UK schoolchildren “as young as six” acting out scenes from ‘Squid Game’
The South Korean survival drama has reached the country's playgrounds, according to headteachers
By Joe Goggins
Headteachers across the UK are reporting a worrying trend of schoolchildren acting out scenes from ‘Squid Game’.
Pupils as young as six have been replicating behaviour from the smash-hit South Korean Netflix series, in which contestants compete in games where failure is punished by death.
As the BBC reports, teachers are now urging parents to check their content settings on the streaming services, with children much younger than the 15 rating handed to the show by the BBFC discussing and acting out the programme in the playground.
Sir Francis Hill Primary in Lincoln and Welton Primary in Brough, East Yorkshire are among schools to have flagged the worrying development. At the former, head Gareth Nichols said “a small group of pupils within school, aged around six” had been talking about the show, with some “re-enacting some scenes”.
He went on to add: “although some of the ‘games’ portrayed could be viewed as adaptations of traditional playground games, the violent consequences of failure are inappropriate for younger viewers and I would wholeheartedly support the 15 rating given to the show.”
‘Squid Game’ has been a runaway success since it began streaming globally on September 17th, becoming Netflix’s biggest ever series launch.
The survival drama, in which individuals heavily-in-debt are tempted into life-or-death games, attracted more than 111 million viewers within 28 days of its release, surpassing ‘Bridgerton’ as the streamer’s most popular show.