Netflix have announced that it is making its four-part series ‘Adolescence’ available free to all secondary schools across the UK, but is screening the drama in school the right move? Pastoral Deputy Head and DSL at King’s College School, Wimbledon, Richard Amlot, puts forward his thoughts and suggests five things schools should be doing to address some of the issues the series portrayed.
Everyone has been talking about ‘Adolescence’, the hard-hitting and compelling Netflix drama. Even Keir Starmer. And I applaud the prime minister’s engagement with the series, and his appreciation that the themes emanating from the drama are ones that we must grapple with as a society. The portrayal of deep-rooted issues that the murky online world presents for young people today shines a powerful spotlight on how we need to engage with matters such as toxic masculinity, cyber bullying, peer pressure, knife crime and radicalisation.
This said, I am fundamentally opposed to the suggestion that schools should be screening ‘Adolescence’. Apart from the fact that many young people have already seen it and this would consume 4 hours of curriculum time, watching something with the intensity of ‘Adolescence’ in its entirety in a formal setting could easily be harmful for our students. Watching the whole thing is more likely to spark curiosity rather than to educate against the risks. It would be more likely to desensitise, rather than engender empathy. For some, it could re-traumatise. And critically, the harmful narrative could so easily be internalised, especially for those who already identify with aspects of the narrative. Emotional impact does not automatically translate into positive educational impact…