Burnley Grammar School

My school switched from being an all boys school to being a mixed 6th Form College while I was there. A novelty was the arrival of the school's first female pe teacher, who helped out with the boys classes as well as 6th Form sports. It was team teaching, but I couldn't help wondering how she felt having to deal with 30 fourth or fifth formers in barefeet and no tops. That was in the 70s.

I attended the school (Burnley Grammar)1975 -1980 Ron Parry was still the head of sports- he died I believe earlier this year.Nice bloke who cared for the school and the boys.you were only known by your surname as a pupil then.His school nickname was gay paris - never proven - but I never hung around in the showers. he once made me run twice round the grass track in the snow in bare feet and shirtless because my strip wasn't school regulation- he'd not get away with it nowadays.Other nicknames of the time were- bertie yoghurt- nobbie stokes- posy cowell- don juan (donald wain)- hitler and himmler the dinner ladies. takes me back.

This shows you how important uniform is for school discipline. I am sure that boys play up much less when having to do PE like this, shirtless and barefoot, it puts them in their place and sends out a message about who is in control, the PE master!

I was at a boys' school in the late 1970s/early 1980s and the PE kit was all white: T-shirt, shorts, socks & plimsolls. PE was never done shirtless or barefoot. The same kit was worn all year round no matter what the weather, including for outdoor athletics.

There was a "no pants" rule, which was strictly enforced at first, but after a few years was not, and boys started wearing pants and even swimming trunks under their PE shorts, which were very transparent.

Any boy who forgot his swimming trunks and towel would be made to swim in his PE shorts and use his T-shirt to dry himself.

I remember a curious inversion of what most here said. I was at Northgate High School in Ipswich in the late 70's, a huge sprawl of brick and portacabins strangely absent from Google Maps, hell knows where THAT got hidden. :) While we played shirts and skins games in the unheated gym even when it was freezing out, and cold air coming in the wire mesh covered gap between the gym and the portacabin we changed in, we were supposed to wear more outside. One time I forgot my kit, as did one other boy. The teacher was a right taskmaster, and all the other boys were outside so as not to irk him or keep him waiting when he turned up. This time he was actually late. Two of us, still inside, wondering what to do, and I decided that I didn't want to be the butt of some kind of teacherly retribution so I said sod it, I'm going out there without the shirt I haven't got, better that than lurking in here. He agreed and joined me and we stood there fending off a few funny remarks from the rest, and the other guy had his hands together drawn up under his chin, like fending off the cold, while I was discovering how much I actually liked it. There was a biting sub-zero wind off the North Sea and ice all over the asphalt but I liked it. I rarely ever felt more alive up to that point, and having made the choice to do it was maybe part of it, having deliberately opted not to make myself a victim of circumstance. Anyway, the teacher came along, demanded why we were shirtless, etc, and found us shirts. The one I got stank, really, it was like vomit. It came off before I'd got halfway through the cross country run. One other guy also went shirtless, not the other guy who first chose to do it. He clearly also got it. It IS invigorating, it really does something good to feel the weather and know it isn't going to hurt or kill us, we just need to use our energy to balance it, not fight it. Very liberating. Towards the end of the run, coming back through the streets, a different teacher (there were two, and we rarely saw anything of them for most of a couple of hours) bellowed at us to put our shirts back on. Such a strange inversion, no? I always run shirtless now, even if it gets to -10¬?C with wind and freezing fog doing entertaining things to the hairs on my head and forearms. People look at me with varying looks, but the over-riding pattern is one of being unusual. It should NOT be such a big deal, but to many it now is. The 'reasons' against it border on the pathological, too, and I can only guess that the increased portrayal of people as sex objects to sell things and offer gratification in other ways has made people afraid of their own reactions to this, so they don't like being caught out feeling or thinking that way when they see someone shirtless in public. It's stopped builders being allowed to do it, far more than any risk of skin cancer would. It has nothing to do with safety, or health, and everything to do with a warped sense of morality. Fortunately you can see that it hasn't gotten to everyone, so it's just one of those stupid things peculiar to our age. Right now, for a few years so far, it's actually been fashionable for men to wear shorts all year round, it's big in the UK, and the US. Can't be doing with it myself, I'd rather be shirtless, it looks better, feels better, and I suspect that this fashion is a bizarre displacement of the same desires, changed into something different to find a socially acceptable form when older forms have somehow been denied to all but those of us who don't mind what people think enough to stop us. Things HAVE changed from what most here have said, maybe too much.

