YMMV / Please Sir!

• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In The Movie, Price gleefully sings "When this rotten camp is over/oh happy I shall be!/I will buy a new machine gun/and annihilate 5C!" Funny in 1971, but come the Dunblane School Massacre in 1996, where 16 children were murdered, suddenly no one's laughing...
  • On the same topic, in David Ffitchett-Brown's introduction episode ("David and Goliath") he brings a rifle to school, tells his pupils he killed 25 at his last school, and uses it to threaten Mr. Dix into resigning. While it was unloaded, such a thing would be unthinkable in the modern day.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Connie Eversleigh from "The Decent Thing" was played by Diana Coupland, who would later be best known for playing Jean Abbott in Bless This House.
  • Mr. Turner from "They're Off" is played by Geoffrey Hughes, who would later be best known for playing Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances and Twiggy in The Royle Family.
  • Mrs. Davis from "Identitwit" is played by Kate Williams, who would later be best known for playing Joan Booth in Love Thy Neighbour.
  • Alice Larch from "What's a Class Between Friends?" is played by Mollie Sugden, who would later be best known for playing Mrs. Slocombe in Are You Being Served?.
  • Eddie from "A.W.O.L." is played by Robin Askwith, who would later be best known for playing Timmy Lea in the Confessions of a... Series.
  • Rita from "The Pruning of Hedges" is played by Wendy Richard, who would later be best known for playing Miss Brahms in Are You Being Served? and Pauline Fowler in EastEnders.
• Values Dissonance:
  • The series takes a very '60s approach to how the education system is portrayed, notably caning is often referred to, Hedges gets physical with a few of his pupils (usually Abbott and never anything worse than a Dope Slap to the back of the head), and teachers and pupils alike smoke on school property.
  • Minority groups such as foreigners and homosexuals are viewed in a negative light by characters such as Potter and the parents.
  • "Black Power" from Series 4 gives Potter an assistant in the form of Sidney Noakes, a young black man. Potter then spends the whole episode disapproving of him, worrying he's trying to steal his job, and trying to get rid of him.
  • Price looks down on Miss Petting showing an interest in football in "Cup Fever", claiming it's a man's game.

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