Burnley Grammar School

Nathan - I hope you won't leave us - you always spoke a lot of sense.

T

Someone asked when 'shirtless' PE was 'introduced'. Simply, I would say it goes back 100 years plus.
In the 1920s the health of the country was not good - think of things like TB & rickets and there was a 'national' move to improve things. The period between the wars (& onwards) saw a mass 'popular' movement towards fitness - both 'physical' & 'mental' - think of organisations like the 'Ramblers', the YHA, Scouts & Guides, National Assoc of Boys clubs (& Girls clubs), Women's League of Health & Beauty, local football & cricket clubs, etc., etc. Lido's & swimming pools were built; at one time, until quite recently there were six 'Sunday League' football pitches on 'common' land near me. In those days, of course, there weren't the vast suppliers of sports kit that there are now - you had a pair of footy shorts & that did for everything.

Rickets affected many youngsters in the 20s & 30s (my father included). To quote the NHS: A lack of vitamin D or calcium is the most common cause of rickets. Vitamin D largely comes from exposing the skin to sunlight, ... Vitamin D is essential for the formation of strong and healthy bones in children. And so - when you're out playing with your mates - take your shirt off ... and the same applies at school. (Nowadays we have to beware skin cancer, and I won't argue with that).

And thats it - all part of an attempt to improve the 'Public Health'.

Comment by: Alan on 7th February 2024 at 05:28

"Technically this is quite correct. But as with everything the reality is slightly different. If I was to suddenly decide I wanted all my class to keep on doing a shirtless lesson each time that would take some justification and I'd probably be advised in some way possibly, but casual here and there shirtless PE now and again requires no reasons although they can be given, sometimes are, mostly not though, just state what you want and get on with it."

That suggests to me things are done on a whim or caprice by the teacher on the day - and I am not just going on at Nathan here, I am sure there are many teachers with the same attitude. I do not think it unreasonable to ask why, especially with older pupils. I will say what I have before, and that is, I do not think Nathan is in any way an ogre of a teacher. I just want to know the status of these older, and often unwilling pupils - no accusations, no suggestion's of wrongdoing. I am genuinely not talking the Royal Liberty or Roberts situations here. That I use Nathan as my source is because he is the only contemporary teacher who engages with us.


Just sitting here alongside a colleague at the end of a busy school day reading some of this is disbelief I'm afraid. Someone else, was it Graham the retired PE teacher said this discussion is going around in circles and never progresses beyond certain points and left. It feels like that.

Why this specific detail of interest so much, did this apply to you, were you made to do these things at school after age 16 in your time if you stayed on.

First, nobody is making anyone aged over 16 even do PE at school, never mind ordering them to do all kinds like run around stripped shirts off. Most after 16 are not even doing PE anyway, and those that choose to do something are not told to remove anything on top after that age or shower. If they take part in any PE and wish to do so they are free to do that if they wish. So let's just put this nonsense to bed please that modern schools are forcing boys aged over 16 to parade around shirtless in PE. It's not happening, okay, clear enough. Not happening in compulsory manner. Long ago it might have done but not now, certainly not in my school or any I know of. End of point and no more needs to be said about it. You do not need to worry or obsess yourself about that aspect any further I can assure you.

Now to that paragraph of yours that you have answered my comment in quotes with, which is the real reason I'm prompted to respond. Quite honestly to conflate those other things in with me is so deeply offensive and also to my colleagues that I have decided there is no further point in continuing. How kind of you not to think I'm an ogre. I've been open and honest, do an honest days work with young people and have spent time I didn't have to being more than accommodating to previous comments of yours in particular but it always hits the same brick wall.

I've been more than happy to engage but I think I will give it a rest and leave this discussion for the time being, maybe for good and follow Graham out of here.

Sometimes there's just no telling some people and when you do they will never accept what is said and always find yet another excuse. Rather like one or two pupils at times infact.

So based on that answer today in the paragraph you wrote I think I will bring my participation on this discussion to a final close.

Thankyou for reading my thoughts the past year or so.

Cheerio.

@ Richard - Thanks for the photographs from Filton. Its interesting that the school was built in 1959(?) and demolished c2005 - a difference from my secondary school.

(Strange - I'm not from that area, but I've attended events 400yds from the school!)

