Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Liam on 11th December 2024 at 20:46
Danny C my brother reminds me of your comments further back, do you have any pictures or films your parents took of your sports days because my parents took one or two where everyone you can see on the school field who is a boy there is shirtless in the 1980's.




Quite a good question that has given me pause for thought. I do have one definite photo of my school sports day, a set piece class photo of me aged 13 with my class and some others, about 40 of us in total and none of us is wearing tops, we are all barechested, as we were evry sports day afternoon for a few hours in the company of a large amount of visiting families and others. I had other set piece photos taken in subsequent years but am not in possession of those. A couple of people did email me once and I did share the photo I do have of my own school sports day like that, only wearing shorts and trunks. Swimming was a part of our sports day as well as track and field and other bits and pieces. Our barechested PE lessons continued for sports day just the same, no tops allowed, nothing on our feet either, which I always found a bit strange even if we were on grass.

But good question about other photos. I'm not aware any of my family took any photos of my sports days at school like this, but cannot be sure. I always had at least one parent come to them, my mum, and even one grandparent a lot too, my nan during the 80's. I know the parents of some of my old school friends and they might have taken things. I know I saw people with cameras at these open sports day events in our school every first week of July. I also know that a local press guy was always taking lots of images, wherever they ended up.

Liam, thank you for your recollections of your and your brother's schooldays.

Don't mind my asking, but just out of interest, did you move to a slightly different area when you went from "first school" to "primary school"? How old were you when you made the transition?

I'm just a little puzzled, because "primary school" in the UK normally refers to a school covering the whole age range from 4 to 11. I went to an infant school from 4 to 7, then a junior school from 7 to 11 before going to secondary. I gather in other parts of the country, there were first schools and middle schools before secondary, with transitions taking place at different ages - sorry if this is over-complicated!

Bill.

I noticed you said the same thing this time last year. Do you think it's something to do with this time of year then, a special event or something rather than everyday normality there? December is quite an unusual time to see running like that. Comparing what you've seen to a few years ago with some of the older people here, we would have been made to do that but you just know they were unlikely to have been, that's why you saw some with shirts on obviously, that's how they felt best. I feel for those who got sent out like that when they didn't like it. I think some people like pushing their limits of endurance even if it means a bit of suffering, or cold, ice baths for instance. At least none of us at school were forced into sports ice baths in our time to aid our muscles after PE. I had a chance to try one once and looked at it and declined, my hand went numb when I stuck it in, I can't imagine my whole body in something like that.

There's a 10 year gap between me and my older brother, we both went to the same secondary school, he did from 1982 until 1988 and I did from 1992 to 1998. There is also a sister between us. When he went there in the 1980's the P.E took place shirtless all the while. One of the first memories I hold is being about 4 or 5 years old and going to watch him with my parents at sports day and seeing all the boys without much on up top. When I was that age, just 4 or 5 my mum often kept me shirtless all day long if it was nice conditions and so I got quite used to it. When I went to first school they did a lot of PE there in the 80's with boys and girls topless together, many just in pants, some in shorts, all barefoot. At the time I was doing that my brother was nearing the end of secondary. When I got up to secondary school myself by the 1990's I was always shirtless in the school gym, everyone was, and had to be. The options seemed to be very limited about what could be worn. The only difference was that I did wear a shirt for the sports day but some boys didn't, they let us choose that because of letting the public in on us all. My brother didn't get that. Danny C my brother reminds me of your comments further back, do you have any pictures or films your parents took of your sports days because my parents took one or two where everyone you can see on the school field who is a boy there is shirtless in the 1980's.

My primary school was very different. For three years there I never did any P.E shirtless, and we were always in gym looking very well dressed in matching red polo short sleeved tops, blue shorts, white socks pulled almost to the knees and trainers laced up. Always. It never changed. When I started primary school and did P.E like this I felt like I was overdressed, having come from a first school where it was done shirtless and barefoot. When I got up to secondary school I'd been used to staying dressed for P.E so had to get used to it all over again going shirtless and it took time to adjust to again but I think I was alright with it most of the time after a while. But ten years after my brother in the 1980's little had actually changed throughout the 1990's except not having to be shirtless when public were invited onto school grounds. One thing that hadn't changed was communal showering, I was using the same white tiled communal showers at school in the late 1990's as my brother had done in the early 1980's and they were compulosry to use with him then and with me later on and nobody was allowed to walk in with shorts on to hide their modesty, so we are both from the school 80's and 90's generation who were used to waving our tackle about with our mates after P.E, which was an education in itself come to think of it. My sister never had to shower at school if she didn't want to, so never did.

Bill, it's good to see lads running stripped to the waist. Due to where we live I run barechested the vast majority of the time. Recently and out of the blue. my eldest son (11) asked if he could remove his t-shirt and promptly stripped off. He coped with the conditions and the cold admirably I've told him it's down him if he wants to strip off to run he can. We'll see what Saturday morning brings.

Dropping in again to say I was sitting in my car between deliveries late this morning in Dunstable and saw a group of youngsters running from the same school I mentioned on here about a year ago doing the same thing. There were a group of about 20 of them and at least three quarters of them were shirtless with an older adult (teacher?). They looked about 16 or 17. On my dashboard at the time it said it was 7 degrees C and it was breezy out and about this morning at times with no sunlight. Who says modern kids are soft!

Lots of people had the old fire drill in PE moment. I suppose somebody has to during the school day. We were already outside when it went off and dressed accordingly, so no problems. I was always disappointed that we didn't start seeing flames licking from the roof of the maths block!

