Burnley Grammar School

Hi Timothy,

It really is astonishing, isn't it, that people paid out big money to have their children treated in that way. It is a very strange custom, still alive to this day, that middle and upper class parents in the UK are prepared to pay ruinously expensive sums of money to have strangers raise their own children for large stretches of the year.

Nude swimming seems to have been very common at boys' private schools and even at one or two state grammar schools. Maybe it still goes on, who knows. Having been fortunate enough to have been born poor and working class I was spared that degradation, with the nearest thing I ever experienced to it being the dreaded school medicals.

I suffered two medical exams, at ages six and eight. I must state that nothing untoward happened in either of them, and hat my bad memories were due to my being an especially shy and oversensitive child. The first felt particularly cruel - I had had a traumatic time trying to settle in at infant school during my first two years and my situation was not helped by the callousness and indifference of several of the teachers, who above all seemed only to want children who meekly obeyed the rules and therefore made their own lives easier. At six I had finally settled in, made friends and was finally doing well academically. In my own little way I felt I was soaring. Then came the first medical exam. It felt like a punishment for daring to get above my station. I have posted about it before, how to my utter horror a girl from my year was still in the same room as me after I had stripped off.

At eight it was just as traumatic but for a somewhat different reason.

Once again I had received no prior warning of my fate, with my mum meeting me in a side room and gently coaxing me into taking off all my clothes before entering the office where the exams were being held. I have since read accounts from other men who say they were allowed to keep their pants on until the moment of doom but there was none of that mollycoddling at my primary school, which I always felt seemed very uncaring of the feelings of the children in its charge. The only thing we were allowed to take into the exam room was whatever courage we could muster.

There was a teaching assistant in our infant school, a woman in her sixties. Just like the teacher I described in my previous post this woman seemed to have a burning intolerance for children who exhibited any signs of vulnerability and especially boys. Being shy and timid was harsh luck for me. I was badly treated by her on numerous occasions. In particular I remember several times when, to my profound and infinite shame, I lost control of my bladder in class. I would be taken aside into an empty room by this woman, who would proceed to subject me to a harsh scolding even while she was making me strip naked in order to change into clean shorts. You might have thought that a young child that had just had an accident was in urgent need of kindness, compassion and reassurance . . . She had different ideas. And there was not even an attempt to keep it private. Afterwards I would be cast out back in my class in a different pair of shorts, which meant that every other kid could tell what had happened to me just by looking. There was never any attempt to reign in the mockery from the other children, it was as if their opprobrium was intended as part of my punishment. The girls were always especially mean. It was purgatory.

At the lofty age of eight I assumed I had long escaped her and she was only a bad memory. Walking into that room was like the shock of a cold shower. And then I saw her. I can only assume she was present as a representative of the school's authority. But at eight years of age with my bare balls hanging out and feeling the worst I had ever felt her presence was far from appreciated.

She did nothing untoward. Neither did the other adults in the room, which consisted of a male doctor, a female nurse and another woman (health visitor? social worker?) who, to give them their due, all looked utterly bored, as if the last thing they needed to see that day, or that week, was yet another little lad of eight wearing nothing but an expression of mild shock.

I was weighed. I was measured. My spine was checked. But I do not remember experiencing the infinite violation of the 'drop 'em and cough' test that so many other men have cited shuddersome memories of.

My mum was also allowed to sit in. I realise this was intended as a demonstration of good faith to our parents, to reassure them that there was no funny stuff intended. And indeed there was no funny stuff. But it still felt like a very strange meeting of worlds, to be stripped naked under the school's authority in front of your mum .Humiliation wasn't the word.

It may also have been intended as a shrewd control strategy. Like most eight-year-old boys I loved my mum and wanted to be brave in front of her and so I swallowed down my adverse feelings and got on with it.

Afterwards I threw my clothes back on, shuddered and went back to class, trying to lose the memory of what had just happened. Later that same evening my mum told me how impressed and proud she had been by my courage and how she had intended to give me a kiss but that I had disappeared abruptly. Of course I did! I just wanted to get out of there!

Well, it didn't kill me. But what I always found objectionable was how arbitrary these exams were. Some LEAs had them, others didn't. At secondary school it was galling to discover that several friends from other local primary schools had never been subjected to the humiliation we were. I also remember a local friend from primary that went to the other catholic secondary school in our area who had to undergo a full medical exam at the start of every school year.





I felt that I would never ever be clean again. No attempt was ever made to curtail the inevitable mockery from the other children and after being cast out in a different pair of shorts - which flagged up to everybody that you had wet yourself - you were essentially thrown to the wolves, with the girls being particularly sadistic.



in truth nothing untoward happened at either of these exams and my enduring bad memories were due to me being a particularly shy, timid and self-conscious child.

I remember the Cleveland case from 1987 without having to check it up.

That was Marietta Higgs and some other chap and their obsession with Satanic child sexual abuse, with some quite wild theories and accusations being made. I believe it was all complete and utter nonsense and non existant but took a few years to reach that conclusion. Meanwhile a lot of damage was done to innocent families, none had done anything wrong. Some people are equally dangerous from the other side of the equation. That woman sounded mad to me at the time, she had no basis for her accusations and I'd question what was going on in her own head and that of those who believed her.

It wasn't the negative response you expected was it Alan. The others were right, it helps to be a little less judgemental sometimes.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 2nd April 2025 at 00:13




".....

But here is my question to you, Alan. Are you happy to leave such an important issue as rooting out the deviants in the hands of box-tickers?

Did you ever hear of the so-called 'Cleveland witch hunt' of 1987? It was started by a senior social worker who had this seeming morbid obsession with nasty stuff. I shan't go into details on here because I have put a lot of heart and soul into this one particular post and don't want it to be moderated. Google it. If you must. My point is, this deluded woman was literally taking what she deemed 'evidence' from a checklist. it all fell through in the end........"

I must admit I do not know too much about Cleveland, YT - the little I have read seems to suggest that there were two opposing opinions. I think that sometimes, what parents regard as "discipline" is, in fact cruelty - a bit like teachers in fact. I recall a case in London a couple of years ago when a girl of ten was beaten to death by her own father, with the connivance of his wife and brother. All three skipped the country and phoned the police in the UK to admit what they had done. When they returned to this country they tried to retract their confessions - to no avail. All three were found guilty and are now enjoying long stretches in prison. Their (pathetic) defence was the father was merely discipling his daughter. I think sometimes, on balance, it is better to err on the side of caution.