I left school in the 90s and we didn’t have PE classes where everyone went shirtless as in the picture, but we did still have teams of shirts and skins. I was 13 the first time I ever heard the PE teacher use that phrase and didn’t even know what it meant when he announced my team was ‘skins’. Then one of my friends ran to the side of the gym, took off his vest and dropped it there and ran back bare chested. Suddenly the penny dropped and I realised I had to take my top off as well. From then on indoor football, basketball and sometimes other sports were always done as shirts and skins, with the teacher picking the teams, and that continued until I was 16.
I remember on one occasion we had to share the gym with another class whose outdoor lesson (either football or rugby) had been cancelled because of bad weather and that meant the teacher had to split more boys into more teams. Because the outdoor kit included black shorts, while my class wore all white in the gym, we ended up playing basketball as ‘skins and skins’, with every boy on the court bare chested but wearing different coloured shorts! That was a strange experience and, not surprisingly, fairly confusing when you tried to pass the ball.

My most abiding memory of this was after I moved to a new school at the age of 11.

My first PE session (a double!) took place on a cold Thursday morning in November. There'd been a sharp frost overnight, and so after assembly we changed into our kit (white vest and black shorts)and were told by the PE teacher the session would be outside.

Once we outside and in a line on the field the teacher looked along the line and told me to go in front of the class. Moments later I was told to strip and drop my vest on the ground. A couple of minutes passed then my new classmates were also made to strip down. There were no moans or groans, just a line of vests.

The teacher alternated the sessions so either the whole class were bare chested or half would wear their vests. I do remember being one of four or five lads who he very rarely picked to wear a vest and as a result almost permanently bare chested, irrespective of the temperature or if we were indoors or out.

Inter class competitions were done this way too, but differed for basketball and football. If you wore a vest for the first half, you stripped for the second and vice versa, allowing the girls to see both classes representatives bare chested during the match.

at my junior schools we had to wear white nylon shorts solo,no vest, and plymsols.at the senior schools i ad to wear a jockstrap ,plus a crcket box for cricket,and nylon pe shorts.nylon umbro shorts for football,and a jock.we all showerd off after sports/pe nude.we had a medical once a year,wearing our shorts only,but had to take them off for the doctor.

I went to a all boys grammar school in the mid 1970’s, all we were allowed to wear for indoor PE was white shorts, nothing else. Although our official kit included a vest and plimsolls, at the first lesson the teacher made it very clear that he expected everyone to have bare feet and strip to the waist. We just accepted this, having no choice in the matter anyway.

We had one two PE lessons each week, plus a sports afternoon. One PE lesson was always indoors, with the other involving a 5 mile run, so we did cross country every week, irrespective of the season or weather.

The supplied kit list specified white PE shorts, running vest or rugby shirt plus plimsolls & socks as appropriate kit, and we all duly turned up at the first lesson, and changed into this kit. A couple of boys didn’t wear socks, and more importantly didn’t wear a shirt or vest. We soon found out why, they had older brothers at the school, and knew what was going to happen. ! Lined up outside we were all made to take our socks off (which I didn’t mind), and then told to strip to the waist (which I did, it was freezing). One boy complained it was cold, and rapidly earned a cold shower for his efforts, never had 30 boys pulled their shirts off so quickly. From then on we always ran shirtless, with a couple of boys always running in bare feet as well, yes it was cold, but everyone had to strip, so you just did it.