Comment by: ALAN 1970 on 6th February 2024 at 19:35



I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding here, Alan. I wasn't accusing, but I was just trying to determine whether lads who are forced to stay on at school, because a very bad government is decimating employment opportunities for 16-18 year olds, so for those who loathe school (and I know I wasn;t the only one!) are given at least some options and control over their own lives, especially as it is through no fault of their own that they find themselves in this limbo land between being a schoolboy and a young working man. I suspect what follows it The Tony Blair Tribute Band, will be just as bad if not worse. I just want to know if, --as I hope they are not just herded in with he 15/16 year olds who have to be there till their 16th birthday. I especially didn't name anybody, but I was basing my supposition on these lines from Nathan's most recent post, especially the last line:

"

"Technically this is quite correct. But as with everything the reality is slightly different. If I was to suddenly decide I wanted all my class to keep on doing a shirtless lesson each time that would take some justification and I'd probably be advised in some way possibly, but casual here and there shirtless PE now and again requires no reasons although they can be given, sometimes are, mostly not though, just state what you want and get on with it."

That suggests to me things are done on a whim or caprice by the teacher on the day - and I am not just going on at Nathan here, I am sure there are many teachers with the same attitude. I do not think it unreasonable to ask why, especially with older pupils. I will say what I have before, and that is, I do not think Nathan is in any way an ogre of a teacher. I just want to know the status of these older, and often unwilling pupils - no accusations, no suggestion's of wrongdoing. I am genuinely not talking the Royal Liberty or Roberts situations here. That I use Nathan as my source is because he is the only contemporary teacher who engages with us.



Comment by: Ethan on 6th February 2024 at 23:20


Hi Ethan, I alluded to a similar problem with my schoolmate Mark, a week or so back. Mark was Jewish, too. This is the point - all those men of our age and older, and some teachers (and I don't mean Nathan or Mr Cawston, who are both sane and fair minded, and I am sure wold have stamped it out had they heard it), who look back on the communal showers as some great happy bonding experience, full of nudity, sweetness and light , humour and Lifebuoy soap, clearly do not remember, or choose to forget, the horrible, miserable, seemingly never ending taunting that went on for some boys who didn't confirm to the lads myopic ideas of what was "normal" (personal confession - till very late in my school days I was very small (in ALL respects) and short, so I was the runt of the litter), another lad had a very large and noticeable scar. These taunts didn't just happen for the first week or so of your big school life, they went on throughout the years you were in secondary. Mark was still receiving the same taunts at 16 he was getting at 11. Had I been bigger and a fighter, I would have had some very good put downs for these lads (for example what were they doing forever looking at that part of your anatomy?) but if I had tried it, I would have just got a bloody good thrashing, so the best you could do was offer friendship (the three of us remained friends long after schooldays). By 16 I was as sick as being called "Tin-Ribs" and other things (often used by the teacher as well, as a form of abuse) as my mate was at being called "Frankenstein" (again picked up and used by the teacher when he was in his bad books and Mark was with the same sort of insults as I guess you were. It hurts, and it hurts for long after those schooldays. To this day though I am now an average height and build I am still loathe to remove clothes in public. My life as a male stripper was ended before it began.

You can laugh about it, make light of it, but it makes me uncomfortable that the morons who still exist and no doubt behave just as ours did, are still given the opportunity to act like that, because those old school institutions still exist. One can only hope today's teachers have more sensitivity.

Comment by: Richard on 6th February 2024 at 22:34


What a great find there you have. I agree it shows how we did things in school back in those times very well. Brings back many memories for me too with those pictures. I always remember that about a third of the class never wore any plimolls on their feet and went bare, and for some reason I always associated those ones as coming from poorer families for some reason although it was probably far from the truth.

Perhaps the teacher was the actual person who took those photos in the class and that's why there is no sign of one in them. The reason for him doing so would be a good one to know - we never will of course - and whoever took them looked to have a rather decent camera to me. They must have ended up somewhere for some reason or another and it certainly wasn't the internet in those days. I'm sure teachers were not allowed to just take photos for their own personal satisfaction just like that. Those are good examples I agree. Thanks for sharing your school memory there. Nice coloured gym walls I thought! Mine were so dowdy and uninspiringly beige. Wasn't that supposed to be the colour of that decade.

At least with this new IP system since the start of the year we know that the claims of one person placing much of the content and follow ups in his favour was complete and utter fiction, as I always thought.

I come from Israeli parentage who brought me here when I was 10 years old. I don't wish to overplay the point and become too heavy on a light hearted subject but of course the most extreme example of what has been described on subjugation through clothing was done by the National Socialists eighty years ago, the true pinnacle example of subjugating others by removing everything they have, their clothing particular to my point here, never mind the property, liberty and their lives of course. I speak of the holocaust. It's a strong point I am making I know that but I felt like making it, forgive me if some feel I have overplayed my hand a bit with that one to drive home a point made by others.