As regards complaining about teachers, I think even a box ticker, provided they are genuinely impartial, should be informed, because I know I felt so sick and depressed in my teenage years, I would have done anything to have bought his behaviour to the attention of people who would have done something to stop it. If necessary I would have been happy to have signed a sworn statement. The problem is, as we have seen, a bit like cruelty to animals, the miscreants often get away with a non-custodial sentence, often just a paltry fine, but it would have ended his career. These days they would be put on the Sex Offenders Register, which would preclude them being employed elsewhere with minors. Personally though, I think a stiff prison sentence would do them far more good - say five years

There's a lot of people pouring their hearts out here about school.

My own father admitted to me he was a bit of a rogue in school back in the 1950s and once told me there was not a bit of his body he thought hadn't been either caned, belted, plimsolled or smacked during his time in school in that era. He actually made me laugh when he turned to me and said the only thing they didn't do to him was cane him across the soles of his feet!

I told him he should have behaved better then, but he said most boys in his class were on the receiving end of something physical even if they were well behaved and a number of times there were whole class canings and beltings for trouble caused by the few, or when someone didn't own up to something, so innocent boys often received the cane, leather strap or plimsoll across some part of their body, often the bottom, hands or legs for things they never did as part of collective discipline. Head smacking was also frequent he said. That was a horrible story of yours Keiron from much more recent times. None of this kind of thing was seen at my school.

Personally I can't relate to living in constant fear of such regular physical chastisement at school. I never saw anybody touched at all, and that was in the 1970s/80s. I couldn't escape the very common and regular shirtless PE and forced to take showers though, most of us are all in that same boat together on all that aren't we.

Yours Truly, I feel your pain, quite literally.

For some reason teachers at school thought you were not listening to them or could not hear what they were saying unless your eyes were fixed directly into theirs. I used to look down a lot while I listened to them, but I was paying attention.

On the last day before we broke up for the Easter holidays back in 1987, it was a Thursday in April the day before Good Friday, the 16th. That morning we had our normal gym lesson. I was 14 years old, it always seemed to be a packed gym and this one must have had 25 boys in it. We did PE there in school in boring plain white standardised shorts all the exact same, our bare feet and it was mandatory no tops on, and always was like that all year round for gym. Not so bad in the summer but not how I liked to begin a winters morning on arrival. Our school gym actually had ice on the inside of the windows in January 1987, just single pane, not double glazed then. You could tell when we were cold in there because our nipples gave the game away easily. I remember the cold floor underfoot in those days too, and sometimes it being so dusty that by the end you'd look at your feet and they'd have a brownish dirty dust all over the bottom of them just from the gym floor. The gym didn't seem to get cleaned often enough. We did of course, showered every time, no let offs.

Trainers and a t-shirt would have been nice. The lads in the gym instruction video from what looked late eighties in my time pass for your typical boys doing gym and I myself fit the mould of the one on camera.

My school did not have corporal punishment which had just been removed as a sanction everywhere at the time but like you say Yours Truly, other lesser methods were deployed. On my morning lesson on the day we broke up for Easter as I mentioned above, I was in the gym, dressed as I described, and the PE teacher was saying something largely unimportant and I was just standing there as he spoke looking down at my feet when the next thing I felt the most almighty smack come crashing across the back of my head with quite some force, which I hadn't seen coming. The other boys gasped. It came out of nowhere quite unexpected. I was accused of not paying enough attention, but I was paying intense attention. My head launched forwards almost like whiplash and I screamed OUCH, and was told to be quiet for that too. My neck was in agony but he didn't believe me and accused me of putting it on.

To this day I don't know why he did that to me. I was no troublemaker and he was normally alright with me. My neck felt completely twisted as if I had sprained a muscle in it and I couldn't look left or right very easily without turning my whole body at the same time. I spent the whole of Easter 1987 with this painful neck and the first half of my holidays, it was a week before it eased off and away.

Obviously my folks at home noticed my lack of movement and I mentioned it to them anyway and only said I'd done it moving awkwardly in PE that morning. My dad even suggested taking me to our GP or getting him out but I refused like kids do. I just wish I had told them the actual real reason it happened rather than passed off some vague PE excuse at the time. The PE teacher basically injured me (it's GBH isn't it) and left me in pain for a week, and in the year afterwards it was noticeable how sometimes my neck would ache or be tender in ways it hadn't been before, so I must have aggravated something still there a bit from the original incident. I should not have let the teacher get away with that, I realise that now, but at the time I knew I was going to have to spend many hours in the gym with that guy (yes you Trevor Probert!) and rocking the boat was probably not a good idea, that must have been my reasoning I would think.

There must be hundreds of thousands of us who have something similar to tell who made such excuses from all kinds of teachers.

I've read what you've said Christine about questioning children in school and the kind of answers you expect back. You're probably right, as children we soaked up rather a lot to ourselves.

Comment by: Chris F on 1st April 2025 at 17:10



I agree with, and entirely sympathise with your situation, Chris. I was one year behind you, and agree with what you say. It seems that we were invisible to those P.E. teachers, who, if they knew anything about psychology would have realised there was a reason for our reticence - I went to a very tough school in a working class area (we were considered fodder for Fords or "the army", and anything else was too way out to even think about) and you would not have dared to admit who/what you were, because there would have been physical violence as well as name calling and what is euphemistically called "teasing". As regards swimming, I think that being in water is a bit like being covered by a blanket - it is only psychological, I agree, but you feel less exposed. In a gym you feel like you have a spotlight on you.

