Burnley Grammar School

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.

Lurker here emerging to give some thoughts on that Mumsnet post.

I thought 15 seems really late to be starting swimming but the original post says "he's not worn it (his swim shirt) for school swimming before" suggesting it's not the first lessons? Which makes me wonder why it's suddenly an issue now? Or have I missed something?

As for wearing swimming shirts, I really don't see the point myself. Surely they just make you stand out more. Could understand if there was some sort of medical reason like say severe acne but nothing in the post to suggest that?

My advice (assuming no medical reason) would be to just go for it. First time's always the hardest but in the long run it's for the best to get over insecurities. It's strange but once in the pool you don't notice you're just wearing shorts.

Comment by: Nathan Hind on 1st February 2024 at 21:26


I read the Yorkshire dad post at the time, Nathan, and I suspect as it is a private school the staff can do carte blanche what they want, but I seem to remember that there were some problems in Northern schools a few years ago, because, in the Muslim religion, it is deemed "immodest" for boys to remove their shirts, in or out of school and so parents were up in arms about such edicts in PE lessons, and as we are very likely to have a very pro-Muslim government soon (I read only the other day Starmer is "worried" he is losing the Muslim vote over his Gaza stance) I can see this being a "one summer experiment" . Again, I agree with you that you can be just as cool in a light top. I never get this "extreme heat" thing. If that were the case, given the heat in TV studios because of the lighting, every weather forecaster and newsreader and musician (it can be very hot grappling with wind and brass instruments) would be appearing without their shirts. Let's face it, we are back to this "control" thing - I'm in charge and you'll do what I tell you.

I have no religion but of course, I daresay a Roman Catholic school only has RC students and parents - and those who "pretend" to be RCs if yours is the best school in the district.

I was equally surprised there has been no further reaction to your post about the Mumsnet swimming case apart from the one last evening and my own earlier.

What kind of age is 15 to begin a swimming unit at school like was stated on the Mumsnet questioner? Has this boy really never been asked to swim at school before that rather advanced school age, like being in the old secondary fourth form or even days away from the fifth form, your final compulsory school year like it used to be.

15 is a terrible age in many ways and if this is the reality for that young man I feel for him if he suddenly at that age faces lining up in school with a mixed class of girls with boys, which could be the problem. At that age I would have been less than thrilled in actual school about it but did swimming when I was years younger, about 10 and shared both sexes and was fine. But I agree 15 is a bad age to suddenly face this if you do have body problems about yourself. The stupid thing here is like many body phobics, he very probably has a very nice good looking body for his age anyway but doesn't accept it.

I'm guessing this must be a rare boy who has been at school until that age and never faced PE where he had to never not wear a shirt then, or shower. Even nowadays I think most boys find they end up shirts off at some point in school if told to, showers less of an issue than once were.

I'm conflicted on the advice I would give here. I wouldn't really want to write that note if I am honest about it but would wish to stand up for my son's problem. I wonder if it is just a school thing, I'd like to know if he holds that same bother about being seen without any shirt bare chested in front of his own mum who asked the question, or his father or siblings?

It seems silly to a lot of people I know, but we have to just accept there are people out there who are very shy and terrible about their appearance and baring their bodies is almost a terror for them. Luckily I was not one of those types generally in my time. My gut instincts would be to tell him his life will be better off if he joins in the same as the others. It's the least complicated option and when he's about 30 he may wonder why he ever behaved like it, or hopefully a lot sooner.

I see this was quite a recent discussion, I wonder what happened in the end?

I am surprised that this posting from A Yorkshiredad has not received any kind of reaction so let me be the first.

Comment by: A yorkshiredad on 24th January 2024 at 14:36
I am an teacher who has chosen to work in the private sector, now well into my second year at my latest school. We teach boys and girls years 1 to 6 so 6 to 11 years of age. This is an excellent school with an outstanding OFSTED report, but it does have one peculiarity these days which seems very anachronistic. During the upcoming Summer term the boys indoor PE kit will change from T-shirt and shorts to shorts only. It was school policy last year and it will be again this year. The reason given for the policy is strictly practical, to keep the boys cool while exercising hard indoors in warmer weather. The head teacher does not want some boys suffering unnecessarily from the heat of summer so all boys must go bare chested while this is a possibility.