I think it was quite unusual in those days James to have a parent who would think shirtless in PE, even out like that, was crazy, certainly the dads anyway. I can imagine a few mums mollycoddling their sons over it though. Did he not drive by again to check, he must have known your timetable, I always had to give my parents my school timetable so they knew what I was doing and could check.

Humdinger, great nicknamed, no need to boast though. Good points made, never really thought of school PE like that. Typical philosophising teacher. Actually she's wrong, our parents paid for those PE lessons like everything else in the education budget.

Talking budgets, Gary Oliver on the cost of school renovations. What you've got to remember is that schools run on tight margins and frugal budgets so what might seem dirt cheap to a builder might not be to someone balancing the school books and the education budget in council locally. We know builders make a packet. I was quoted 8K for a minor brick pointing job last year on a small area. I didn't return the call after that!

Never seen the Good Health video beforew Paul, gosh that was in your face wasn't it. They didn't seem very bashful though did they. Perhaps they were keen to be seen on TV at any cost. I'd have a real gasp and mighty good laugh if I could see myself doing that nowadays with friends I'd long forgotten. I hope the cameraman was CPS checked or equivalent. He could have bootlegged some of that for others. Perhaps the kids all got a copy. I would have wanted one.

Gary Oliver - If you'd go nuclear about phones hanging about I wonder what you'd have done about this, posted previously.....

<Comment by: Paul J on 24th June 2022 at 14:59
I've just watched the Good Health video which I remember from years ago, I'm amazed it's still around.

https://youtu.be/NRRw-k7cGJs

One of the things that struck me immediately was that among the lads they were all of healthy size and more importantly weight for their age, there didn't seem to be an inch of fat to be seen.

Compare that to a similar group of lads coming out of school today and I'm pretty certain there would be a significant percentage of rather 'lardy' lads who would no doubt benefit greatly from the sort of PE classes the video shows and a generally more healthy life style.>






They had the full camera crew in their changing room filming a dozen or so from all angles getting out of PE kit, going in the showers, nothing on, head to toe, back and front, in and out, getting wet, soaping up, the lot of it, and drying and dressing. They had already shown a lot of shirtless mixed PE too. This wasn't even a secondary school but a middle school too. All shown on TV, perish the thought that was me being put out on daytime ITV like that back then. Their parents must have all agreed though you'd think.

When I was at secondary school so much PE was done without a top, skins for everyone male, and we had some decent bonding moments showering and checking each other out like you do, those who say they didn't are liars! I was fairly happy to do PE as most of the sports I didn’t mind. but as you near the end of secondary, you hit that phase where you want to get out of it and just chat with your mates. I remember a form tutor raising the amount of PE absences with the class once and a girl asked why they have to do PE. Her reply was brilliant. She said that when you're older you'll have to pay to participate in a class, join a gym or do a team sport. This is the one time it’s free and you get to do it with your mates. So make the most of it. Youth really is wasted on the young as she was completely right. What I'd do to be able to play football or cricket with mates twice a week for free now, I'd even happily do it skins again and share the showers with my fellow 52 year olds (ignoring the physical pain it would cause)!

(Humdinger was a school nickname a PE teacher called me for being a good all rounder at everything, and on my name, which the boys took up with another meaning about my size, if you know what I mean - no secrets in the school showers were there, haha, better than the boy we called Pinhead anyway, poor guy)

I remember my father going crazy as I had to run a cross country shirtless with the rest of the PE form in the early 80s down a public road when I was only 13/14 years old, sometime around 1981/2. We did this rather a lot actually, gym was already a complete bare chest skins only environment anyway, want to wear a top, forget that idea, so they just extended it to outside running too, but my father was driving this public B road in his dark green Austin Princess and went right past us and saw me doing this. I didn't even notice him until he got in later and told me, and he told me he thought the teacher was making a spectacle of us. He also mentioned the dangerous way we were running, on the left with the traffic flow rather than on the far right facing the traffic where we could be seen easier by oncoming vehicles. It wasn't a terribly busy road though. He insisted I told the teacher how to run safely, which I did and we changed that bit. The PE teacher was taking us out cross country running without knowing basic road safety, and we counted as pedetrians. As for the shirtless part, we kept doing that until a parents evening soon after and my father mentioned it, only because we were doing it in a dnagerous place and in public. My father thought my cross country PE teacher was arrogant because he didn't like being told things. We carried on just the same though, the little chat made no difference. It's hard to tell how many people I shared PE with actually liked or disliked doing the cross country in that way on the road, or bare chest gym in general. I neither loved nor unloved it, it was just what we did, but my father found it crazy.

Comment by: Woody on 3rd May 2023 at 18:43
PE at the secondary school I attended was shirtless for gym every Monday straight after lunch, and as I liked my food and filled my face in the school canteen I was often doing PE on a very full stomach and felt it noticed to look at because we had our shirts off and a teacher once made a "too many chips" quip at me. I was average weight, not fat. We were not allowed to put tops on in that lesson. I think I began eating a lot less on Monday's just so I was doing PE on less of a full stomach.

In the same lesson someone smacked a ball against the wall, nothing unusual in that, except it hit the fire alarm box and cracked the glass setting it off and sending us all outside only ten minutes into the lesson. A couple of teachers lent one or two their coats to cover and warm up while the rest of us just braved it and shivered until we got back inside.





Just had to pick out this old post from last year by Woody and the second paragraph, hope you're still reading Woody mate because this same thing happened to me towards the end of the 1970's. I was in the fourth years then, ages fourteen and fifteen. Like endless other boys at the time who took PE in regular compehensive schools our lessons were taken bare chested in the school sports hall which had two fire alarms, one either end. There was only one way in and out of the building via normal route, and a designated fire door. You could not get to the boys changing area without leaving one block and entering another, and the rule in a fire drill was once you left a school block you must never go in through another even as a short cut.