Comment by: Roger Chappell on 1st April 2025 at 22:14


Again - thank you Roger. I think the fact that inspections are announced in advance is totally wrong. If they had come to our school (they never did), I know the first thing our headmaster, poor old devil, would have done, was to ensure the school lavatories, which was outside in the yard was repainted. It never was in the five years I was there, the white emulsion becoming greyer each year (the school was under permanent threat of closure). Very occasionally some synthetic disinfectant was poured into the filthy urinals, (every other Monday I think) and the word "F***" had been written in permanent ink markers, too many times to be erased. I never once entered into one of the two cubicles, because those that did, did so at their on risk, but I can't imagine it was any more sanitary than the more used facilities (which I only used in extremis)

Comment by: Christine Sanderson on 1st April 2025 at 22:37



Christine, provided I knew the interview was in camera so to speak I would have told you of my concerns about our P.E teacher, who was homosexual and was far too interested in watching boys close up showering and changing as you got older - when you were 11/12/13 he was content to shout and threaten, but when you got to 14/15/16 it was like having a camera on you when you got to the lesson and especially after it. I myself was a homosexual (and have always wished I wasn't), so it was a case of taking one to know one: we all have a "type" in my case, I had come to my terrible realisation very young, before secondary school, as we had a neighbour who was a policeman - he was straight of course (I don't think canteen culture would have allowed anybody who wasn't to have admitted it) but this man had a beautiful wife and two children to prove it - he always looked immaculate, clean, well groomed, and looked and smelt as if he had just emerged from the shower. He was my "type", very masculine. Roberts type was tall, wiry, confident, very sporty lads. As I wasn;t that tall and wasn't very sporty (as were quite a few of us), he would be contemptuous (one of his favourite, cleaner knicknames for me was "Tin Ribs"). Whether you like somebody or not is that the way to inspire either confidence or respect?

Roberts was able, to some extent, to disguise his interests because he was an ex-Army rugger-bugger type, and as Roger, in the previous, very honest, message suggested, I think, in our case, some of his fellow teachers had suspicions, if not evidence, of his proclivities. In fact one of my ex teachers, who came to see me play when I was in my early twenties (as a matter of fact, it was the concert I mentioned yesterday - our leader , who always had one eye on the cash register - had arranged an evening of early Basie and Glenn Miller for the then emergent "nostalgia" market). I had received a name check for a solo, and he must have remembered me - I will never forget he came up and told me I had played well, he had no idea I played the trumpet because our school had no music in it all, and they didnt care what you did outside, and when I told him what a misery my life had been at school (by then he was retired), he actually mentioned Roberts by name - BEFORE I did - and he told me that at least things had worked out for me. Until that night I don't think he even knew I had a forename!. I learned from him Roberts had "disgraced" himself on a school trip to Snowdonia the year BEFORE we left - I daresay drink had been taken (how it got hushed up I will never know), but I already knew how vile he was because one of my friends at school with me, played football very well, and was taken under Roberts wing, and that included out of school "training" which included intimate massages. Graham never told me of this until two years after we left school, I was sworn to secrecy and he told me that Roberts had told him (at 15/16) that their sessions "had to be secret and not mentioned to anybody" his excuse being it would have made other boys "jealous" (he really did fancy himself!). He was very ashamed (he had been drinking, and sadly that would continue for many years), and though I suggested he made an official complaint he wouldn't hear of it. I would have backed him up knowing of his behaviour in the school changing room and showers. I doubt men like Roberts even care about the damage they do (Shakespeare again "The evil men do, live after them"). Perhaps a spell in prison might have concentrated his mind?

Now, Christine, you couldn;t be expected to know about this paedos behaviour, but surely there is something wrong with school inspections, if the probity of the staff cannot be checked up upon. Corrupting the 'normal' is disgusting, but teenage boys?.

Inspections, if they are to mean anything, should be carried out without prior warning. It seems to only be in the NHS and School system where these things are pre-arranged and orchestrated, a place serving food, for example or industrial premises can be entered without warning., and the business named and shamed in the local press.

In short, Christine, I probably wouldn't have told you at 15/16 I was homosexual myself but I most certainly would have told you about Robert's behaviour. It does seem to me that P.E teachers are especially excluded from proper scrutiny - I have mentioned - to the point of repletion, I admit, about a teacher called Michael Quinlan who having served a prison sentence for indecency towards boys was allowed back into the profession to do it all over again, and we also know that at least two cowardly old men, former P.E. teachers, are hiding in South Africa, fighting deportation to Scotland to face charges of gross indecency and buggery against boys who were at school with broadcaster NIcky Campbell, and a recent Radio 4 series "In Dark Corners" also revealed the journalist Alex Renton was subjected to indecent acts at a boarding school, and at least one of those teachers was a member of the loathsome (now happily defunct) Paedophile Information Exchange.

Do you feel - and I mean you no personal disrespect, - that male inspectors ought to inspect all boys schools?. I know at 15 I would have felt more comfortable talking to a man about Roberts than to a woman - also, of course, at that age, you do not have the command of language or gravitas to point out the seriousness of the situation

Sorry to go on at such length, but what would you have done, if you had received information that a teacher was a practising pervert?

Hi Alan,

I feel you are too harsh on Christine Sanderson, although I admit I also find her seemingly total lack of concern for the feelings of boys rather triggering. You rather contemptuously described her former career as a 'box-ticking exercise'. Well, with no wish to be insulting or dismissive', I suggest that that was exactly what it was.

You seem to be suggesting that OFSTED people should be tasked with rooting out the deviants. I can see why you say that and in fact I think I made a similar remark in a previous post to her.

While I was lucky enough never to cross paths with any perverts I wasn't so lucky in other ways. While there was no formal corporal punishment at either of my schools there was a great deal of informal CP, smacking, shaking, shouting and even screaming. I was an exceedingly shy child who struggled to fit in and socialise and had problems with concentration.

Or. As teachers saw these things in the 1970s: I was a troublemaker.

I experienced the ruler across the knuckles, the ruler across the backs of my legs with my shorts pulled up and was even threatened with the slipper. I was once 'made an example of'. That was the exact phrase the teacher used. It meant being made to stand on a chair in the middle of the entire gloating class, feeling naked in my shorts, while the teacher denounced me to them, telling them about all my misdeeds and how they should all try never to be like me. I still remember this experience as worse than the physical punishments and as one of the the worst, most shocking experiences of my whole life.

And all this was before I reached my sixth birthday.

And it wasn't just me. I have posted before about the teacher who locked a boy on his very first day at school in a cupboard because he wouldn't stop crying for his mum. This woman was absolutely vile, with a hair-trigger temper and an apparently uncontrollable loathing for distressed children (especially boys. I know I keep harping on this but this is because in my experience it was true that boys just always seemed to be treated worse.). There was the teacher who, it was rumoured, had once broken a boy's arm whilst hurling him across the classroom. There was the rumour about the junior headmaster that he had once thrashed a boy across his bare bottom with a leather belt. There was our deputy headmistress, who looked like Leo Sayer in drag and dressed like the catholic equivalent of an ageing hippie with her floral dresses that looked like my mum's curtains and ghastly jesus sandals, and who had an seeming obsession with corporal punishment, although she couldn't practice it on us. (One time she told us of how sailors were flogged in the Royal Navy in the old days. It was the first time I had ever heard that word and I can still remember the peculiar, exultant glee with which she enunciated it: "F-ll-ogg-ed!". )

I think I would have been extremely appreciative if Christine Sanderson or any of her cohorts had swung by and outed these twisted bastards before getting them dismissed from the profession.