Do you mind me asking where the school is that you work? I am also a PE teacher incase you had not realised, at All Hallows R.C in Salford Manchester for almost ten years now.

To make that active change in PE kit does I agree seem an interesting development although I see no issue in principle with it. The ages you talk about are pre-secondary level anyway. I've certainly not come across those reasons before in terms of keeping cool and presumably by that meaning comfort. Have you had a recent change in head teacher by any chance because does he not realise that you can actually be kept quite cool enough in a loose fitting cotton top no problem in gym and in many cases, depending on humidity levels actually be cooler that way sometimes. Air humidity plays a far bigger factor in whether the body starts sweating than simply removing the shirt completely. It is not a reason I have ever used when asking my classes to remove tops in the gym for PE on occasions. Will you only be applying your rule on the hottest summer days or is this a blanket all summer long rule in your school. I agree with your assessment even more so because of those younger ages where the sweating and hormonal issues are nothing compared to secondary level teens pupils from 11 to 18. Our school showers, and nowadays when I speak to people they almost seem shocked, I have no idea why, or that now and again we might ask pupils to remove a top.

You are clearly uncomfortable with what your school is doing by posting your comment here, have you asked any questions directly yourself on the policy or gained any parental feedback?

I haven't read that thread yet but I will take your word for this bit;

'I think the REAL problem is, that here the lad is being asked to do something for the first time at FIFTEEN!'




That just seems very weird to me at that age, to be going swimming at school for the first time at the age of 15 years old, and then facing up to a bare chest phobia with it, unless he has been swimming and previously was allowed a top covering of some sort which again is very unusual too. All equally unusual, more so the age thing. How come this boy is only at age 15 starting to swim at school in the first place if true? Possible learning difficulties, or is he a regular normal teenager in all other respects? There must be more to that. I'd had my final school swimming lessons by the time I was 14 and was expected to be fully competent. Schools do not start swimming lessons at 15 years old, that's ridiculous. I will have to give that a bit of a read.

Nothing wrong with a bit of individuality but I think nothing is wrong with everyone being put in the same situation, bare chests for swimming in this case, the big problem would be if he was being made to stand out differently if the others were not like him in that bare chest state but in this case it is completely the reverse and he is wanting to stand out the other way around. If he can swim like that so what, let him if it keeps him happy but like was already said, probably best have a word and muck in like the rest in this case and gain some confidence and realise you have nothing to be scared of and nobody is laughing at what you look like at all because you are all reasonably similar in the end underneath what we cover up with.

I was quite unconfident in normal PE but took to the water with ease and enjoyed swimming at school. It's funny how that can happen.

Stephen gets school in that time period just about right in my view and I certainly remember a lot of use of stopwatches by school PE teachers but not to actually time the length of our changing room antics like taking the obligatory shower post PE. Like most schools I should imagine, we were allowed to just come and go as we pleased just walking nude around the changing room to and from the showers as we pleased, boys rarely bothered to wrap a towel around our waists just for the doing that. But you had to do it, excuses were never easily accepted. If you were caught daring to not do the naked walk to and from the showers and trying to get directly dressed then you were in massive trouble and it didn't matter which teacher took the class it was the same with them all on that one. So we knew to just do so without being told much of the time. You could actually get a detention at my school for not bringing your actual towel to PE, never mind the right pieces of kit, and they even specified a minimum size you had to bring. We all seemed to shower without complaint at the time but I've little doubt that beneath the surface there were a few other thoughts going on, this site seems to prove it. In PE I seem to remember that many times we could either wear a tee-shirt of some sort, no special type, or nothing at all and be shirtless and I do remember classes with mixed shirts and shirtless boys who simply chose to do PE that way without being asked and it all seemed to be accepted with little aggro. Looking back that seems all rather reasonable actually for a lesson. I was a tee-shirt wearer myself, although there were some lessons we did get told to take tee-shirts off if we had them on for reasons I cannot at this distance really remember.

Looking at the bareskin running comments and I have not heard about that one. Quite interesting I must admit. I wonder if there are younger men on that or doing that who are kicking back against the clammed up ways many places now have where you can't do this or that in the way you used to be able to and some rather wish they could so are doing this as adults, just a thought?