When I came here at that young age I went to a normal non Jewish school and briefly found myself being taunted for how I looked when I took a shower at school and noticed no other boys like me which I had not expected. I cannot tell you how relieved I was one year when another boy joined the class and was the same as me even though he wasn't of the same faith. I remember being so surprised that all the English boys had foreskins that I couldn't wait to tell my mother what I had seen.

My old school is on Flickr, Filton High School, where I went growing up in the 1970's in Gloucestershire and started there in 1975, just one year after the two pictures of a very familiar gymnasium we used in those days and although that was taken in a class from the year before I arrived at the school it is almost an exact copy of the PE lessons I had at the school in the following years there, so I can effectively show it to you as being 'my' PE class in every meaningful sense because it's a perfect match. There are a couple of pictures from 1974 in this case on Flickr, perfectly illustrating in rather good quality what we used to get up to and as you can see we were all made to do PE in our bare chests. I'm not sure why the photos must have been taken, they look very good quality I must say and where is the teacher in them I wondered when the boys are being seen. I should imagine it was quite unusual to have your PE class being photographed like this. White shorts were the main colour I remember wearing but in this photo game of basketball it looks like the teams must be differing by shorts colour which is how I seem to remember things being done with team set ups against each other. In a school where you all go bare chested there is no skins and shirts option after all. We NEVER wore shirts in the school gym at the school through to last lesson of regular mandatory schooling at fifth form.

It doesn't exactly surprise me that the PE photos are the most popular ones being looked at. The boys in the photos look like the first or second formers to me, about twelve then.

So here you are, a great typical example of a middle 70's English school PE lesson and what we had to be like and do. A shame that I can't get a shot of a PE teacher in them, would probably have recognised them if they had been.

After lessons like this, mandatory showering was always strictly administered for all. Overall it might have given most of us a better body image and made us less neurotic about our looks and physical shapes and sizes and what we had. Although as you can see there are no especially overweight or even underweight boys in obvious view, just normal looking boys of the 70's in a normal class doing normal things.

I'm sure not everyone liked doing things like this but in those days people didn't complain too much, they just got their heads down and on with it, the traditional British stiff upper lip began at a young age.

I used to hate having to pull those stupid green PE mats about though!

Paste the following link into your browsers;

https://www.flickr.com/people/134490316@N07

https://www.flickr.com/photos/134490316@N07/

Where has the PE teacher on here ever stated that he is making age 16+ pupils do the things you are saying Alan? He hasn't as far as I am able to read back at what he has been saying over recent months, but you keep picking up on this point.

Now let's get to that other point you make about starting PE as you mean to go on at an early age. I remember doing lots of shirtless PE in the school halls of both my first school, the infants as it was called, and then at the middle school through from the age of 5 until I was 12, never mind secondary school thereafter where similar was required a lot of times too, plus showers once you got to being at secondary level. But a lot of us change our attitudes and feelings as we get older even if we have been doing things a long time already and get naturally self conscious in our early teens regardless. I was a bit like that at times, but I'd been doing school PE since as early as I could remember in a similar way, very often not involving a shirt and just going with shorts. So your argument doesn't automatically stack up that just because you did something early in life it made you immune later on.

When I was 7 years old I used to run around the road with next to nothing on outside the house with friends. I wouldn't have been seen dead doing that by the time I was about 13 or 14, mostly incase any of the girls I was at school with might have seen me! But at 7 I didn't give any of that a second thought. The same applies at school. We change.

Comment by: Mark Maynard on 6th February 2024 at 03:44


I agree with every word you said in your message, Mark. I hold no brief for the armed services, but I had one mate who was in the army in the early 1990s (REME) and a relative in the RAF, and believe it or not, both had singlets as part of their PE kit I have seen photographs taken of everyday life in both organisations - there are documentaries shown on TV from time to time (Talking Pictures who show old TV shows and films - they're showing Out Of Town again now with Jack Hargreaves), and they have a 1966 film about the RAF and an army one from the late 70s(?) and they are also allowed to cover up in the scenes shown in the gym and on playing fields. I can't remember the titles but all their material comes round often enough

Why schools feel they have to inflict their strict (un)dress code, even today, seems to be based solely on a whim - if a teacher "feels like it", - perhaps just about justifiable for younger boys, but older teenagers? - but these days with students getting that much more grown up earlier, with bullying at high levels, face to face and cyberworld, why they persist in these outdated practices more suited to the immediate post-war years is completely beyond my ken.