But here is my question to you, Alan. Are you happy to leave such an important issue as rooting out the deviants in the hands of box-tickers?

Did you ever hear of the so-called 'Cleveland witch hunt' of 1987? It was started by a senior social worker who had this seeming morbid obsession with nasty stuff. I shan't go into details on here because I have put a lot of heart and soul into this one particular post and don't want it to be moderated. Google it. If you must. My point is, this deluded woman was literally taking what she deemed 'evidence' from a checklist. it all fell through in the end.

In my last post to you I mentioned Towel Lady. There is that incident. And there is also my own experience of her. On the school's traditional annual residential week trip up in the Lake District, our (male) dorm teacher found out that me and another boy hadn't been showering. He sent us to shower on the spot. Which is fine. On the way there we were intercepted by this woman teacher who proceeded to give us a roasting which she concluded with the dire threat that if she heard of us not showering again on the trip she would stand there and watch us while we stripped and showered. And as twelve-year-olds we really believed she could and would do it too.

Do I think she was a deviant? No, I do not. I do think she was overbearing and something of a bully, and that, for a teacher, is surely bad enough. But she might well have registered as a deviant on some lazy, catch-all checklist, which is something untrue and which she did not deserve.

I am very sorry to hear that that stuff happened to you, Alan. But, as I always have to remind myself, it's a new day and you are not what happened to you.

Private school, parents paid a small fortune, 1961, swimming was stark naked in the indoor school pool, I remember the deep end was an astonishing 9ft deep, the shallow was 3ft. We often did dives into the 9ft end. One teacher would often get us out the pool doing push ups at the edge or running laps of the pool whilest still fully completely naked. Our parents had to pay for this kind of education at the time, and we had to be brainy enough for it too. Character building they called it. I can think of other words.

I've digested the comments with great interest.

I know it's a bit late in the day Alan but if I rewind the clock about 30 years and you do the same to the time you were in school to the particular time that is relevant to you, I'd like you to indulge me with an exercise. Tell me what you would have said to me if I had approached you directly, with anything you say to me being treated in confidence and not reported back in your name, especially if you wished to go somewhere private to speak rather than in the full glare of a class situation. It was always possible to take both written and oral pupil comment.

Once you tell me what you think you would have said to me I will try and do my honest best to answer you as I think I would have done so at the time. The question is would you have been honest with me, or like many children end up doing just answer quite predictably or not wishing to say much.

I did speak with many pupils during my job and we are aware of what was called coached answers, especially by teaching staff. I approached many pupils randomly, some are keen to speak, others are not. I did not elect to ignore the actual pupils, I sat in many classes with them, observing their teachers, the behaviour and the atmosphere. A lot of the job is simple observation, which is inspection after all.

Let me tell you about schools and the inspections we got from someone who spent over forty years in the classroom because it might prove interesting. At one of the comprehensive schools I was teaching at which was of a generally good standard we got sent notes to inform us of an upcoming HM Inspection, previous to Ofsted, this was in the late 1980's. It was about a month's warning that the school was going to be receiving HM Inspectors, quite absurd in my view and during this time some money was found to "do up" the school reception area and buy pot plants and a few other clean up jobs here and there, including a new piece of carpet in the staff room too. This was all the head teacher's doings and it received a lot of mutterings I can tell you from the staff who wouldn't have minded a few extras in the actual classrooms. I also remember the school cleaners working overtime in the week before the inspectors came. It was like a Royal visit when something suddenly gets spruced up that nobody cared about beforehand. I always thought it was taking inspectors for fools and I bet they could smell the fresh new carpet or paint a mile off.

However, our head on this late 1980's inspection had his "official staff notice" of this specific inspection, I think it lasted the entire week. But unofficially he had all his staff in the staff room one afternoon when the children had all gone and amongst many things he made it clear to all of us to try and prevent any children talking much to these inspectors incase they say too much and let the school down and wanted us to keep a close eye on who if any in our classes might say something to any if approached. I found this very foolish as the school had a good reputation anyway and the children were the only reason any of us had a job in the first place. These inspections make teachers very touchy indeed and in the case of that head teacher I had he didn't trust his own school roll not to rattle off a list of grievances, and a few staff had plenty of their own. I believed in honestly answering any question I might be asked and not saying what I thought might be the right answer they wanted to hear.



I worked at another secondary school a few years later and that had an Ofsted inspection and it was completely the opposite and that head teacher was keen for anyone to have their say quite openly and for any children who wished to speak with them to do so, and I think many did so actually. Even in the previous school many children spoke directly to HM Inspectors and I was not going to stop them doing so. I trusted my own pupils to speak sensibly to these people and show maturity, and they did so, thus making my own classroom look well run and disciplined. I never made the mistake of thinking I could fool an HM Inspector or Ofsted but even some heads that should know better think they can do so.

I remember that the male PE teachers at my last school didn't seem popular with many of the staff and one complained during an inspection that they were getting in the way and putting him off doing his job the way he normally did it. I recall some of us having a staff chatter about that and suggesting he was probably having to behave himself a lot more than normal, he had a firey and short tempered shouty reputation that could be heard by many staff who found him intimidating to be around so the children must have been even more so.

In some schools the staff are at each others throats even more than the pupils, so said a friend of mine who worked at another school in my area who I'd frequently meet up with and compare notes.

Comment by: Alan Noble on 1st April 2025 at 17:35
I think I might be in that picture - 14 at the time at BGS.

That's lovely Alan, would you care to say a little bit more, such as who you think you might be in the picture and what the school was like. Most people on here didn't go there and only talk about their own school based on the picture which brings up many memories of everyone else's school gyms.

I think I might be in that picture - 14 at the time at BGS.

Many adults don't know what the whole trans thing is all about and transphobia, so expecting a small five year old to do so is the antics of the madhouse, but then many of those people are literally fruitcakes I'm afraid. Isn't there are massive irony in such people that would suspend a tiny child for something they could not possibly understand. These very people that do that claim that they are the ones who are understanding and reasonable and inclusive and kind. No they are not, they are completely the opposite to what they claim, they are the ones with no tolerance of others! When it comes down to small kids they are just wicked.