Although I never ran any cross country at school without a top like some men on here state, most of us did used to have our PE shirts off as we came back to the school block from running and were shirtless before we even got back in the door of that place. Cross country running was the one and only thing I ever did at school that meant a shower was absolutely essential afterwards and welcome to get the dirt off us. Even the football kept us cleaner. I think this was because we had a very well kept football pitch and sports field by the caretaker or groundsman at the time compared to other schools I remember seeing.

Ropes - and I could do them quite easily but can remember boys being told off for coming down them too rapidly incase of a rope burn, or getting to the top and hanging about showing off not coming back down. We always had to do rope climbing in our bare feet as that was considered the best way to climb the rope and would be told how to cling our feet to the rope and pull. Fashionable trainers didn't seem that common then and were never worn in the school PE gym that I ever noticed.

I'm not sure how fulfilling the job of being a PE teacher used to be when you probably realised that the majority of your class didn't even want to be doing any of it.

Comment by Nathan Hind on January 31st at 2029

God - that was a read Nathan! - like listening to an edition of Womans Hour on Radio 4 when the on/off switch has broken, or you can't get to the radio to switch it off (often happens to me during The Archers - that bloody music - I like it to be off before it starts). I put myself through Mumsnet voluntarily, so no complaining so here goes.
.

However - of the many responses this one caught my eye:

"I think wearing a top will draw more unwanted attention than being bare chested. However, nobody should be made to expose their body if they don’t want to regardless of sex."

That sums up my position entirely. This was the reason I disagree with much of what "Mr. Dando" writes - I don't think a Victorian bathing machine is the answer to this lad's problem in 2024- and he does have a problem, no matter how many of those ladies tried to excuse it with "body autonomy" - whatever that is! - I must admit I am not up on psycho-babble. I also knew of nobody who went in for physical self harming, another seemingly modern concept. Cigarettes and booze were the only self harming I was aware of back then.

But - I don't know if you'll agree with me - I think the REAL problem is, that here the lad is being asked to do something for the first time at FIFTEEN! (obviously no compulsory showers or bare chested PE lessons at that school). Looking back to my own school years, I think if showers and bare chested PE had started when I started school at 5 it wouldn't have been the problem it was when t started when I was 11. It is the bringing in of new rules, so far down the road, at an age when you are much more self conscious than you are as a young child is the real problem here. Add to that, at 5, teachers speak to you in a much kinder way than they do in comprehensive years. I remember the culture of shock of teachers calling me by my forename in July and then being shouted at by surname only in September. What had I done wrong? (that is the eleven year old me's thought process back then).

Talking about his problems might help, but then from the original letter it seems there might not be a father around, or if there is. he seems uninvolved. Certainly he isn't mentioned. Some lads would not feel comfortable at that age discussing any problem with their mum, and often there will be a reticence anyway at that age. Perhaps his mum is a bit over-protective?. I never once talked about my school problems at home.

If I were the boys dad I would have a good long talk with him and share experiences - let them see that even self assured adults had their problems when they were their age. If you know what the problem is, there might be a way to help him. Perhaps he is being bullied already?. I mentioned just the other day how kids can be extremely unkind to each other - how would you deal with my two schoolmates Nathan, whose problems/reason for bullying I mentioned the other day in my reply to Gareth.

I am not going to rehearse my own experiences here - you know them, this is about this Mumsnet lad. On a final, perhaps more controversial note - if this lad has got to the age of 15 without learning to swim, the school obviously didn't; take it very seriously until now (why - most schools get round to it at about 10/11?) , so might there be a case for saying at that advanced (for school age) , he should be allowed to opt out?. You know my views on inflicting infantilism on teenagers in their later years (up to 18 now thanks to inept governments insistence on staying at school if they can't find the jobs that ruinous policies have created a shortage of - "Net zero" indeed, an unachievable pipe dream by 2030 - if ever). We cant stop Ms. Phillipson and her wretched "teeth cleaning lessons" on five year olds but if this boy is so genuinely worried about swimming at 15 perhaps this would be a sensible way out. It won't solve his problem, but it will allow him to run away for them for a bit longer. Let's face it - most of us are running away from something all our lives.

To answer the burning question: Would I write the note?. No.because I know it would do no good. I'd be a rotten parent.

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 thought you might like to have a read through some of the seven pages on this mumsnet discussion about her son who is very shy about taking his top off in PE to go swimming and some of the vastly differing answers to that lady.

One of my early posts was about a boy we had in PE who wanted to wear an all in one body outfit but it was made clear by my superiors that boys go swimming in swim shorts or trunks and nothing else in school.