Nobody seems willing to explain it,though many justify it.

Comment by: Nathan Hind on 5th February 2024 at 22:08


Nathan. As I have said before it if this shirtless stuff started the day you started school at 4 or 5, I don't see there would be a problem, at all, but it generally starts at around 11, when the level of self-consciousness is much higher (it would probably be non-existent at 5).

But let's move on to today. I think you might agree with me, that many lads, who would, until very recent times, been leaving school at 16, and earning money and living a more independent life, are stuck at school, very much against their will until they are 18. I don't want to rehearse this argument again about whether a 17 year old is an adult, or a "child" (let's settle on "young adult"? - not in my book a "child") but when you say, apropos of dress code "just state what you want and get on with it", while I will reluctantly agree with you this fairly applies say from 11 to 16, do you inflict this rule on those much older reluctant pupils, between 16-18 who don't want to be at school anyway?, and don't you feel uncomfortable doing so, if this is the case?.

Certainly when you elected to attend sixth form college, in the past, which covers those ages 17/18, the regime was far more relaxed and you could opt out of things like woodwork or PE if it had no relevance to your future career, or what you wanted to study.

I think these older conscripts ought to be given some consideration - do you agree?. I would go as far as to stay that those lads who have been let down by idiot governments, and who are at school as a sort of "punishment" for not being able to find work that government policies are denying them, ought to be allowed to opt-out of non academic subjects. Or perhaps they are?. I would like to know, because I know how aggrieved I would feel to still be being treated like a child in my later teens. In short, do you have a more flexible attitude with older pupils?

This isn't just a current government blast - I strongly suspect the next one will be worse - if power goes to Ms. Phillipson's empty head
any more she might be holding "advanced teeth brushing lessons" for sixteen year olds.

The problem is, all governments tend to comprise middle/upper class career politicians who do not understand the working classes and their desire to make decisions for themselves. Indeed, many of them have never really had a proper job in their lives, jumping on the political gtavy train as soon as they hit university.

Just seen the recent comments so before I forget in the morning I will add some thoughts on the whole shirtless psychology at time it was done.

Throughout history, clothing, or more importantly the partial or complete removal of it has been used against groups of people to stress a sense of subjugation on them. This applies strongest in the army but was also most definitely going on in schools within the UK in PE classes for certain. Until the 1980s most UK schools had a policy of shirtless PE as part of the boys PE uniform whilst the teachers in charge of many such classes would be dressed in tracksuit tops and even in many cases full length bottoms. The difference between the teacher and the pupil quite extreme and not accidental. In many cases the same teacher would be as active in the lesson while dressed like this. This generally applies to ages 11 to 16 most of all, and did in my case going from the years 1977 until 1982.

In no case was any sense of choice made available or options. It was a done deal. Taking your clothes from you is about a power dynamic, even just your shirt like in school, although of course they took the lot after PE as they forced the showers on you.

We knew this at school right back then.

I have no idea what it was about this period that gave rise to the practice becoming so widespread more than previously but it's real enough and memorable enough.

No actual problem as such myself with these things but won't pretend I was the keenest either and everyone knew years ago there was more to it in school, just they don't admit it like they do openly in the army.

Comment by: Stuart B on 4th February 2024 at 20:19
Teachers in PE don't have to justify asking the class to be bare chested even in 2024.



Technically this is quite correct. But as with everything the reality is slightly different. If I was to suddenly decide I wanted all my class to keep on doing a shirtless lesson each time that would take some justification and I'd probably be advised in some way possibly, but casual here and there shirtless PE now and again requires no reasons although they can be given, sometimes are, mostly not though, just state what you want and get on with it.

The Archie Deacon post on 4th February was a good one. The final paragraph caught my eye especially.

Archie - 'Back then I had no real sympathy for boys who didn't wish to take a shirt off or take a shower due to their own insecurities but in the years since and I'm getting on a bit, I've changed my view and each to his own, although a shirtless gym often felt like an efficient gym where we got on with it more. There is a hint of truth in the "It helps" discipline question, just a bit though, boys bond and muck in better when shirtless I did notice that in some classes. The bigger question is why? But it was never used as a disciplinary measure in and of itself.'


It's a good question that I'd like an answer to. I've not noticed any of this within my own PE groups taking gym but am aware it is a quite well held belief in certain circles. Interesting change of attitude you have. I'd have empathy for those with insecurities but wish them to talk about them. That's the difference between the older and younger generation I suppose. But I still expect showering and when asked shirts to come off without too much fussing about and that's what happens almost always as I've said before.