At grammar school in the 1970s we did pe in white shorts - no tops, no pumps or socks. It could be quite cold in winter. I remember a couple of times the teacher telling us to wear our school jerseys into the gym to warm up (I remember the prickliness), but then we were told to hang them on the wallbars and carry on the lesson barechested. If you forgot your kit (which thankfully I never did) you had to do pe in you underpants! If you forgot your towel you had to try and share someone else's or "drip dry" as the teacher put it. Not being so keen on semi-naked piggy backs and wheelbarrows, climbing ropes and wallbars, vaults and trampettes (though they were quite good), or "circuit training", I was glad when I went into the 6th form and no longer had to do it.

I went to comprehensive in the early 1970's. Our kit was blue shorts and trainers for gym. No shirts, socks or underwear. For outside sport and cross country rugby shirts and socks were worn but no underwear. We also had a sports hall called a games barn. It was very cold in winter but we had to play five a side football shirts vs skins. The PE teacher always picked which team would be skins. The class was divided into four teams. Two would play while the other two watched and between each round the skins team would quickly put their shirts back on in the hope that in the next game they would be shirts. We had coloured bibs but these were only used by the girls. Every PE class was followed by a shower.

When I was at primary school, I remember being impressed by the lads from the nearby secondary school who had to run cross country stripped to the waist in all wheathers. I thought they looked tough and was looking forward to doing the same kind of exercise. This was in Kingston upon Hull in a built up area. Too bad for me that I went to another secondary school.

Were compulsory shirtless cross country runs common?Did boys have to run through streets either only in shorts?I think they did because there are schools which are far from the countryside.

Funny when you come to think of it. I clearly remember a winter cross country run in Hertfordshire with a teacher all dressed up and twenty-so shirtless boys shivering their ass off.

This brings back happy memories. I was at school in Scotland in the 70s and our gym kit was shorts and gym shoes only. We were not allowed tops or socks indoors. For anyone who forgot (or didn't have) gymshoes it was barefeet. And some boys chose to do gym barefoot.
Outdoors we wore rugby top, shorts, trainers and rugby socks. Occasionally, depending on the teacher's mood, we would go outdoors without tops, and sometimes wearing shorts and shoes only. I remember once wearing shorts and school shoes (black leather) for field activities as I had forgotton my trainers. I was lucky not to get the belt as some boys did for forgetting kit. I don't recall anyone being barefoot outside but it might have happened.
If we had been outside for part of the lesson and were finishing off inside (sometimes we had a double period) we all had to go in barefeet - shorts only - as the rule was no outdoor shoes in the gym.
I remember feeling awkward initially about wearing so little in the gym, even embarrassed, but we were all the same and soon didn't even think about it. It was the norm for everyone, and I even came to enjoy it
I was quite shy about my body and I think my PE experience helped me to come out of my shell.
I think we've gone too namby pamby these days. Boys don't know what they are missing.

I went to a comprehensive in Cheshire in the 1980s where a lot of kids were from poor backgrounds. P.E. had to be done barefoot and all ball games were played shirts v skins. Like most of the lads I preferred to be in skins. You would be in trouble if you forgot your whole kit but if you just bothered to take your 'kecks' it was ok.

This is similar to my experience at a boys school in Lancashire - though we were barefoot. I recall doing pe outside too, only in shorts, playing football on the school playing field. In theory you were allowed to wear plimsolls, but boys often didn't bring them since you weren't allowed to wear them in the gym.

According to the links shirtless PE is still a practice in some schools:

http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/p/70311/3346822.aspx#3346822

http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/579.aspx?PageIndex=1

http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/579.aspx?PageIndex=1

When I was at secondary school in the 1960s boys had to do P.E. in just black gym shorts and plimsolls with no top. Boys were not allowed to wear anything under their shorts. I believe that this minimal P.E. kit was common practice in British schools from about the 1940s until the 1980s. I don't know if such requirements have existed at any schools in more recent times.