In this case the mother is entitled to write the letter but my own advice would be to talk it out with the son and and prevent it as being the only boy in a swim class who is like that sets you up more noticeable than simply removing your top no matter how shy you might be about your body.

It's very unusual for boys to be fearful of going swimming and wanting to wear a top and that was made clear on here by many men I have read who feared shirtless PE but accepted swimming far more easily.

The initial fear is so often far worse than the end reality of just going and doing it.

I'll leave the link and hope it works.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4796153-son-unhappy-with-pe-uniform?page=1

Most PE teachers are not abusive perverts. But many mostly former people on these pages seem to have been especially having looked back at some of the comments going back a few years ago on here. This forum was being used by a very distasteful clique of characters with unhealthy obsessions.

Very pleased to see recent much of the past year looks so different.

Comment by: Gareth on 29th January 2024 at 21:03


That's a really interesting one, Gareth. As regards some children being kind, you are right, but I think it might depend on where your school was. For example I saw a TV programme last week with the comedian (he says) Josh Widdicombe called "Who Do You Think You Are". His first school was deep in the country (Dartmoor, I think) and there were only 4 pupils so I should hope and think they were kind to each other as there was so few of them, but the frustrations that build up in an inner-city comprehensive - and though I hate to use the term - working class - area is going to be a lot different from the ambiance of a small , probably middle class, school in the West Country.

Your bully seemed to have really been sorry and ashamed of how he had treated you twenty years earlier, and though you didn't want it, he did make a handsome gesture, and tried to make amends. As I said yesterday, I am sure some of the lads who made my two schoolmates lives a misery, would have , I am sure been mortified at how their younger selves had behaved. Perhaps school would bee a happier experience if we went as adults.

I saw very little of my ex school colleagues (I hesitate to call many of them mates), after school, apart from a couple who I stayed friendly with, one of whom died at far too young an age in 2022, but about six years after I left school one of my ex-teachers came to see me play, and was generous enough to make some nice remarks about my playing. He spoilt that moment by intimating he had been aware of what had gone on in the "old days" - and remember the old days were only a few years in the past, at that point, but made light of it and found no need to apologise, or even sound embarrassed about them. Had he have done so, I would have taken his remarks as a sort of healing process, as it was. the lavish praise meant nothing, and I just ignored him after that and talked to one of my bandmates,, without even referencing the teacher again. So I see where you are coming from, but at least your bully made the effort. I suppose the teacher (who was not one of the two I have mentioned previously) was making some sort of effort, but the fact he stood by and facilitated the bullying just had no positive effect on me.

In 1980 I shouldn't think there would have been a single 12 year old in the entire country that didn't have to take a compulsory shower after every physical education lesson, and that meant completely naked of course and sent in with all your classmates whether you liked it or not.

Did it really do any of us that much harm?

Unlike the previous comment from the father of five, I see no real reason to be showering in primary school as young as eight and think 12 is about right to start. But so many don't even bother at all now, and that's quite an abdication of the public health remit in my view. Shyness about ones body was never an excuse not to shower at school and neither should it be.

Most guys with the fear soon lost it anyway, it's impossible to keep up a high level of such anxiety for too long and speaking from memory of sharing communal showers regularly with my mates it kind of soon got a bit boring seeing the same things all the while and was more a chore than anything else. My school made us soap up completely before washing down which took more time than I thought was needed which I really hated when PE was final lesson of the day and we were not allowed just to leave and go home but still had to go through the same procedure leaving us late leaving school a lot. I never quite understood why we could not just leave and go home final lesson although early in the day it was obvious why we had to.

But I've kind of got weirdly fond memories of doing all that in school which I probably wouldn't want to go back and change because it definitely gave lads an interesting shared experience together that would not have happened elsewhere.

Talking about political pygmies I saw Sunak today doing the rounds looking over the shoulders of some teenagers in school some place and instead of looking like a Prime Minister projecting power and confidence to the country he looked more like he ought to be finding his seat among the teenagers and getting on with his lesson in class instead of messing about not doing his work but chatting to his mates!

In this multi election year I don't think Biden or Sunak are going to pull off a Thatcher '82 style win that takes them to subsequent victory, quite the reverse, they seem to be taking us all down with them at the moment. It's a big worry though that these elections in the States might be making some think this can be used to defeat Trump. What was that film called where a President began a war to win re-election?