Just to go back to the comment that was made before Christmas regarding the schoolboys and the teachers being seen outside completely shirtless. I'm unsure if I commented about this at the time but I have shown that to one of my colleagues who came to my home and he simply dismissed it out of hand completely for what it's worth, in the sense of it being a scheduled normal school day PE lesson. Possibly it was something else on a voluntary basis with guys older than they looked. It could be opening a school up to various legal liabilities doing what was described we both tended to agree.

Finally, I would appeal to the Yorkshire Dad to follow up with some more information on his case.

My day today consisted of some quite traditional style gym PE indoors mainly, including a skins and shirts volleyball game of 10 aside, some morning running and an early afternoon fitness testing session with an introductory warm up activity. During that some removed shirts for a short period. A very typical day really. I've got to draw up my PE template for next term in the next couple of weeks with colleagues.

Does anyone have any idea why schools across the country seemed to really take to doing PE throughout the 1970's and 1980's barechetsed in particular?

I know this from my own children but when I was at school in the late 1950's and through a lot of the 1960's I always wore a nice pristine white top.

My own son used to complain incessantly about the way PE was done at his school in his secondary years, but he was not a PE hater or skiver, and this did include the regular going barechested lessons he had back then and how much he had to keep showering, not to mention the amount of rugby he had to do, not a sport he was keen on. I listened to what he said but never thought any more about it, putting it down to usual teenage angst most of them were probably thinking at the time.

When I saw the teacher say he had reconsidered his own opinion it made me think about it a little too from my own perspective.

Comment by: Stuart B on 4th February 2024 at 20:19


With all due respect, Stuart, fact or not, I think it is incumbent on all of us to explain ( I haven't said "justify") why we do things in our work which impacts on others. - . especially when we are talking about a practice which seems to be dying out now. I explained yesterday why I refuse to pay 50 pence more for a stamp today than I would have done a year ago (the first rise was in April, the second in October). I am not prepared to take the hit out of my own pocket, and if you raise charges to customers, you lose them because they forget little things like that, and probably think we get free postage from Royal Mail)

I was explaining, not justifying. Some companies would be prepared to take the hit. I am not, because I can't afford to.

Quite true Stuart B. That might come as a surprise to some on here.

A teacher is quite at liberty to request his class come to PE in the manner he wishes unless the head teacher decides otherwise and most head teachers rarely intervene in this. That's what makes the story placed by the Yorkshire Dad (plus the Nathan links) so very interesting, because we appear to have a head teacher some point during last year, 2023, (male or female, do we know this?) who was directly intervening in quite a detailed and personal way regards the PE department of his school and not in the way you would think, almost the completely other way to what you'd expect, where the head is demanding bare chests for boys in his school for PE while quite clearly a PE teacher in the school is less than comfortable with that kind of intervention, and I don't blame him.

It should be up the PE teacher on the day to make that decision like it almost always is and almost always was. In most circumstances the teacher effectively has the general say and doesn't have to give any explanation, unless asked I suppose, but just saying because that's how it is going to be is good enough bu anyone is free to give whatever explanation if they feel they want to. I have some experience of the subject and can confirm in my experience that PE being done shirtless did create a few problems where I was at times but teachers would prevail, as they should. A shirtless request is not deemed unreasonable in school PE. Many (not all) PE classes at my school were taken this way, shirtless for boys as a direct mandate for them all, so no discriminatory behaviour, and it was just because that's the way we wanted it at times, no more than that actually. Really that straightforward and nothing more to it.

Back then I had no real sympathy for boys who didn't wish to take a shirt off or take a shower due to their own insecurities but in the years since and I'm getting on a bit, I've changed my view and each to his own, although a shirtless gym often felt like an efficient gym where we got on with it more. There is a hint of truth in the "It helps" discipline question, just a bit though, boys bond and muck in better when shirtless I did notice that in some classes. The bigger question is why? But it was never used as a disciplinary measure in and of itself.

Teachers in PE don't have to justify asking the class to be bare chested even in 2024.

Fact.

Don't some schools have a school psychologist nowadays or is that my imagination?

The fifteen year old in the discussion here could do with maybe a chat with someone like that, a psychologist which might help. I see no point brooding about these kind of things.

Like others have said, the outcome would be nice to know.


Good to see common sense discussion return since new year also.


(I'm regular Mike who has posted lots, not the same lurker Mike who posted on 2nd February at 5pm by the way, although I largely agree with his points made anyway which are sensible)

I feel for that mother on mumsnet, agree or disagree she was just trying to help her son get over his insecurities and everyone was jumping down her throat.