Congregating ready to start PE in the morning, the whole lot of us in class were there waiting around the sports hall bare chested as normal while the teacher had buggered off to his office for something quickly, and there was a ball getting thrown about that very nearly hit the fire alarm. Some twerp suggested a dare to break the glass because someone else had just suggested how crap it would be if we had to leave the lesson as we were without our tops on. This twerp said shall we find out and smashed the ball with almight force and broke the glass - ALARM RINGS - teacher runs back through into us and notices the glass, asks who did it, nobody answers except to say the ball accidentally smacked into it and we were all sent out through the fire door to assemble just as were were, thirty bare chested lads sent out onto a windswept all weather pitch assembly point. It was a poor day outside.

Our PE teacher told the head that someone in our group had broken the sports hall fire bell and set it off, so he kept all our PE group out there after everyone else in school had gone back in and demanded to know the culprit before anyone was allowed to move back into the building. A few people said it was an accident and couldn't be sure who actually threw the offending ball and the head told us no ball could possibly break the glass unless it was deliberately thrown at it with force at close range. Which we had done. Nobody owned up. Nearly the entire hour lesson time had been used up by the end of all this and when we did go back in we were quite fresh and our PE teacher decided to try one last time to get the culprit and when he failed he made the entire class of 30 lads take a freezing cold shower and stay in it until he told us we could get back out.

The twerp that caused all this got his answer, and of course nobody dobbed him in, we all missed a lesson, got humiliated outside at the fire assembly point, a dressing down from the head and our teacher and a cold shower to top it off. It really wasn't worth it.

I attended a Catholic school in Northern Ireland from 1987-1992.
The school was built in the late 1950's. It was designed for half the students it had in the late 80's. Class sizes were much larger and the communal showers simply where no longer fit for purpose. Yet they squeezed us into them anyway.

I was the 'sporty type', and had no issues with the situation.
However I remember one of my classmates who would shield his genitals every time on the walk from the benches to the shower and back again.
Those showers must have been a nightmare for him.
I own a construction company now. The argument that cubicles cost too much is nonsense.
Forced communal showers for children should not be happening in 2024, period.
If the school isn't prepared to spend the money on cubicles then shorts should be opitonal.
If it was my child being forced to expose themselves in the age of camera phones, and the internet, I would go nuclear.

School showers never went away, they've always been a part of the usual set up in upper schools across the country. It's only a question of which schools have continued to use them. It depends who you've got running your school actually. Men or women could make a difference too, but that's not knowledge, just a guess based on what I think I know. Like Roger, I am also a governor of a state academy in the west midlands. Our school has a head teacher who was once a physical education teacher for a time in his early career, and our school set rulebook requires showering to be done on completion of PE. As far as I know there haven't been any big issues over this being the case, and these are done in the expected way, my own three children were at the school over the last 18 years and took them, mentioned the fact they did this to us but expressed no obvious discomfort over it the rule. Two are boys, one a girl. All are quite sports mad so this may explain it a bit, it seems the less active or unsporty types tend to complain about such things disproportionately.

Showers are open plan, communal type. Separate cubicle areas are simply too expensive for most schools, they always have been. They do not meet the cost and efficiency threshold I'm afraid. Communal showering has always been the cheaper option and most time efficient way of dealing with the freshening up of a large group of people in a short amount of time such as in a school. Generally speaking if you want private then you have to pay for a health club membership, and even if many schools could provide such cubicle areas they would not be as private as you might think.

I remember when I was at upper school in the mid seventies my school wouldn't let anybody out the changing room who hadn't been in the showers after PE. The one surefire thing to make a PE teacher very angry and annoyed with you was trying not to go in the showers. You soon learned not to try that one on them. We always had a couple of PE teachers in the changing room and one would be standing in the shower area watching everybody and what they were up to and another would be pacing the changing room up and down making sure every last one of us was getting our PE kit full off and heading for the shower and not just getting dressed again in school uniform. They were really strict about this and down on you about it. There was banter and larking about but nothing that I would call bullying and I don't think anyone made anyone else feel inadequate about themselves, whatever shape or size they were while we shared the showers together.

I'd like to also agree with the response Roger gave to the lady concerned about her youngest child. I don't think going nuclear over the situation is the best way forward, that could cause more damage than is needed to be. As you have an older child who is unconcerned by the new rule, try and get him to reassure his younger brother. Like Roger has said, and I agree, just see how things go. Let the young child face up to the new rule and see how he fares with it for a short time. If it remains a big problem after that then you can be in a stronger position I feel. Yes, I know he doesn't want to take a shower or to be seen naked by his friends but I think he should at least confront this a few times first if that is the requirement and see if he really does feel the same after actually doing it. I think you may find he suddenly no longer mentions it. If however he does feel just the same and keeps mentioning it or feels even more unhappy then proceed with the measures you outlined.

One final thing on wearing shorts in the shower that got mentioned by Una. I do not understand this at all. If you wear shorts in the shower to hide parts of yourself, they get wet through, so you still have to remove them and put something dry on, therefore end up with nothing on during the process, so what is the point, and you are then left with wet through clothing to carry about. That's nonsensical to me and shouldn't be encouraged.

Comment by: Una on 5th December 2024 at 14:41

I agree with Roger, Una - complain about the schools decision. The old excuse (or one of them) for compulsory showers was that boys sweat. Not at eleven most of them don't.

You could also contact your local newspaper - they won't name you as a minor is involved, and y0ou could write to the current Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, though she seems to be as away with the fairies as our Chancellor "economist" and the Minister for the Environment.