Agree with the poster who expressed horror at the very use of the conscription word in 21st century Britain. How did that suddenly burst into the national conversation out of nowhere? It's a disgrace, a typical failure to see ahead with vision at the trouble down the line and take avoiding action by these self obsessed political pygmies who are more interested in the latest PM merry go round. They've taken the regular army down to 72,000, not enough to fill three quarters of Wembley and now decide they need 500,000 untrained youngsters presumably picked like jury service at random.

What bothers me is that for the first time I think it really could happen and I never have before. I bet the people of the mid 1930's didn't think they were ever going to see something even worse than what they had been through just twenty years previously but it happened. We really must snap out of our complacency, we are not as safe in the UK as we think and these pygmy politicians are the ones who are going to do us all in.

Going back to a few of the Alan bits here, kids can actually be very kind with each other too,they are not always teasing and fighting. Plenty of my friends were so kind and thoughtful throughout my time in school.

But I did have a situation from 12 to 16 with a school bully in our class. He didn't target me specially but generally behaved the same to many. A disrupter if you like and a real pain in the backside. But he had his moments with many of us including me a handful of times.

About 20 years ago I walked into a restaurant with my wife one evening for a pre booked meal and saw this chap sitting there with a lady who I knew who had become his wife unknown to me in the years since I had last seen him some twenty further years prior to this time. This was around about the year 2000 and I'd last seen him in about summer 1980 when he'd left school.

I clocked him immediately as he hadn't changed his looks that much and he noticed me instantly too despite that 20 year gap. At school he had never been my friend and was a dreadful person to have to turn up and be alongside most days. As we both walked in and he saw me he looked up and began beaming away with a smile and said hello to me, using my christian name, he'd never been known to do that with anyone at school, I was amazed he even remembered it as I was nothing more than a surname to him in school.

My wife had no idea who he was and so I had to think fast on my feet. So with this beaming old school pain in the arse acting like I was his long lost best mate and asking how I was doing all I could think in the moment to say was 'are you still the biggest dickhead that I always remember, and I used his surname only', and I said it very loudly so others in the establishment heard it clearly, although it was a quiet night in the place. Stunned silence and no reply from him and my wife looked at me as if I had gone mad. I then just walked away to my table with the wife and sat down, where I had some explaining to do to her.

Meanwhile across the restaurant he kept occasionally looking over at me for the next half hour while we waited for our meal to arrive and had drinks. As we ate our meal he got up and came over to our table and simply said 'I am so sorry' and walked off. When we came to pay for our meal which came to a quite tidy sum of well over £100 I was informed that I didn't need to pay anything as it had been paid in full by the person at the table over there, where he'd been sitting. He'd never said.

I ended up feeling guilty about my own school bully but then realised in doing that he was answering my question that he was no longer that dickhead and accepted his behaviour those twenty years earlier had been wrong.

I saw him one more time after that a couple of years later but chose not to make an approach.

I think a lot of school idiots/bullies/pains think the moment you leave school it all just evaporates and is forgotten. Like hell it is.

One other thing about him as this is a PE chat talking of gym and bodies, he was the boy with the biggest penis in the whole PE class and liked us all to notice this fact very much indeed and perhaps that played a part too in his sense of being the big guy over others.

Bullies in schools can have surprisingly glass jaws actually. The projected image is easily taken down if you are prepared to do so. I didn't follow that at school but I have in the workplace with great effect against a couple of such people.

Comment by: TimH on 29th January 2024 at 19:21


Tim, perhaps you are just on a wind-up, but if you were not so blinded by prejudice, you might recall that it was me who suggested printing IP addresses, to prove, to some rather silly posters, that I only post in one name (my own) and each time I give my email address. That a few are still making ridiculous claims and allegations says more about them than it does about me.

It is not my fault if you failed to read in full the link I provided yesterday.

Some interesting comments on here recently - Thanks to Hugh, Neil, RC, David, Russell and apologies to anyone I've missed.

Alan: your 04.05 reply to my previous post was what I expected - I don't intend to respond, but I'm pleased to note that you're just using one nowadays - it makes things easier.

And now I'm off - the latest edition of the 'Llareggub County Times' arrived this morning so I've some catching up to do.