The way I read it, it wasn’t his first time swimming, just the first time the swimming class was mixed gender. At any rate, schools can be very strict on uniform even when there is no clear rationale, and in this case it’s a perfectly normal swimsuit requirement.

Comment by: Tony on 3rd February 2024 at 23:36


I will leave Nathan out of this Tony, but I think it is important that anybody "in charge" can justify ANY decision they make. For example, last spring I decided that my little company, such as it is, would no longer use first class mail. Why? - well the price of a 1st class stamp went up from 1.10 to 1.25 at about 2 weeks notice, having gone up from 95p just a couple of months prior to that - and delivery isn't even guaranteed the following day now. 2nd class post "only"went up to 75p. Very little of my output goes by first class letter post (just the odd capacitor or transistor), but on principle I will not bow to Royal Mail's outrageous pricing policy. I know I have upset at least one customer because of this (he wanted his 1nF capacitor the next day - if not sooner) but he relented when I explained it to him. We have to justify our actions, whether it it postage stamps or dress code.


Robbie (4/2/27 0330 today).

I think it is in the nature of things that people ask for advice and never say thank you for it, or tell you the outcome. I know years ago I used to belong to a Yahoo electronics forum and you rarely got a thank you for a JPEG or some information culled from a book, but there you go.

I agree that if the lad has got to 15 without having to get his shirt off, (lucky him!) there is no point in starting an incident about it now, just request he is excused from swimming lessons. I still suspect he has got himself tattooed and is afraid of mum and the school finding out about it. It is the only explanation I can think of. What is a minor matter to us at our ages seems something really massive when you are a teenager. Or it could be he is very thin something that doesn't matter to everyone else, but it matters to him.

I do not agree with homogenisation of everything, or standardising everything like has been said. I think we are best when we have a country full of differences and that can apply to education as much as the high street.

I would really like to know why a mother asked that question on Mumsnet about her son, gained so much reaction for and against her shy son's request that she writes him a letter to excuse him from being made shirtless in school swimming but after all that has never bothered to come back with what the outcome was. I do find that irritating. I'd genuinely really like to know how that turned out and any reactions from the various sides in it, the family, the school and of course the boy involved.

For this to suddenly become an issue for a 15 year old schoolboy who could by that age be 6ft tall and the size of his teachers just seems so strange to me. Many of us reach our adult size at that age, certainly in height if not width! How come this boy wasn't given swimming classes sooner like almost anyone I know. Is Mumsnet thought of as a trusty source? It looked authentic enough to me, although hardly a site I normally gaze at.

If this boy is that bad over simple swimming requirements all boys do you'd have to wonder what kind of fuss he'd be making in days gone by in the schools most of us attended where we were forced into full scale mass nakedness with one another for the showers. This boy clearly never faced that old school reality I and most thread readers here did of a certain age. Quite lucky he doesn't go to Nathan's school. One wonders what kind of fuss or reaction would be going on there if he was fighting against actually being asked, or told to remove everything he had on and be naked with his peer group as opposed to just loss of a top in a pool. Someone should remind him of a past where this was an unavoidable school time action we took a couple of times a week.

He should definitely swim shirtless with his chest bare like anyone else. But I would not force him into it at that age, he's too old for that and possibly too big as well. I also wonder if he is even keen to swim at all and enter the water if he's avoided it to 15. Everyone loved swimming when I was at school, or so I thought and we always did it in mixed company unlike much segregated PE.

Going back to where I started and most of us in my time were expected to all be the same at school, standardised homogeny if you like with quite a bit of individuality stamped on if you showed too much of it. It's less so now I think, although I hate schools that try to dictate very narrrow types of hairstyles that youngsters can have, what does it matter? You could have whatever hair you wanted at my school.

I saw the question that was asked to Nathan about what reason he had for asking class to take PE at any one time bare chested.

Surely there doesn't really have to be a reason does there? It's just another example of an expected dress code if you like.

If an individual teacher simply decides he wants his own PE class to turn out in bare chests then surely that is his decision and he should not have to actually have a defined reason for why he is asking for it to be done that way. Some teachers might just prefer things that way in their class and others not, either way should be respected. They are the teachers after all, the decision makers, not the children.

I don't think Nathan has any reason to justify taking his class in bare chests when he does. I never questioned my teacher when he sometimes asked me to do that with my mates in the changing room or sports hall at school, we just whipped our tops off if we had one on and threw them aside and got on with the lesson or if we were changing just left them completely off and went on our way.