This madness will end sooner or later and when it does our next generation will look back at some of these people with complete and utter disgust and shame. They are setting back mainstream gay related issues for both men and women, most of us are actually quite regular men and women who consider ourselves quite normal, because we are and we are not looking at everything through sex/gender tinted glasses. I almost never mention my gender or sexuality to anyone because it's not important enough. Saying so here to me is the exception but only because I find it relevant to the discussion. In my early secondary years it loomed large though, and PE lessons magnified it with all the naked showers and bare chests for PE.

I'm gay and went to secondary school in 1978 where I was immediately thrown into a situation of PE for gym being done only in bare chests for the boys there and showers, all of this I found quite intimidating and difficult to adapt to. Having my shirt off was just not me. See my comment of 6th Feb this year for details if you missed it.

Even if a school inspector had come up to me or even taken me for a one-to-one interview in an office and grilled me I doubt I would have said anything about how I felt about having to shower, remove all my clothing or do PE without any top on. I didn't even broach the subject and my feelings at the time with anyone at home either, it was just my own quiet discomfort that simmered along within me, and I remember thinking I was the problem because I was the one who didn't like taking my top off for PE or stripping right off for the showers and being seen by others like that at close range. Now I'm learning how others felt too and it seems a lot of us were thinking similar thoughts. A general look across the web can see many examples of such discussion drawing similar conclusions. The answer at my school to boys who disliked showering and were a bit more obvious in showing it was for the teacher to grab them and pull them towards them, one lad in my class was once lifted up by his ears off the bench and pulled into the shower for ignoring a teacher telling him to get in for about the third time of asking. Nobody actually paused to think why are some of these boys reluctant. It wasn't because they wanted be dirty and sweaty! For myself I just jumped in like I was told to and removed my shirts when told I could not have one on. We didn't even need telling most of the time, it became automatic.

Although there is a lot to be said for treating everyone the same at school, and all of us had to do these things, we are not all the same.

When I saw the recent discussion, including video evidence, on the boys being filmed in the showers at school for television done right at the time I was at early secondary school I just thought, yes that's about right showing all that, by definition of being born male, even young ones in school like me and you were conditioned to accept a certain way about things and never to confront those who did it to us. A school shower was/is an enormously big deal to so many children of both sexes, and for many boys taking our shirts off was quite a big deal too, maybe that's because I was gay and starting to know it, I don't know, although it looks like there are a lot of straight men on here who felt similar. Some people say they felt a bit different when they went swimming at school. I still felt much the same, although it felt a bit different to the normal PE, at least swimming was a bit more fun and you forgot yourself easier. The swimming pool we got taken to for lessons had a large communal changing area and communal showers and we had to use them there as well after leaving the pool. We used to be allowed to walk into them with our swim trunks on to remove the chlorine off them but then had to take them off and thrown them aside and do things properly. There was a soap dispenser we had to use there, quite posh actually. At the pool we were sometimes even watched by a male member of their staff there who was nothing to do with our school, incredible as that sounds because sometimes we were taken swimming by women teachers. This was only in the first and second years, age twelve and thirteen. Boys and girls areas were separate but we could all hear each other and if you were not careful it would be easy to be seen by the other side.


Regards the school inspector, I hope you don't mind me saying this but you are far too harsh about Christine though Alan, and I think I find Yours Truly the more balanced viewpoint on her comments. Although I've said what I've said, I do try not to be angry in life about things and towards other people. Even now I tend to think it was me who created the issues not my school.

Hello,

In response to a couple of comments below on my earlier comments, I do understand the point being made. I'd add it wasn't just a matter of listen to the girls, ignore the boys. At first we changed no one's kit - it had always been full length leotards for or girls in gymnastics, just shorts for boys in gymnastics and fitness drills (girls wore t-shirts and shorts for fitness drills), t-shirt and shorts for everything else. But we had to review the kit anyway (the supplier went under I recall correctly), and the leotard was an extra expense, and also slowed things down, so there were lots of arguments on top of girls' complaints leading to us to change the girls' gymnastics uniform to shorts and t-shirts (which had to be tucket in at all times).

More generally, while I do sympathise there might have been some discomfort, and it was different treatment, of course there are physiological differences too, and the idea of double standards goes both ways - it is society that has decided women are forbidden to show as much of their bodies as men, and in sports such as swimming or gymnastics that might reduce the comfort or practicality of what they must wear.

Ultimately, some discomfort is inevitable growing up. Not just on this matter - many students feel uncomfortable wearing shorts, or when I was a student I didn't like the blouses and gym skirts we had to wear in gym. But growing up is about overcoming fears as well. I recognise it wouldn't be normal nowadays, but if I were setting the gym uniform from scratch ignoring outside opinions, I'd probably stick with what it was back in the day in the 70s and 80s. Practicality, safety, simplicity, at the expense of some initial awkwardness I'm sure would be overcome.

Comment by: Nick T on 31st March 2025 at 22:40
Comment by: Terry on 31st March 2025 at 18:06
Terry, no it was not. But it could’ve been. Poor guy.


Exactly my point I think you understood. I didn't actually think there was any chance it really was you, that would have been truly coincidental! But many of us were Nick there for sure.

Well, my last post seems to have taken flight, snaffled perhaps by the moderation fairies or the broadband gremlins. So here goes my second attempt.


Hi Terry,

Wow. I found that offensive just to watch. Words fail me to be honest. I suppose that after everything I have read on this forum I shouldn't be surprised but I am surprised. I'm still surprised that any school would practice such blatant gender discrimination regarding PE kit but I am more surprised that they would be blase enough to publicise the fact by throwing the girls and boys in together. Didn't any of these people have sons of their own? Didn't any of these muppets realise that boys have feelings too?

PE lessons were always separated at my mixed secondary school. I can only recall one single mixed session in the gym due to staffing shortages and the odd girls-vs-boys rounders game out on the playing fields in summer. I don't remember any of us having any problem with them. This will have been because we were not forced to strip almost naked beforehand, unlike those poor boys in that clip.

I suppose it's just yet another demonstration of that universal double standard that boys don't/ shouldn't have sensitive feelings and that where they do they are to be made to disregard them.