Schools seemed to lose their dictatorial image for a few years, but seemingly want to regain it You have to wonder why. I guess they just like the feeling of "power" in their otherwise nondescript lives.

Our headmaster was against the cane but approved cold showers instead. You wore shorts, arms were outstretched and stood under nozzle. Thee head behind was angled to soak your back. There was no escape until the water was turned off. Bare chests in the gym were mandatory. We also had two outdoor sessions a week where for team games half the class would remove their PE vests to go bare chests and very often the teachers would tell the whole class to strip off. Cross country were mandatory with bare chests preferred over the thin vests, Lads running laps of the field without vests was a daily spectacle

This is all getting a bit heavy going isn't it.

Er, anyway. Shirtless PE. I was never the most enthused at the prospect but had done a little bit when I was around 8 or 9 in primary school and got along just fine with it. I knew I might be in for much more of it however when comprehensive school came along after our primary class made a visitation to the comprehensive to find out about it. We were getting a guided tour by a teacher there, I think she was the head of languages, she later taught me French and were allowed to walk past the gym and all look in the large clear windows from outside where I saw a lesson in progress and all the boys were shirtless doing something or other. That hit me at once. Nobody mentioned it I don't think. I remember it made me nervous just seeing that, even though at primary I'd done some. But I felt different in the comprehsive school setting and a year or two older and was surprised how anxious this made me. When we got our notes for the new comprehensive I made for the PE kit we had to bring to school and it only said trainers and shorts for gym, no mention of a shirt top of any kind. So that was clear then, and I was right. Boys didn't do shirt tops in the school gym. I remember seeing boys at school turn up without any PE kit at all hoping to get off PE and all they got was a trip to lost property to pick some shorts and even lent a spare teacher towel for afters showers. Therefore I always think they did shirtless to make it hard for PE excuses, after all you can't forget to bring your skin can you, and if you didn't bring your trainers then you went with nothing on your feet and only had yourself to blame.

I know some people talk of communal showers at school being a prime place for bullies to thrive, well I think my school was averagely so regards bullies around the place, there were a few rough kids I avoided but I can truthfully say that communal showers at my comprehensive were totally free of such behaviour and I never saw anything close to trouble with anyone, we all just stripped off, no shorts on, hanging out and got on with it, no nonsense at all. We had no choice, all in the same boats so just got our heads down and did it as told, and soon got very used to it.

If you want my advice for the young chap who's worried I'd suggest not making a big deal of it all, let him face up to the school showers if that's what they are saying, and only if he is still acting the same after about a month when he's actually done it for real then act on it. He might just surprise himself and you and end up relieved that it lessens the fear by just doing it. It did with most of us I think.

Una.

School governor here.

Not everything you probably want to hear but I'll give it a go.

Unfortunately from your viewpoint it is perfectly legal because it's a school policy. The school can enforce more or less any rules it likes and sanction non complience as it sees fit. If they say your son has to take a shower and they punish him with a detention for refusing, there isn't a thing you can do to stop that. You can tell your son to refuse to attend the detention, but he will then get an escalating sanction for that as you've said. Schools are always doing this nowadays a bit like parking fines escalating if you don't pay, a modern day curse.

However, it is a frankly bizarre decision by the school to do this. It's a ludicrous hill for them to die on and is rightly going to cause an enormous amount of consternation with some parents, probably not just you. So, from a school parent governor perspective, here is how to make this such a pain in the backside for them that they will likely reverse this strange decision.

First of all, a formal complaint to the head teacher and the chair of governors. The school complaints policy will be buried somewhere on their website (this usually isn't deliberate, it's just a bit of an afterthought) but essentially it is an email in which you say you are making a formal complaint. Make sure this goes to the chair of governors as well as a formal complaint. Don't feel you need to tell any teachers about this, you don't.

In your complaint, cite the inappropriateness of mandating this extent of class pupil hygiene; that pupils in the class are presumably exxpected to be naked in front of each other with no privacy or cubicals, when any local gym or sports facility would provide these. Point out that not only has this never been necessary previously in the school's existence (if true?), but it is not deemed necessary in the many schools across the country nowadays, although it has been in the past (certainly in my school in the 70s everyone had to use the communal showers). Point out that you and the majority of other parents regard "gender and non-age segregated" as wholly inadequate in terms of privacy. Demand to know how the school intend to safeguard against pictures or videos being taken in the communal shower, regardless of whether phones are allowed or not.

Demand that if this is to be enforced that the school provide individual shower cubicals for privacy and demand to know when these will be installed. A long shot I know, but it puts them on the spot. You wouldn't expect top get the cubicles if none are available already. Cite the inappropriateness for children with SEN and sensory needs of communal showers, alongside those at different levels of puberty development who are sensitive about their bodies. Cite the inevitable increase in bullying that will result from children at different stages of development being forced to be naked in front of each other. Demand to know the educational benefit of this and who took the decision.

In this email, make it clear that if these cubicals are not provided or this policy is not reversed, your next complaint will be to Ofsted. Christine might be able to provide more assistance there. Trust me, nothing will cause more panic than that threat. Ofsted are really, really big on provision for SEND students, even if yours are not, that's bullying and safeguarding at the moment, so if you go big on these points it will make them worry about a surprise one day inspection. In reality your letter to Ofsted will probably do nothing, they approve of school showering provision being available generally speaking, but if a bunch of you all do the same thing (or threaten to), citing the same thing it may lead to an Ofsted call to the head, and no one wants that. So if there is a parents group where you can get a bunch to agree to the same tactic if the school refuse to acknowledge you, that's better.