I do agree on the summer heat comment, that sounds like a funny old excuse to me to bring out of the blue. It sounds worse than just giving out the new rule and leaving it at that.

I saw the question that was asked to Nathan about what reason he had for asking class to take PE at any one time bare chested.

Surely there doesn't really have to be a reason does there? It's just another example of an expected dress code if you like.

If an individual teacher simply decides he wants his own PE class to turn out in bare chests then surely that is his decision and he should not have to actually have a defined reason for why he is asking for it to be done that way. Some teachers might must prefer things that way in their class and others not, either way should be respected. They are the teachers after all, the decision makers, not the children.

I don't think Nathan has any reason to justify taking his class in bare chests when he does. I never questioned my teacher when he sometimes asked me to do that with my mates in the changing room or sports hall at school, we just whipped our tops off if we had one on and threw them aside and got on with the lesson or if we were changing just left them completely off and went on our way.

I do agree on the summer heat comment, that sounds like a funny old excuse to me to bring out of the blue. It sounds worse than just giving out the new rule and leaving it at that.

Comment by: Will on 3rd February 2024 at 13:27


Hi Will, All I can say is that I knew somebody ho was in the army in the 1990s and I have seen filmed documentaries made later than that on TV, . I think my mate was at Sutton Coldfield originally, and even PT, as they call it there, was conducted in shorts AND singlets, (he showed me some photos of his army life) often with really stern PTIs. If that is good enough for military discipline, why isn't it acceptable in schools?. I do think some head teachers regard "their" school as their personal fiefdom. The way,for example, in recent weeks,some schools have been eager - some might say overeager , - to allow politicians to go into their schools. clearly with the heads approval, with a photographer and film crew to show the kids how "nice" they are. School in my view, should be entirely non political. Those absurd school visits are clearly electioneering.

Perhaps also it some regional sort of thing?. Here in London, tracksuits and full kits seem to be the norm (just occassionally I have to go past our local Academy - not - I hasten to add, as I often as I am in workspace where pupils wait at the bus stop, a few yards away, and their sports ground is open to the main road, and of course, we have the Mumsnet lad, who has never had to remove his shirt and is now 15. I wonder what part of the country that is (and why couldn't I have gone there!). If any headmaster advocated shirtless PE outdoors in the summer I think he would be in trouble because of the risk of skin cancer which has been plugged the last few years. They tell construction workers to cover up now

I think schools should be more open and honest about WHY they do things, in the way that they do, and explain them, and there should be some standardisation, so whether yo go to school in London or Leicester you can broadly expect the same treatment. .

Went to a school that did PE without shirts constantly in the mid eighties.

It feels like a golden age but was it really?

On this whole being told what to do thing, I get what Robert says entirely.

Spoke once to my old teacher about PE and when I pulled him up on shirtless PE memories I asked why it was seen as so important and keeping cool never came into it. But when he mentioned discipline I asked if that had anything to do with it like some people think and his answer was really short but really interesting, all he said was - "It helps".

I think those two words say an awful lot.

I hope the Yorkshire teacher comes back to answer the other PE teacher on here who asked him some points. Shirtless PE might not be as rare as some think even now but that kind of explanation for it and change is rather different to anything you might expect to hear. It sounds like that head teacher is pulling some kind of heat based health and safety stunt based on climate change pushing to me. I wonder if this might be a woman doing this or is a male head?

It's a phoney reason anyway and I think our Yorkshire dad teacher knows this by commenting about it.

Nothing wrong with shirtless PE if they want to do so, let them choose if it's too hot for them like many people do outside of school if they are doing the garden on a hot day or something.

I must ask the teacher from Yorkshire:

When your school began requiring boys to strip to the waist for PE, were they made to do so around their female peers? Or were girls separated for PE sessions?

Did any boy or parent complain about this mandate? Was any exemption made for boys who were uncomfortable with stripping due to say, obesity?


Since hot weather was used to justify making boys strip to the waist, were girls subjected to any change in policy?

Comment by: Robert Coulson - Teacher 1967-2009 on 2nd February 2024 at 19:08


Robert - genuinely, thank you - that is the nicest thing any teacher ever said to me (and I am not being sarcastic). I did my best, and I never went home with a list of complaints, I kept them to myself. I never caused fights or carried a knife - unlike quite a few!. I kept my head down. If we had teachers that encouraged, things might have been different, but not one of them ever did, and in the end that lack of encouragement or enthusiasm takes it's toll - worse for others than it was for me, as I had my outside interest - music. No music at school, and some of my schoolmates had no real interests at all of a practical sort.

