Educating Yorkshire teacher has surprising response over ‘advising’ boys to watch Adolescence

A teacher from the Bafta-nominated series, Educating Yorkshire, has a surprising answer about whether she’s advising boys to watch Adolescence.

Deputy head, Zoe Ali, spoke to Metro at yesterday’s Bafta TV Awards, about the award-winning manosphere drama, and how they approach it at Thornhill Community Academy.

The staff from the comprehensive in Dewsbury walked the red carpet last night after their Channel 4 show was nominated for best factual series.

Starring headteacher Matthew Burton and his pupils and colleagues, the documentary-series offers a fly-on-the-wall look at life in the Yorkshire secondary.

Another show exploring themes of modern youth was also being celebrated last night. Netflix’s Adolescence received 11 nominations and was a hot topic of conversation amongst attendees.

When asked by Metro if the series was something they’d shown in school, or advised young boys to watch, Zoe responded: ‘Not necessarily advising them to watch it, because we’re conscious of not creating an issue on something that many of them might not be aware of.’

She went on: ‘But certainly as staff, we have a lot of training around those issues, and warning signs to spot, the red flags that we need to be looking out for, so it’s always a prevalent issue that we’re conscious of as staff. We’re just very mindful of how we then model that to students.’

After the series came out in March 2025, there were petitions, debates and conversations focused on showing the four-part limited drama in schools as an educational resource.

Co-writer Jack Thorne expressed this desire, telling the BBC: ‘I want it to be shown in schools, I want it to be shown in Parliament. It’s crucial because this is only going to get worse.’

The story follows 13-year-old Jamie Miller who gets arrested in his childhood bedroom after murdering fellow classmate, Katie Leonard.

It explores themes of toxic masculinity, violence against women and girls, and online safety, serving as an extreme example of what can happen when these things aren’t spoken about or addressed.

Despite this, Zoe doesn’t necessarily think it should be blanket-shown to boys.

There are other reasons, besides the deputy’s point, that teachers might not want to show the series in schools. It’s ranked as a 15 because of its ‘discrimination theme’, as well as ‘language’ and ‘violence’, which deems it inappropriate for half of secondary-aged pupils.

Plus, there’s the argument that it’s something to be watched at home, prompting discussions with parents, as oppose to being viewed alongside peers and teaching staff.

Jack alluded to this on the red carpet at the Bafta awards, telling Metro: ‘Stephen and I always talked about sofa-shows – the shows that we grew up watching with our mum on the sofa.

‘And the fact that lots of people are having that experience with our show, just felt like a huge, huge moment to me.’

Educating Yorkshire is available to watch on Channel 4.

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