You can also state that your son will not be attending any detention from refusal to shower and nor any subsequent punishment for refusal. That leaves the school in a quandary, all they can do is temporarily exclude your child at worst, which they won't want to do for a year 7 simply because he doesn't want to be naked in front of others. I can't imagine school wanting bad publicity for punishing children with detentions all over insisting your year 7 must be naked with others if he really is shy, fearful or even frightened by this, and many get anxious over this type of thing, I remember well. So not a good look to start forcing groups of naked showering against very unwilling pupils backed up with detention threats like this, and even worse if carried out in practice.

If that happened then finally, you can go to (or threaten to go to) your MP. They have no power over the school but you can ask them for support and to write to the head. Your MP will be able to write a pretty mean letter. Heads may well need their local MP from time to time so would be reluctant to get into conflict with them.

Hope this helps. I can usually see the reasoning behind fellow schools decisions but this one baffles me. I would be even more angry as a parent than you are if this was being imposed on my daughter. The key is making it such a pain that it's not worth it for them, and trying to act before this becomes the norm and generally accepted by pupils and other parents.

Of course if there are those who wish to take up the offer on a non mandatory basis such as your eldest then they should also be free to shower as much as they wish after PE lessons, there is no reason to stop this. You haven't mentioned any other parents speaking out like you so I imagine you feel on your own about it. Try and find out if you are really alone in the way you think or if your own youngest in year 7 is really the only one bothered. Does he have many friends you could talk to or their own parents for instance.

My own view after all this settles down is that the school will probably remain intransigent but that your son will not have to do this if he doesn't wish to. Plenty of schools still operate showering policies, even mandatory ones but in practice even in those if you kick up a big enough fuss I doubt it will be quite as mandatory after all. The trouble is that most children and their parents even nowadays don't rock the boat even over things they might disagree with incase it affects their child's education adversely. Whatever you do keep calm and reassuring. If he is able to opt out he might yet get a bit older and just wish to do so if he sees others doing this. Don't presume just because he is saying these things now in year 7 that he will feel the same in a year from now.

Good luck.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 5th December 2024 at 14:44
I remember That'l Teach 'Em, it must be fully 20 years since it was broadcast. I think you are referring to the second series which recreated life in a 1950s-style secondary modern school.
I was not aware that schools used cold showers as a disciplinary method although there is an instance of one early on in that tedious, over-rated film If.



Yours Truly - there was a cold shower taken in that show by someone for insolence or bad attitude, something like that, it was previouly discussed here. I remember both the show and the earlier chat here quite well.

Hi Christine,

I remember That'l Teach 'Em, it must be fully 20 years since it was broadcast. I think you are referring to the second series which recreated life in a 1950s-style secondary modern school.

I was not aware that schools used cold showers as a disciplinary method although there is an instance of one early on in that tedious, over-rated film If.

There were two boys who were subjected to the cold shower regime. At the time I assumed it was a cold shower because they couldn't actually cane anybody in the twenty-first century. I remember there was also a girl who was very badly behaved because she refused to accept the rigid discipline. The worst sanction she received was to be sent to see the headmaster, who sought to gently reason with her. It didn't work and she walked out of the programme at the end of the first day. Seemingly the two boys didn't merit any gentle reasoning. The gender discrimination was quite plain. I would be curious to know whether an element of discrimination was deliberately introduced into the programme because such practices were universally accepted as the proper way to do things in the 190s and '60s, or whether it was simply how the actor playing the headmaster thought himself in the present day.

I also remember another scene whoch definitely did reflect the gender mores of that time. There was a lesson for which the boys and girls and boys were divided and underwent different activities. For the girls this meant something which I think was called something like 'comportment', which basically meant instruction in how to act like ladies. For the boys, however it meant drill training, the 1950s after all being the era of military service. I remember that there was one particular boy who reacted violently against being treated like a conscript and walked off in a fury. The actor playing the sergeant major went after him and screamed into his face.

All this while the girls got to have a good giggle indoors.

Hello everyone,

This past Wednesday the school sent out an email saying that starting from the Spring term (after Christmas Holiday) all pupils who participate in PE will be required to use the showering facilities afterwards. They said 'adequate' time will be provided for the pupils to do this and that they advise us to pack our children with a towel and roll-on deodorant on days they have PE. It also said pupils who refuse will be issued with a maximum of an hour long afterschool detention.

My older son couldn't care less. But my younger son is 11, and in Year 7. He's a very timid boy, he has struggled massively with the transition from Primary to Secondary and has very few friends. He has literally never had a detention or any of the "behaviour marks". Some of the older boys in his school are these huge hulking teenage looking boys, one boy even has a full beard, but if you looked at my son you wouldn't guess he was older than 9 or 10 and it has really worried him. Sometimes the older boys share PE with younger ones, something I never did.

The email got sent to both my email and their (both boys) school emails, which my youngest checks regularly, since reading he has gotten very anxious about this. He's told me that the showers were always available but no one ever used them as they were essentially communal showers. Which he does not want to use. Which I can understand. Back when I was in school, this was still quite common. But children today don't have the same mentality for this.

I've been researching online and I can't find anything that says it's illegal for schools to mandate this, but I did find some legislation that says school showers must have 'adequate privacy'. And so I emailed the school asking how they will ensure 'adequate privacy' for the children. And they emailed me back a generic email stating something along the lines of 'adequate privacy will be provided for all pupils as shower rooms will be gender but not age segregated'. I emailed if shorts would be allowed but the response was just generic 'all items should be removed fully'.

But that doesn't feel good enough for me. I'm wondering why this is happening and now.

Listen, if it was just my older son at this school I probably wouldn't be causing trouble as he genuinely seems to not care about this. He's told me to stop making a noise about it because it's not important to him and no big deal. But it has clearly made my younger son very anxious for school after the Christmas Holidays. I know for a fact he will be too timid to refuse a 'direct instruction' by a teacher, especially now he thinks he can get a detention for it, which I think is harsh.