I am guessing that some of the girls complained about the embarrassment of leotards in front of the boys and so they were allowed to add leggings to their kit. There's no way of knowing if any of the boys complained about their kit but plainly if they did they were ignored, which was exactly what Susan F stated a few weeks back in the school she taught in. She too seemed utterly oblivious to the sexism present there.

Not only are the girls covered up from their collarbones to their ankles but they are also allowed to fade into the background, with the focus of the clip on two stripped boys. In the viewers' comments one or two posts claimed the minimal kit was to teach the boys body confidence. Those two boys look anything but confident, they seem very shy and subdued. So would I have been. I was painfully shy at that age. And that was with my clothes on.

There was also a comment from a woman stridently asserting that the clothing disparity was absolutely, positively NOT sex discrimination. (Of course it wasn't! Only women and girls can ever be victims of that, this is an indisputable law of physics, as we all know.) So there you go, guys, that's us lot all told.

And it is always, always, always boys on the receiving end of these inequalities. Boys are just shown less consideration overall. Maybe there will be women reading this and inwardly triumphantly sniggering and thinking, 'suck it up, boys, suck it up'. But this sort of thing is a problem when boys are expected to develop into men who respect women. These things fester.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 31st March 2025 at 22:55


Hi YT. No I didn't take the band remark as offensive - the most offensive thing that ever happened to me in my big band days was having to play the Bobby Hackett solo (note for note) in the horrible Glenn Miller tune "String Of Pearls" - for that dubious pleasure I had to borrow a cornet (I was depping for somebody else who usually played that abomination). I preferred the flugelhorn or trumpet, and being able to improvise solos, on more contemporary material,

I have to say that I think our Christine has made it manifest that she rather favours the old fashioned approach of shirtless gym and compulsory showers, and has no regards for shy boys or boys who had their own particular set of problems. She clearly knows every rule in the book, but, like most civil servants gives no thought to the people who are affected (in the same way a person dying of cancer is simply "a case" to the doctor)..She is more concerned about the measurements of the room than the feelings of mere boys. I do still get concerned to think there might be PE teachers like mine running around, especially now they have older lads forced to stay on at school, many of them, no doubt, forced into P.E lessons. Our Mr. Roberts loved watching the 15/16 year olds - God knows what he would have been like with 17/18 year olds.

Comment by: Michael on 31st March 2025 at 21:25


"....Will you pull up the comment where she said she did not speak to any actual children in schools please Alan because I don't remember reading that. My problem with the way you factor your arguments is that you often seem to go out of your way to misinterpret what others say to fit nicely in with your own agenda driven narratives......."


My pleasure old chap.

The message is very long, so I am sure that Ms. Sanderson and yourself will forgive me if I only print the relevant passages (it is akin to somebody requesting A Love Supreme by John Coltrane on a forty five minute request programme - the piece lasts for 40 minutes so you can only reasonably play an extract) . If you wish to read the whole piece, then it is currently on page 15 on the site. On page 16, by the by, she makes an extraordinary assertion that endorses a study by Essex University who claim to have discovered (no doubt at public expense) that boys who shower after PE are fitter than those who don't. No wonder I am a dab hand at manoeuvring large metal boxes filled with electronic equipment around!

The gravamen appears in the final three lines of paragraph 2 in this message:

"
Comment by: Christine Sanderson on 23rd November 2024 at 19:17




...........In the days of HMI's before Ofsted was established just over 30 years ago, the government education inspectors had wide powers and could access any part of a school at any time of day and speak to any member of staff or a pupil. Go through the sek of the head teacher, eat the school dinners and look around the kitchen, and even stand in a PE changing room and observe the working school environment. There could very well be men here who might have seen a PE teacher of theirs standing with a complete unknown figure as they slipped in or out of the PE kit or even having a shower. This practice was before my time but was common before 1992. An inspector may appear in a class situation, or a PE situation and just quietly observe, along or in a group, saying nothing at all to anybody including the teacher, or they may engage with questions...............

.....As this is a forum largely based on PE in schools, I'm well aware of some of the previous comments here and how many pupils viewed their PE in school. But one thing an inspector would not go around asking to individuals are things like, do you like doing gymnastics, do you like football, do you like swimming, etc, or do you like you PE kit, do you like a shower or wearing no top for boys.......


It seems clear that Ms. S and her ilk are more interested in the buildings than the pupils - a wall 6 inches too short is more important than the ritual humiliation of students - another case of preferring the box to the chocolates.

I say this - offend or please - schools seem to take far too many liberties in inflicting their screwball ideas these days, on young impressionable minds, as they seem stacked to the rafters with left wing loonies. This was published yesterday - had it been published today you might assume it was a sick April Fools joke:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/toddler-suspended-transphobia-nursery-b1219768.html

I wonder how many of you will defend THAT?.

I have said it before, and I say it again, any person entering the teaching game ought to be analysed by a psychiatrist, as a pre-condition of employment, because it seems to me far too many dictatorial and unbalanced idiots are let into schools.

Hi Alan,

Thank you for your support. Snarky internet comments don't worry me, I'm perfectly capable of them myself.

I hope you didn't think my 'Arse Against' reference in my last post to you was a homophobic dig. I only realised after I had posted it that it could have come across that way. It was not meant as one. It was actually a pun on a real-life brass orchestra called Brass Against who do brass covers of metal, alternative and punk anthems. I got to see them two years ago in London supporting the almighty Tool.

It was not and is not my intention to have a go at Christine Sanderson. Or anybody else on here. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. Her contributions on here are valuable and as a former OFSTED inspector she has a particular and niche insight into what we discuss.

It is just that her detachment often feels more than just professional and the rationalisations she gives for certain unpleasant practices often feel like the type of bland, diplomatic platitudes trotted out in public life by politicians and PR bods and sometimes she seems not to be addressing the point under discussion. Plainly it was just a job to her. Then again I think I can remember her explaining before that the inspectors' remit was to make sure that the compulsory stipulations were being upheld and not to question those stipulations themselves. Although I did point out to her that the pupils would have been the best people to ask to ascertain whether proper procedures were in place because they would be the most likely to give an honest answer.

I saw that headline. As the old song goes, 'Meet the new boss/ Same as the old boss'.

Looking back I must have gone to a pretty unusual catholic school. Not only was there no corporal punishment, not only were we taught about other religions than catholicism/ christianity but I honestly never heard of any pervy teachers there or even a rumour of one. As I have said before even our PE teachers made a point of turning the water on and immediately vanishing into their broom cupboard of an office, none of this standing and watching us that so many other people, both men and women, cite bitter memories of. Looking back now it makes me wonder if this was observation of new guidelines that might have been laid down following some sort of incident. But this is nothing but idle speculation.