What concerns me about school now - now that so many pupils will have to stay on till they are 18, thanks to the decimation of industry and the retail sector, is that back then, in my time, if you were at school at 17 you were in the sixth form, you had some control over what subjects you wanted to study and most teachers treated the pupil with a degree of humility and some respect, in some regards more as an equal, and not a nuisance. Now just tacking on two years to the ordinary school life, I am concerned that they will treat a 17 year old just like a 14/15 year old, and that won't help their self esteem or self reliance, and I put myself in their place and know how I would feel. My best creative years were , say, 18 to mid 20s, then life got in the way.

You are quite right, I didn't like being told what to do, when I was in a big band (and they'll never come back!) we had a leader who was dictatorial, so in the end six of us "resigned" - some on more friendly terms than others and we had a co-operative band - there was no leader and we produced far more productive music than we did in the big band. It was all co-operation not coercion. Again, a different leader of the big band might have made for a friendlier and more creative unit, but you have to work with what you are given.

I had a couple of jobs as an employee till fifteen years ago - no complaints against my employers who were invariably friendly and polite, but when , in 2007 my company was taken over by a multinational I resigned the same day , as I had visions of school again - after a few months I got my own business up and running, and I am much more constructive and happy than I would have been as a number in the multinational.

I hope somebody can prove me wrong that these reluctant stayers-on, because they can't find work (and it is not their fault - it is the fault of successive governments who have made so many areas of employment unviable, and now the fetish for "Net Zero") will be treated more like old sixth former were and not just part of the under 16 herd. The way things are going I am not hopeful. What is the point of giving the vote to 16 year olds, when they will have to take the morning off school to go and vote, even though they will still be regarded as schoolchildren?.. I would welcome professional opinions on this.

Finally, further news was published today about the Royal Liberty School affair, but out of deference to yourself, Nathan and Mr Butterfield, I will not give a link to it. When I give those details it is not me implying anything at all against teachers who post on this site - you must be decent or you wouldn't be writing on this site and being so open. If anyone DOES wish to see the material, they can always email me and I will send them the link.

Again, many thanks for seeing I am not the monster some people think I am. It means a lot.

"Let's face it, we are back to this "control" thing - I'm in charge and you'll do what I tell you." says Alan.


That is the basics of teaching for you Alan! Discipline isn't a dirty word.

You're just one of those kids who didn't like being told what to do. And adult perhaps. We all have a bit of that in us, some more than others, such as yourself.

I've met quite a few former pupils going back many years ago who I used to give a very hard time to for being like this and none held it against me and infact quite the opposite, they told me they needed it a firm word or two and direction but didn't know at the time.

Clearly you were not a bad lad at school, that seems clear to me, just one of the really sensitive ones in that poor environment I know you speak of.

It's not really a criticism of you, just an observation based on what I've read.

Robbie your reply is better than mine. The reason I wouldn't write the letter is because, though I am sure in the case of a teacher such as Nathan it would remain private, I can just imagine the delight some more more sadistic teachers would have in announcing to the class that so-and-so's mother had written to him, and in turning down the request make the boys distress even greater, by giving his fellow pupils "a laugh".

I, too, have the greatest sympathy for him. In writing on here these days I am more than cognizant of the fact that there are those who will delight in twisting my words, and making repulsive assumptions and allegations, but I did wonder if, perhaps, the lad had got himself a tattoo and he is worried about his teacher seeing it, because he is under-age legally, for such a procedure, and all sorts of problems might arise - the over zealous school reporting it to mum, the trading standards officers etc etc, , and possibly ending up as a court case, and for that reason the lad wants to remain covered up.

If I were the parent, my inclination would be to request my son to be excused from those classes, on the grounds that the school has left it very late to introduce the subject and it is therefore clearly not a priority in their establishment. If they refused, I would make sure he had lots of dental appointments lined up on the day of the week the lessons are due to take place.

I think though, that the case poses a stronger question - and that is, whom has the ultimate say on a child's upbringing - the parent or the school?. This question will, I think, become even more important if, what looks like the next government, is going to start meddling in children's lives, starting off with the otiose "teeth brushing lessons" - God help us!. Goodness knows what else they will try to meddle in. Schools currently act in loco parentis, but what further powers will they give themselves, if given governmental approval?, and these days we are talking about "children" up to the age of 18..

It was nice to read a reply that gave prominence to the lad's feelings and not just the knee-jerk, "he has to do what he's told, because I did" approach. It would be fascinating to know how the saga ended, and what the real problem is.