glenn-aylett I was at secondary school when Grange Hill was at its peak in the early eighties. The episode with the sadistic games teacher who knocks kids around I could identify with as I had a games teacher just like that for the first two years. Bullying, yes been on the receiving end of that for a couple of years so could identify with Roland Browning while despising the school bully Gripper Stebson, the show's most evil character ever, who became a racist thug in series six( yes we had a few National Front types in my school as well). Also we had our equivalents of lovable rogues like Tucker Jenkins and a mixture of authoritarian teachers like Mr Keating and wet liberals like Mr Sutcliffe( I had an English teacher just like him).You see Grange Hill worked so well and was so popular with teenagers because it reflected real life. Also fair play to the BBC for sticking with it as it was nearly cancelled in 1979 for being too controversial, and the show entertained generations of kids and curious adults for another 28 years. Nothing like it has never been made since.

darrenforster99 The BBC in my opinion have totally lost the plot over the last few years, cancelling such classic TV shows like Grange Hill, Byker Grove, TOTP and even losing Neighbours to Channel 5 (although I wasn't a great fan of Neighbours though, so I was glad to see that one go!).The director general of the BBC should be sacked for the mess he's made over the past few years of what was regarded as such a high class institution, but has now gone right down in society, with the best new rubbish they can come up with is idiots like Jonathan Ross. I bet most of these top shows were axed just so they could pay this idiots wages (and then look what he does). I certainly don't agree that the BBC should have just suspended Rossy, they should have fired him, if the BBC had fired him the only job he would have got after his lewd comments would have been doing stand-up in front of a private audience as no other company would take the risk to re-employ him.The BBC need to stop and look at the mess they are making and to bring back shows such as Grange Hill which helped school children understand various things in school life. I only wish that they had covered Asperger's on Grange Hill a little earlier as I went through school with Asperger's and ADHD and most of the kids around me didn't understand me at all. Where as now thanks to Grange Hill covering this it seems that quite a lot of young people are fully aware of Asperger's and show some understanding towards the problems faced.

RickW-UK Personally i think that kids programmes featuring schools and ridiculous. They are NOTHING like the real thing, i left school last year and this programme is just one huge laugh.Its only a couple of years ago that Grange Hill was home to 'The Double Dare gang', i mean come on! How many teenagers that you know would join the 'Double Dare Gang'All of the teachers have changed, and some of the almost real characters have left, while the writers keep coming up with excuses to keep older pupils within the school.Finish this show and make something realistic!Rick

GilraenEstel When you were a teenager, it always felt as if the world was against you. No matter what you did, how much you tried to impress people - there was always something wrong, someone to put you in your place.That is the brilliance of Grange Hill - it depicts British school life excellently: the everyday hum-drum of moving from one lesson to the other; the mind-numbing, soul-crushing hell hole that you have to attend every day for five years; the peer pressure and the bullying and most of all, realising that this is your life and it's never going to change. (And no, I didn't like school much!)When you were at school, there was always kids whose parents were getting divorced, gay, on drugs, seriously depressed, victim of abuse or pregnant. Grange Hill doesn't just present the problem, it explores how that problem came about, the effect on that character and most of all the reaction of their peers when it all comes out (which it always does). There is always something compulsive about watching on the tele what you know to be happening all around you, what happens to your closest friend or worst enemy - because it's real.Compulsive viewing for any one who is/was a teenager.