The only dubious anecdote I ever heard of was Towel Lady snatching that girl's towel from her as she exited the showers. Twenty-odd years after leaving that school I saw this incident confirmed as real on the now long-defunct Friends Reunited website by a woman some ten years older than me who witnessed it at the time. I feel inclined give this teacher the benefit of the doubt and presume that she was trying to encourage this girl not to be so sensitive and shy. But that was not the way to go about it, even in the long-ago culture of the 1970s. Today I imagine it would almost certainly land her in a disciplinary hearing.

The lenient sentence handed out to the teacher you describe is the fault of the court. Christine and her colleagues were not social workers or mental health professionals.

As regards PE teachers with an overweening sense of their own power, well, funnily enough just yesterday this clip cropped upon my PC, from Jack Black in School Of Rock:

"Those who can, do. Those who can't teach. Those who can't teach? They teach gym class."


We have now seen this from several women posters. The lack of any concern when it is boys on the receiving end.

Comment by: Terry on 31st March 2025 at 18:06

Terry, no it was not. But it could’ve been. Poor guy.

Will you pull up the comment where she said she did not speak to any actual children in schools please Alan because I don't remember reading that. My problem with the way you factor your arguments is that you often seem to go out of your way to misinterpret what others say to fit nicely in with your own agenda driven narratives.

You mention the lady as being an apologist for the teaching profession. Why would you expect someone to come on here and rubbish their profession and not defend it?

You don't like people judging you but my goodness you are incredibly judgemental of others, and in this lady's case I fail to understand it much like James has already said.

I think you could have a disagreement by yourself in a lift with your own reflection or shadow.

If I may also say, how many comments on here have you now mentioned the name of that school? Give it a rest eh.

Comment by: James on 31st March 2025 at 17:27


I suggest you re-read what she said about her not communicating with the pupils when doing her job. You don't get a rounded picture by only talking to one side. She comes over as an apologist for the teaching profession, despite the odd mild stricture. Did she ever convey any of her unease to the teaching staff?. Frankly I doubt it.

Comment by: Nick T on 31st March 2025 at 16:38

This wasn't you by any chance was it Nick? Shirtless boys, no footwear, in a mixed gym. (It's been posted before I know)

https://youtu.be/l_gb0CUzwX0?si=XZn5A3OeWB-u1qsO

My takeaway from this excerpt is that the school gym we see here looks very low energy, lethargic and tediously dull. The boy "Nick" here looks like he'd prefer to be anywhere but in this gym, and probably would like to have his t-shirt on and not be dragooned into presenting his key stage three shirtless gym techniques among the girls and most certainly not be in front of the camera in this way. He looks so unconfident and shy, so that's why he was obviously picked, or for not being up to expectations. I remember boys like him very well at school in PE.

I wonder how many times he's needed to roll head over heels in his adult life since he left!

On this forum time and again you have spoken of how badly you were treated in your schooldays by teachers and pupils alike Alan.

So why then are you attacking without any good reason a lady, Christine Sanderson, who has posted here and are now trying to inflame others to do the same, saying things like you expect a lot of negativity from Christine if she responds. That's a bit rich coming from you, everyone has to put up with never ending negativity out of you and it just never ceases.

Someone previously mentioned how you attack women quite often when they appear on this forum, but it's also noticeable how you seem to attack anyone who has any kind of education background as well. But why?

For the life of me I cannot understand what Christine has said that would rile anyone, she actually ended her last comment by saying the following;

"I think many PE teachers in the past could have done far more to ease any discomfort their pupils may have felt around the communal showering requirements they implemented and also with the shirtless PE for boys for those who it caused anxiety. The question is the style of approach you take."

Just what more do you expect out of someone? Explain yourself.

It might seem like no big deal for some boys, but having to wear just shorts can be very uncomfortable at that age when many are worried about how their bodies are perceived.

Boys had to do gymnastics in just shorts when I was at school in the 80s (for most sports we wore t shirts as well). Being very skinny I found it very awkward, and it was uncomfortable that there were girls in the class as well.

By far the worst aspect of it was that I was gay, closeted, frustrated and confused in myself at the time. So being surrounded by boys in just shorts, while I was also forced to wear as little as that, was a very tricky situation to deal with.

I’m glad this has mostly been consigned to history.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 30th March 2025 at 20:16



I am going to put in a word of support for you, YT, as I suspect you will be getting a lot of negativity to your post, not least from Ms Sanderson herself.

I entirely agree with your views. It has always seemed to me dear old Christine was very much the teacher's friend - she reminds you of one of those loyal backbenchers who turn up on the BBC to defend benefit cuts to the disabled at the same time as defending MPs like this one:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/34138863/taiwo-owatemi-expenses-dog/

All animals are equal, as George Orwell said, but some are more equal than others. I remember Ms S on one occasion on here saying that when she was doing her "inspections", which are, I imagine tick box operations - have they got the uniform shade of Magnolia on the walls in the staff room?, are the chairs nice and comfy?, she said that they did not, or were not obliged, to speak to the students, and frequently didn't. So it encourages a very one sided view.

If these inspections were thorough and totally unbiased, the sort of behaviour that went on at the Royal Liberty School, for example. could not have happened. It was totally egregious that a P.E. master was allowed back in the profession after serving a 22 month prison sentence for indecent behaviour with boys, only to go on and commit other similar offences a few years later. Proper inspections, including conducting confidential interviews with pupils, don't happen and we continue to this day to see pests int he profession.

You do have to wonder why boys are made to "shower" without soap and in cold or lukewarm water, especially when the school day is finished, I assume in MOST cases it is the overweening sense of power some teachers feel they have, but I know, from personal experience, that there are worse, and much more sinister reasons, that SOME teachers enjoy watching boys shower, especially the older ones.

Hi Christine Sanderson,

So school showers were actually about fairness? So, not sanitation like they told us? You argued in a previous post that the realisation of unfairness is an essential lesson for schoolchildren to learn. Now you change your tune.