I need to know if this is legal and if there's any pushback I can give to the school?


I've had comments from a friend saying that I should refuse the punishment, unfortunately you can't do that. If your child does not attend an afterschool detention it simply continues to escalate, with in school seclusion and then full seclusion. Which would be outright awful for my son.

The friend told me that I should ask how they will ensure safeguarding around phones and other things while pupils are using the facilities. But apart from that it seems there's not much I can do, apart from move him schools which I won't do of course. I just think the boys need privacy. I would have no issue with them being required to shower if they really needed to and the younger one felt the same as the older one, or if there were sectioned shower areas rather than communal or they would let those who wish to do so wear some shorts. When I emailed back I questioned why they are doing this now, straight after Christmas in the middle of winter at the start of what they laughably call the Spring term.

I will be contacting the school again regarding his worries and concerns. And in the meantime, I suppose I will prepare my youngest one as best possible for whatever potential situation he will find himself in.

Any further advice I can get hold of would be welcomed. I found this while searching for online advice on the situation and how to approach it for the best. Thank you everyone.

Does anybody recognise this type of behaviour from their schooldays?

This anti-bullying film represents a situation that happened to me once because I was a quiet lad who was good at sport and attracted jealousy. I had my entire school uniform thrown under a running shower down the swimming baths once but the culprit got away with it. The same thing happened a second time in school after PE and he was finally caught with his sidekick lackey. I did not shake hands and make up and forgive them. That was just a bit unrealistic.

https://youtu.be/QKJFiAmx0cw?si=HkF9QrIpDAJ_D43O

I was very pleased to hear you note lots of acts of kindness there John, although your darkness phrasing raised questions to me. If I had been inspecting a school such as yours and discovered a situation where pupils were showering up to eighteen times per week, I think I would be questioning that very much, as I understand it you mean a morning shower each day, seven in a week, an evening one, another seven, and one after each of four PE classes, some of which involved a swimming lesson, adding 7 + 7 + 4 = 18. Certainly if I was making recommendations there I would suggest immediately removing at least seven of them, the evenings, but that leaves eleven which I still find excessive even in a live in boarding school environment.

I was very unhappy to read the schooldays of you Colin in the 1960's, a time I was also at girls school, so my experience was bereft of any boys about the place. All I can say is girls never encountered such behaviour although there were strappings across the hands for what would now be considered trivial matters. However I can see no justifciation for corporal punishment being given in a state of extreme undress like you described. But I have to add, although that would never be tolerated by Ofsted if they found such things, back in the early 60's HM Inspctors would have probably looked upon such discipline and the manner it was given by a head teacher like that as the mark of a good school regards disciplinary measures and raised no eyebrows at all, certainly from the male HM Inspectors and most them were men.

I was reading some random pages about 50 pages back and saw some comments about cold showering on a televsion programme that I recall well, That'll Teach 'Em from a few years ago. Getting sent to cool down in a cold shower by a head teacher after an approach regards misbehaviour from a staff member was a very popular measure to give out to boys up until the 1960's, mostly in private and grammar schools. A pupil who misbehaved in any subject could expect this sanction in some schools and a PE teacher would be sent for to make sure it was done. Very common practice. Whether it worked I am less sure with some of the more unruly.

Great quality posts Colin, John, Stephen and Dan.

Boarding school life must be hard for some. It was always nice to get away at the end of the day away from the teachers!

Eighteen showers a week though, you're right on that. Nobody needs that. Stupid. You only need one a day and that's if you are doing heavy manual dirty work of some kind or being very very active for long periods, not sitting at desks doing light duties. I suppose they saw it as instilling personal self discipline or something but it seems overly controlling to me. I shower two or three times a week at the end of the day. I couldn't face getting up in the morning and doing it straight from bed.

Comment by: Colin on 3rd December 2024 at 16:18

It is a pity that more parents - both then and now, didn't question the dubious behaviour of many teachers. Far too many were clearly sadistic and some perverted. Of course, like doctors, many people think that the dictats made by the teaching profession are not to be questioned - even by fellow adults. That old creep sounds as though he had a real perversion.

John: I wonder why so many schools seem to think they are breaking lads in for life in the Royal Marines?. They seem to have this semi-military outlook, perhaps to justify their rather self important attitides they give themselves.

It would be nice to think the sort of abuse suffered by Colin was a thing of the psst, but as we see from far too many press reports, it isn't. They are no longer (officially) to be able to physically assault pupils, but they can still humiliate. It really is incumbent on parents to question the motives and behaviour of the teaching profession.

I spent 4 years of my life from 11 to 15 as a full time boarder at a boys only school some 55 years ago now. By today's standards the daily routine was very rigid and authoritarian to say the least. For all the great acts of kindness, and there were many, there were also some acts of darkness.

The darkness outshines the light.

In a boarding school your time never feels like it's your own at any time in the day, even when lessons are over. From the moment we woke to a new day we had to walk direct to the showers with each other, often older boys would be supervising us, sometimes a master. At the end of the day we had to shower before bed too. Every day of the week. Up time was 7am most days and lights out was 9.30pm in the week and 10.30pm on weekends. We had physical education on four days a week, including swimming. Doing the maths, and I am a retired accountant for Price Waterhouse, that amounted to 18 communal showers with about 35 others each week. Nobody needs 18 showers a week do they. If you've showered and gone straight top bed why do you need to wake up and immediatley have another. But they were the rules and I didn't make them, I just had to follow them. I knew as much about the imperfections and developement of my friends as I did about myself. Privacy, none at all. I rarely had a quiet moment to myself in 4 years other than when I was picked up in holiday time to return home briefly.