Comment by: Neil on 29th January 2024 at 01:34

Neil - feel free to digress - I agree with you entirely over World War 3 - I will come back to that. You said in your message:


"Did anybody really ever see a boy at school with such a terrible body or physique that they thought it should be kept covered up, I never did and accept we come in all shapes and sizes and none are right or wrong, they just are what they are."

You are right of course, but we are speaking as adults, from the viewpoint of adults today. Were we so understanding then, between 11 - 17?. I remember two lads who I was with during my school days - one I have mentioned before - he was a lad that had a serious abdominal operation as a baby which left a very large scar from his chest down to his navel - he got called all kinds of unkind things and he was very uncomfortable. I might add the teacher did not nothing to discourage it, and if he was annoyed with him, used one of the terms himself - he was a charmer, as I have indicated before. . I daresay the lads who made his life a misery back then, if they remember the many incidents at all, would feel deeply ashamed of themselves now, as adults, if they were confronted over it - or I hope they would. We had another lad in our class who was Jewish. There was, of course, a slight anatomical difference between him and us, and again, the same loud mouthed lad used terms, which, now would be considered highly anti-Semitic, and rightly so. Again I am sure the lads who did it would now be appalled to think of themselves as fifty somethings, as the crude loudmouths they were back then. I didn't do it, because I had my issues, but kids are insensitive and do insult, and I was no angel and I got my own back in different ways (never "volunteering" for example). I am not nearly so nice as Hugh and Andy think I am! :-)

Can I suggest that how we are now, today, in no way reflects how we were when we were that young?


As regards WW3: what angers me is that the wars since the Falklands have all been inspired by political pygmies who think it will raise their stock, and win them elections, if they find an excuse for war. I think Mrs T was wrong to instigate a full blown war on Argentina over the Falklands before strong diplomacy was seriously tried, we will all remember Blair's dodgy dossier and the "WMD in 45 minutes' to justify Iraq, and to look "Churchillian" (in my view more Sarah Churchill than Winston) Cameron tried it on with Syria but was voted down. Now Rishi and Keir want their chance to be Churchill. They really shouldn't - they are not built for it, and whoever was?.

Ironically, every day it seems, we have rubber boats landing on the Kent Coast, virtually full of young men in their 20s and 30s , i.e. of fighting age, very few women or children. It will be interesting to see if this slows down if (God forbid) we do find ourselves at war. My own feeling this is a bit of pre-election sabre rattling, (it's going to be a dirty one) being urged on by 24 hour news channels who have run out of soap gossip. I sincerely hope it blows over as suddenly as it started. It would be appalling if a senile old man in the White House could induce us into yet more pointless adventures, as GW Bush did with Iraq.

Nice to be able to get away from the classroom for a time and I agree 100% with the rest of your message: especially:.


"It's a sick joke when you have various governments that have gutted the professional armed services in this country to next to nothing and then suddenly turn around and say we must get the civilians made to do the job after all."


Message from Orson 26th January 2024 11.54

Orson I sympathize with your situation at the time. I will say no more, as you might have noticed, anything I say (in some quarters)will be taking down in writing and may be used in evidence against me!

Good to see some positive comments on the whole bareskin running and a desire from one or two to give it a go. Definitely do.

I've done a bareskin run this lunchtime with 4 other men, we managed to fit in a quick half hour between our various jobs nearby. It did not feel cold.

Yesterday we did a larger group from our whatsapp group and gained 14 runners at 2pm and it was remarkable how good it felt to run like this in the month of January, we did a whole 10 miles. Most of us didn't even have a top with us tucked around us so would have had no choice but to freeze or turn back if it had been that bad. I didn't even feel cold and was actually sweating at the end of it. In late January, outside for the best part of a couple of hours without a shirt on! We all found it to be fine. But it's not exactly cold is it for the time of year just now.

But what might interest people on here is that we don't get weird comments shouted at us even in January as a group going along. We actually get smiles quite a lot and friendly looks, even if one or two might think we are mad as hell in private thoughts.

We've now got 24 men on our whatsapp group, one or two with self esteem and mental health issues they want to address in a different way amongst others who can give them support along the way. Walking is always meant to be good for this of course. One of them has told me just how he cannot believe the benefits it has given him on the three occasions he has come out with us so far.