You need to read Simon's post more closely. You talk of 'fairness'. There has been much talk of unfairness on this forum, specifically with regards to boys but you have never been moved to respond to any of those posts. By keeping those boys in and making them do something they were unwilling to do after the specified remit of their authority over those boys had ended for that day those teachers were overstepping the limits of their authority. Explain to me please where the fairness is in letting adults 'professionals' throw their weight around and rule by their whim rather than by the stipulated rules.

Where was the fairness in keeping certain pupils in while the rest of the school was allowed to saunter out the gates at the regular time? Where was the 'fairness' at all the schools where they forced boys to shower together but allowed the girls not to bother at all? Or at the schools, like mine, where girls did have to shower but were allowed to do so in private while we boys were made to get our bollocks out and go in all together at a young and vulnerable age?

'Many schools actually consider that their pupils are still under their guidance before they reach the school gates into school and leaving their school gates after school, especially while in uniform until the point you reach home and take it off. So if you walked half a mile home and got into mischief in your own road the school could technically sanction you in many cases if they saw fit, or if pupils made a nuisance in a shop on the way home.'

You are not really addressing the question. Which is where the threshold lies in a school's authority over their pupils. It might well be elastic as you state but that limit is there. It has to be. Teachers cannot hold children at school indefinitely. A bell or buzzer might only be an advisory guide in law but it is also the law that teachers are not and never were empowered to hold pupils in school indefinitely after the end of the day. That would be abduction, which is an offence that potentially carries a substantial custodial tariff.

'I think many PE teachers in the past could have done far more to ease any discomfort their pupils may have felt around the communal showering requirements they implemented and also with the shirtless PE for boys for those who it caused anxiety. The question is the style of approach you take.'

Well, you and me both. It's just, you never come across as if you actually care.

Hi Samantha,

Thank you for your input. It's good to be reminded that girls sometimes got a raw deal too.

We men don't 'get' most of anything. Everybody is free to post here. I think the reason it's mostly men posting on here is simply because boys were more likely to be treated badly. Not just in PE lessons either. As boys we were to be inculcated with a stoical, manly disregard for our own feelings. There have been several previous female posters who stated that they were never made to use the showers while showering was absolutely enforced for the boys.

You mention seeing boys covered head to toe in mud. Well, there you go. Presumably those boys had been playing rugby while you girls were doing netball or something else civilised and sanitary. Our own games lessons were never that rough and ready but I can remember our old bastard PE teacher having a go at me at the end of a session out on the playing fields for the precise reason that I wasn't muddy, which was something he equated with a lack of effort.

I always thought it must have been worse for the girls because of periods. One or two women posters have stated that their PE teachers actually kept a diary recording every girl's cycle so that they couldn't use it as an excuse. Girls were forced to announce their situation in front of a class full of their peers. There was even one poster who said girls were excused swimming lessons but only to be made to run laps of the playing fields. Which sounds like a punishment, doesn't it? Not only that but the boys doing football or rugby would see them and know exactly who was having their time.

As regards things sticking out, well, you raise the vital point that boys are naturally just more cruel and unfeeling to each other than girls. Which you might just naturally assume means that boys deserve more consideration that girls, especially in such vulnerable situations.
Nope. I got teased in the showers. To be honest by that time I was so used to being teased for something or other I just took it in my stride. Well. Until the other boys, seeing I wasn't bothered, upped their game by telling the girls in my year . . .

I never had to do PE without a top on. I think I would have hated it. But numerous other men posting here have stated how they had to undergo topless PE and sometimes in mixed sessions with the girls. Often they mention feelings of unease at having to do this but beings boys these were not taken into account by the teaching staff. There was a recent poster, Susan F I think, who told of how when PE lessons at the school she was working in introduced mixed PE lessons for gymnastics the girls complained about how they found their leotards embarrassing. in front of the boys As a result their kit was changed to t-shirt and shorts. At the same time several boys spoke up about feeling embarrassed having to be topless around girls. Their feelings were ignored and they were made to get on with it. The usual kit for boys at her school was t-shirt and shorts. The boys were only made to go topless in the gymnastics classes, presumably for health and safety reasons, which is understandable. Your t-shirt falling down over your face could lead to an accident. Yet the school allowed the girls to wear t-shirts in the same class! Was it a health and safety issue or not? Susan F made no comment on the differing dress codes imposed in the boys and girls. She may have been oblivious to them. After all they were only boys.

There was a woman poster quite a while back now who told of how during her first year at a mixed grammar school then girls were made to take PE in nothing but their knickers - this despite the fact that there was an elaborate list of PE kit items specified in the school's prospectus. She didn't go into any detail about how the girls felt about this imposition but she didn't seem scarred by it.

There was also a recent post by a woman who had been a young teacher in the early 1980s during the golden age of teacher strikes. She found herself roped into taking a boys' PE class. The male teacher who usually took them advised her to make them take off their tops - something they weren't usually made to do. The point was to make them more biddable by making them feel embarrassed and vulnerable and it worked.

An almost identical situation in my case to Simon here.

In my secondary school years, early to mid nineties period 1991 - 1996 virtually the lot of my own PE was taken as the last lesson of the school day on two days a week.

Exactly the same as in Simon's school, we could only go home once we had taken the expected shower and the PE teachers all made sure we did this, there was no slipping quietly out the door hoping to be the one that got away without doing it, their backs never seemed to be turned, they saw everyone and everything.

Our changing room must have been designed with all this in mind actually. The shower area and the exit door were quite close to each other so all the PE teachers in my case had to do was stand guard beside the door and nobody could pass unless agreed to go, whilst at the same time getting the perfect view a handful of feet away straight at the whole lot of us showering, and changing of course.

We also had teachers that took us in some cases way beyond the final school day finish. I remember one occasion we were playing football or rugby out on the school field away from the building and the game was quite exciting and our teacher totally forgot what time it was. None of us were allowed to wear a time piece so had no idea what the time was, we were dependent on him for that. School ended at 3.30pm and it was 3.45pm when he looked at his watch, and he only did that because another teacher was bounding across the grass to us wondering why we were still out there which made our teacher check his watch. I don't think he said sorry though! Even though we'd had an extra quarter hour tuition due to his bad time keeping he still made us all go into the showers back in the changing room rather than just hurry ourselves and leave school as quick as possible. There were lots of other times when they all knew the time and we were showering and dressing after the school day had actually ended, like you Simon.

We did not have any of our teachers share showers though. When I started secondary school in 1991 I had a conversation with my parents about showers in school and I'm sure he told me he had PE teachers who took showers with him at the end of class in the sixties.