The school considered it's signature sport to be rugby. Everyone had to be good at that, but not everyone could be. Not everyone liked rugby, I didn't care for it, but passed myself off as semi-competent all the same. Getting on the school rugby team was seen as the ultimate accolade.

Water polo was another PE sport often done, quite enjoyable even though I never quite got the rules. But only half of us could be in the pool for that at any one time leaving the other half sitting on the side watching and fidgeting.

Cross country running was drilled into all of us and so was the need to keep improving our times over various distances from just a mile up to ten miles when we got a bit older. Unless it was bitterly cold most of the cross country runs were taken without the gym vest, shirtless. If it was bitterly cold we got a vest, not much extra protection really. I remember cross country running being the most painful PE activity of the lot, running through the pain barrier, many were really not up to running ten miles at 15 and struggled and were never going to make the times they wanted. I've seen others on here mention cross country many years ago. I've spoken to younger people, even over 50, who don't believe running as much as ten miles in school, or that boys ran minus any type of top on, just in their skin.

The school gymnsasium was very much mandatory skins, no tops allowed. What sounds extreme now was normal then. But we were all incredibly active youngsters in those days and even the least fit was still very fit really, and we all looked like we did the amount of physical school work we did each week, I read about the fat lad on here but can honestly say that I have no recollection of anyone even slightly plump and at glance through old school class photos seems to bear this out. I've got a few from the swim team, some from rugby and other general class shots. We look a very athletic bunch.

At grammar school in 1962 at the age of thirteen and I had not done the required maths homework and was reported to the headmaster who gave me a talking to. I was bad like that I admit. Some while later I innocently forgot to bring the correct history books and homework to that lesson, and that got me another wait outside the headmasters office. He wondered what he should do with me about it and sent me on my way. I thought I'd been let off.

The next morning my class tutor told me to go to the boys room and change into my PE shorts and report to the headmasters office. I knew what this meant instantly. Boys receiving corporal punishment from the headmaster had to report to him in the school PE shorts, no more than that. If you ever saw a boy waiting outside the headmaster's door, standing there barefooted, white shorts (no underpants underneath) and bare-chest you knew he was about to get corporal punishment, usually caning on the behind a number of times.

I was feeling terrified of this and shaking as I changed and then waited, there was a humiliation factor involved in this, just the waiting was part of the punishment, everyone looking, and the headmaster was notorious for making boys he was about to give corporal punishment to and cane wait a long time outside his door to possibly increase the anticipation anxiety of it all I think. So I went in eventually after what was maybe 20 minutes but felt like hours and was beckoned over, given a look up and down at my skinny white pale body adorned in just one simple pair of shorts and a stern lecture and then had my shorts lowered to reveal enough bottom for the stick to hit and caned very hard three times across the behind before getting sent on my way and told to stop feeling the stinging with my hands and wipe my eyes and grow up because he didn't want to have to do so again.

A few months later in 1963 after weeks of snow the same thing happened again when a group of us were sent to him for throwing hard packed icy snowballs in a forbidden area and hitting a teacher with one before school started for the day. A small group of about five of us had to go change to PE kit shorts and line up outside his office and get called in one at a time to be caned over that. It was freezing in the corridors of that school, and he kept us waiting ages again.

School played a lot of mind games, never understood the need to change to a PE kit, or more accurately put, strip down to shorts, just to be given corporal punishment like that. We were always caned without our parents being told first, we got less for that. If we insisted our parents had to be told then we were liable for more strikes than three. So we stayed quiet and many of us never even said we'd been caned for anything to them unless a tutor mentioned it at a later date. My own late parents never knew I'd ever been caned at grammar school like that.

Interesting comment about the science teacher there Danny. I think people should do shirtless gym when told to but quite agree that it's straining credibility and your authority to act like that in a science class, that type of instruction is only done to show somebody up isn't it, and is completely uncalled for. Some good posts recently Danny, and also from Christine and Yours Truly and the one about being an overweight schoolboy from you Stuart saddened me about your experience, so thankyou for sharing such a difficult memory.

Considering what has been written recently it seems appropriate for me to simply revisit an earlier comment I made incase any newcomers haven't seen it at the start of the year.

At the start I was answering someone about a boy who wanted the right to keep a top on while swimming I think. I think even shirtless phobics would agree that is a little extreme, but if there were issues such as with your own weight Stuart I think a fair exception can be made and wouldn't hesitate to agree you should if it made you happier, but regular normal sized lads no. Repeat of my comment just below;

'That boy should be made to do his PE in the required bare chest whether he likes it or not. Heaven's above, who runs schools? What the school decides he should wear for PE should not need to be up for discussion, whether it means he wears a top of any kind or none at all, either in swimming or normal PE.

If I was his father I would not write that letter, that would be pure indulgence and would prove detrimental both to the boy and the parents.

I didn't do a great deal of swimming at school that I can really remember, it was very sporadic in nature just now and again for short spells, nothing more, I did most in my own time with a female instructor friend of the family at weekends in a nice small group of girls and boys but I certainly know how we used to have to be sent along to gym through the school corridors from the changing rooms in our bare feet cold on the floor and our bare chests feeling quite nippy as we went, often very keen to get in that gym and start doing some PE to be met with a gruff teacher and feeling like I was in a gulag some days under one man I had who made PE feel more like a punishment session than a fitness one. But others were different.