If someone starts slowing we tend to slow up and try to run as a generally close group together as much as possible despite various running strengths. Sometimes we will even stop for a breather on the longer run like Sunday afternoon. We stick a water bottle down our shorts!

If you are looking for a new years resolution, doing something well outside of your comfort zone and have a need to improve your self esteem and overall wellbeing, mindfulness and health then I strongly suggest giving it a go. You could of course just go walking or running the normal way but amongst our group the general consensus is that bareskin running, with a bare chest absolutely completely shirtless out in the open air seems to hold even better benefits for those of us that are doing it.

As I've said before, the ages range from late 20's to 60's and any ages are welcome, and people are doing it from all walks of life, there is no set type in our group and many of us didn't even really know each other at first. I'd love to double the number this year if I could and who knows where from there on.

When I first took this on I didn't have especially high expectations of the appeal of such a thing. Many of the guys on the group never went to schools where they were made to run shirtless cross countries like some had to do on here.

Bareskin, or barechested physical education in childhood has been getting a bad vibe from certain quarters on here I know that and understand the reasons why that is but as adults we have found it to be a great way of meeting new people, getting out, feeling healthy in both mind and body. Who can argue with that.

I'm not convinced schools are in on the bareskin cross country running craze just yet despite what I read a few weeks back here unless these are set aside groups away from regular PE. It's fair to say that whatever we might think, schools are not the same as they were thirty, forty, fifty or sixty years ago but am quite prepared to believe that some boys might be running at school in this way but only voluntarily in the same way that all those in our group are doing so as volunteers.

Perhaps the most interesting thing of the lot worth ending on here is that out of every one of the 24 men who have joined our group so far not one single person has chosen to drop out having given it a go. Everyone has now done it at least a couple of times. I had expected some immediate drop outs and it didn't happen.

Comment by: TimH on 28th January 2024 at 19:12


Oh dear!: You will note, Tim, that I put quotation marks round that piece about vHI in my post, and, as I recall I wrote "from that article I cited".. That is because it was a quote from within the article I had provided for Captain Bligh. I had hoped he would have bothered to read it, instead he used it to make some more extremely libelous remarks against me , which I doubt a man who claims to be a professional would do, even hiding in anonymity Ad hominem attacks look somewhat cowardly when a person hides their identity. I wonder if he would dare do it and provide his full name?. I suppose. in retirement. time as an ex sea dog drags, and I am only happy I can provide his twilight years with some raison d'etre not to "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light" *. It is the only excuse I can think of for his sordid allegation., which I will not dignify by commenting on.

I still think one third is a significant figure, and I can remember some lads being scared of heights, specially in the early years of secondary school.

(*Dylan Thomas, - the rest was me)

Far too sensible for this forum David in this day and age. You are about to find that out I bet you. Just wait. Of course you're essentially right but it seems too many are scared to actually say it aloud nowadays. A weirdo and a pervert it most certainly does not make - a rounded grown up sensible and confident person more likely.

In my view the mature common sense schools are those that still, such as Nathan's to name one here, go the full compulsory showering ask after PE and those that require or sometimes tell the guys to do a bit of PE or even all of it in the gym without the top, that's not body shaming that's just saying so what, you've got the same body under a bit of fabric as anyone else and what have you got to be concerned about.

Did anybody really ever see a boy at school with such a terrible body or physique that they thought it should be kept covered up, I never did and accept we come in all shapes and sizes and none are right or wrong, they just are what they are.

I should think we'll be needing all those very militaristic PE lessons coming back quite soon that Alan talks of now across the UK as it seems we are now talking of citizens armies and goodness knows how this one suddenly out of nowhere came back into the equation but the dreaded conscription word, which even shocked the life out of me to start hearing and even more so when I saw a news programme where all four contributors thought it should come back and be compulsory.

What do they know that we don't? Even back in the days of the 4 minute warning and cold war at it's height we youngsters got a bit scared at times that we'd be simply wiped out in an instant without much warning but the kind of talk we've had in recent days didn't seem to be doing the rounds much back then.

I'd fight for my own nation, the UK any day, but like hell would I do so for someone else's or expect my kids to be grabbed by the govermnent and heaved off to fight someone else's problem, Vietnam style. Those days are surely long gone.

It's a sick joke when you have various governments that have gutted the professional armed services in this country to next to nothing and then suddenly turn around and say we must get the civilians made to do the job after all.

Sorry I digress.