This is so like my own school in NE England at the same time: I left in 1960. Gym kit was white shorts, only. No tops, socks, shoes. No underwear was allowed until in the games master's judgement puberty had advanced sufficiently to need support, when briefs or a jockstrap were permitted, provided they were specially for gym/games and not one's ordinary underclothes. Infringement of this rule led to attention with the "slipper" - a large black gymshoe which stung badly. (As we always had a shower together after the PE session, it was easy enough for the master to check our physical development.)

Interesting to read Howie’s comment that their teacher was shirtless as well as the boys. Personally I always regarded being shirtless in PE as a discipline thing, because if you had a PE detention at my school you had to get changed into your usual kit but with no top. Basically the dynamic was this: the teacher was the one who wore a shirt and gave the orders, we lads had to shiver in our shorts and do as we were told.
In the same way, Shirts and Skins – which continued to be common practice until we were 16 - was something I associated with a punishment. We'd be split into four teams - two in different coloured bibs, a third team in white PE vests and the fourth taking their vests off. So if you were picked as a Skin, there’d be only four or five other boys with bare chests while most of the class kept their tops on and you felt you were being made to stand out from the crowd. Of course, the teams were picked completely at random, yet every time I stood in line in the gym, saw the teacher point in my direction and say the word ‘Skin’, it seemed to me as if I was being punished for no reason.
On the other hand, swimming lessons never seemed like that because, of course, every single boy in the class was shirtless. So I don’t think it’s a bad idea for boys to do PE shirtless, just as long as it’s the same for everyone and no-one feels singled out.

Hi!

Is this still a practice there?What is the name of the school?

This photo brings memories of grammar school I attended in the United States. Our PE uniform was blue shorts, no shirt
and no shoes. The teacher was also shirtless,maybe as an example.The idea being that shirtless was part of a boy's life.

Yes, an excellent picture.I also grew up with gym simlar to the picture.We all wore white shorts for what was then known as P.T and we were not permitted to wear any underpants under our shorts.P.T. was followed by a shower or nude swim in the schools pool.I think that as kids we were much healthier with the no underwear rule which was followed for all sports both at school and at home.Incidentally I grew in Cape Town.

Hi Aidan!Is it still a practice there?

There is a video on youtube of a Pe lesson.It is a teacher training video.It seems not too old.
Boys wear white shorts only and girls wear leotards.
It seems it is still a practice in some schools:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zoa5QBBiEbs

I went to St Cuthberts, an all boys school back in the 1980s, shirts were a strict nono in the gym and it was compulsory for lads to go topless, only a pair of white shorts was allowed. basketball was normally played shirts vv skins. think back it was quite liberating and enabled you to become body conscious , not a bad thing though think it must have been quite difficult for the fat guys

Which grammar school was it?Name?

I went to a Comphrensive school in the early 1990s and we were reguired to be shirtless for indoor pe. I loved it -it gave a realy sense of freedom.I think its a shame schools dont seemed to have continued with the practice.

Hi Nick! Which school was it? Thanks for your answering!

I went to an all-boys school in southern England during the 1980s where the official PE kit was white vests, white shorts, socks and trainers. I remember getting changed for the first lesson in the gym, only to discover that whatever the uniform list might have said, our PE teacher’s view was rather different and we were ordered to take our vests off. From then on it was ‘skins’ and no exceptions, in the gym at least.
We still had to bring our vests for outdoor lessons like cross country, but even then we sometimes had to run in teams, which meant half the class in vests and the other half bare-chested, even in the rain. There wasn’t any point in complaining and most of us wouldn’t have dared to in any case. A lot of teenage boys can be quite cocky, but I think having to go shirtless so often possibly helped to make us better disciplined that we might have been otherwise.