I do remember some complaints about it actually but not directly to any teachers, it was all among lads quietly to each other. I'm going right back into 1974 with this and nobody cared what you thought, they just told you what to get on and do. Showers always came afterwards and the memory of these is that they were never that warm, the water came out quite slowly and that we all had no choice but to do them, all got sent in together, thirty or so stark naked and some clearly unwilling lads, and our teacher would get his stopwatch out and time what I think was something like 2 minutes 30 seconds after we went in before anyone was let back out again to dry and dress. Watched constantly and often told to shut up while we did so because of the noise. Sometimes the water went almost completely cold on us, meaning more noise, but we were not let out until the stopwatch said so according to our teacher. A bit over the top I agree, nothing wrong with just letting everyone come and go and get on with it but that's how it was for me in 1974 as a kid at the age of 13/14. A white adult size plimsoll was often used directly on the exposed backsides of any miscreants after PE which seems incredible now. Not a lot but just once in a while. I noticed how this teacher would smack with the plimsoll and then look in the eyes of the boy he'd just done it to, hoping that they were at least watering up.

I remember coming back to school in the miserable month of January 1974 just when the three day week had been introduced and recall many cold showers at school that horrible period, whether this was directly connected to the issues of the time I have no idea but school seemed a miserable place that month, fifty years ago to the day just about. I'm sure that teacher wouldn't have enjoyed a cold shower not long after Christmas on a January day very much at home but was happy to give us one and make us endure it to a set time limit.

I also remember the gym being darker than normal and pokey with the lighting less than normal in this period.

If that was a PE lesson now I'd be having words but most of our parents wouldn't have thought a great deal of any of that back in 1974.

There's not a lot wrong with many of the things I've described, the shirtless PE but more the culture it takes place within. Great lessons can inspire, bad ones can clearly kill one's esteem long term. I got through it generally unscathed and enjoyed PE under a couple of teachers and loathed it under another couple. That's the difference an individual can make in the same place with the same boys.'

I went to a well run and well regarded secondary school seen as the best in the area at the time, and still seen as that today infact. A newly elected Labour MP actually attended my old school, born just after I left actually, one of those young newcomers. But despite all that I can still find things within Lee's comment that in parts sound familiar to me. There was a certain type of teacher who always seemed to have a disdain for almost anyone, in my case I give that to a science teacher I had. Other than the PE teachers in school who only ever used boys surnames, the science teacher I had was the only other teacher who refused to call boys by first name, we were only ever surnames to him. But he was so bad he was even like it with the girls too, although he did prefix it with Miss. I've no idea what his issue was with using anyone's first name. He also projected a sense of menace quite a lot of the time, although never touched anyone. He also acted less than appropriately, one day as a class of 13 year olds he pulled a boy up to do an experiment with him in front of class and forced him to remove everything he had on above the waist to prove he had the muscle to hold the heavy and delicate equipment in place during an experiment and stood there barechested, in science for God's sake. Like me, I think many thought they'd dodged a bullet there, seeing the strained emotionless look on the boy's face at that indignity. I remember the girls wanting to snigger but the science teacher was so unsmiling, serious and intimidating that they didn't dare so stifled the urge. It was a kind of physical abuse when you think about it, not actual physical hurt, but of another kind and I tend to think he might have been emboldened in this attitude by the knowledge he was in a school with a widespread barechested boys culture where it took place so much across PE and drama. During the election I was hoping my prospective MP would tap the door so I could ask him if his memories of our school matched mine in any way.

Hi Christine,

Thank you for your reply.

I apologise if I have misinterpreted your previous statements.

I wish I could tell you I was making that up. But it really happened. I have felt angry about it all my life and it didn't even happen to me.

I wish I could say that teacher was hauled through a disciplinary, but nothing at all was done and in the end she got to retire and enjoy her pension.

That isn't even the worst story from my primary school days. There was the male junior teacher who, so the longstanding rumour went, had once broken a boy's arm. How did he break it? When he was hurling this boy bodily across the classroom. Could happen to anyone in the same circumstances. This action would be in tune with his character from what I saw of it. He had a very irascible temper which he did nothing to control. My eldest sister was one time deputed to take a message from her teacher to this teacher. When she entered the classroom he had a boy up at the front of the class who he had seized by the collar and was shaking like a terrier shaking a rat. My sister froze and one of the girls in the class whispered to her: "Don't go up to him when he's like this."

If he really did get away with breaking a boy's arm he could only have done so with the deliberate collusion of the headmaster.

Our primary headmaster was another individual with a simmering temper that he seemed barely able to keep the lid on. He was a big man, tall and stocky to the point of being overweight, so he seemed huge to us kids, with a very red face. There was always an air of menace about him which he made no effort to tone down given the fact that he worked with children. I had no respect for him, then or now. I once heard that he had beaten a boy with a leather belt over his bare backside. I have no idea if this is true or not but again, it wouldn't seem out of character. Certainly this particular boy was a teeny thug, who grew up to be a fully fledged adult thug with a chaotic life, but even so. What I do know is that he once rapped his knuckles on my little sister's head because she was chattering to her friend and not paying attention in assembly.

Mothers did talk to each other - I heard two of these tales from my mum who was told them by the mothers of the boys concerned - yet even so nothing ever seemed to be done.

I think the reasons for this were twofold.

First, people put teachers on a pedestal more back then. I grew up in a poor neighbourhood where nobody I knew had parents who were solicitors or pharmacists or civil engineers. Teachers, along with your family GP. were the only professional people most people ever came into contact with and so teachers seemed somewhat exalted.

The second reason is learned helplessness. Teachers seemed to wield some measure of authority and so parents just assumed that their complaints would not be heard.

Ofsted was essential because before it was around teachers got away with murder.

Stuart, what you describe is foul and you deserve every sympathy. For a PE teacher to be brusque or insensitive is bad enough, but that is deliberate cruelty.