consider their language – throwing out terms like “toxic masculinity” can lead boys to feel blamed for something they haven’t done based on their sex alone, which in turn can lead them to look for male role models elsewhere, including online.
- Jo Perrin is an experienced education advisor at Services For Education and interim lead of the team of School Support Education Advisers. She has previously held roles as a designated safeguarding lead and pastoral lead in the education sector and has a wealth of experience in teaching PSHE and expertise in childhood trauma from her time as a foster carer. SFE offers training, audits and support for DSLs and school staff. Visit www.servicesforeducation.co.uk/safeguarding and find her previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/jo-perrin/
Further information & resources
- DfE: Keeping children safe in education, September 2024: www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education--2
- SecEd: Safeguarding: Incels and radicalisation, 2022: www.sec-ed.co.uk/content/best-practice/safeguarding-incels-and-radicalisation