Burnley Grammar School

Just wondering if you could tell us what those minor anxieties that you always expect to see actually are?

One of mine was not wanting to be made to play football or rugby, neither of which I liked even watching, never mind being told to play. I did have the dreaded shower anxiety too.

Nathan Hind on 23rd September 2023 at 22:54


The problem is, Nathan, when you have had experience of some of the profession, when you read of cases where no less than three teachers stationed at the same school indulged in criminal offences of a disgusting nature with young boys, you do have to wonder slightly at the calibre of man being employed - considering these days the so-called safeguarding that is supposed to go on. Just this week saw the death in prison of a serial abuser who masqueraded as a 'football scout" (Barry Bethnell) - there are many other cases which I will not weary you with, but it does seem a sad fact that a lot of this sort of man hangs around the scout movement, football coaching - and the school gym and locker rooms. We are not talking of cases 50 years ago - these are instances of events that have occurred in the 21st century.

What concerns me is that though a few end up serving a custodial sentence, many others, like people who ill-treat animals, end up with a slap on the wrist, a fine, or "community service" (and God knows what that entails). The crime is not taken very seriously. The first of the three miscreants in the story I have highlighted had served a term of imprisonment, for his original offences, but for his second conviction he was given a suspended sentence - totally inadequate in my view. He should never have been employed by an education authority to give him a chance to indulge himself again.

I know for a fact at my old school (and we are talking years ago) other teachers were well aware of Mr R's proclivities, but decided to act like the three wise monkeys, and say and do nothing. In my book that makes them as guilty as the man himself, for condoning it. I suppose the mitigation for that man is that by the time of his second trial he was in his 70's - well, other people are in prison at that age, many for far less revolting crimes, and being so fit he should have been able to withstand his punishment better than the old man or old lady who has been jailed for motoring offences or not having a TV licence, or falling behind with their rent.

When these dubious characters are weeded out, and, if convicted, given stiff prison sentences, then I will be more charitable towards them

For me barechested PE/Games started when I was 9 and sent to a mixed boarding school in 1992.Though there was a formal kit (games top, school vest and t-shirt) we were told the preference was bare chests for any indoor activity which. Outside, we would usually start off having already been split into skins vs vests or with the whole class told to strip down to shorts, we also quickly found out those in vests could be told to strip later in the lesson which happened a lot. Cross country was always run barechested without exception and usually in the of crappiest weather too. Some adapted earlier than others to the variable conditions but with a 90 min PE or Games lesson timetabled daily you did become sort of used to it and it really did wake you up.

What I would say to Alan here is that you should indeed share Marion's faith which I found to be a refreshing change, despite her initial concerns for her grandson in a new school environment. There is far too much darkness and nowhere near enough light in your view of PE teaching.

I've told the new boys at school if they have any problems they can come privately to me anytime or be more open if they wish in front of class. It's been quite a smooth first month back so far, no major concerns. We didn't ask the new ones to shower in the first week back and really only started doing things as we mean to go on since last Monday. No complaints so far other than the usual minor anxieties you will always expect to see.

Paul I often take a late evening (about 11.30pm) power walk of about 20 minutes because I find it helps me when I get back in get to sleep quicker if I do this. It was a discovery I made about three years ago during lockdown number one. I would actually rather enjoy doing it 'bareskin' like the other two chaps but like you say I would be somewhat embarrassed to suddenly bump into anyone coming in the other direction if they saw a man walking rather fast without his shirt on late at night even though where I walk is reasonably quiet and I seldom pass many others. I am in my late fifties by the way. I always go walking in shorts and trainers anyway. A short power walk while shirtless in bracing cold appeals to me for the health benefits it brings. The warm bed afterwards even more inviting.

When I was at school we did cross country but always in shirts. We did however do athletics through summer shirtless quite a bit and gym was shirtless about half the time.

Craig and Rick, good to hear you're going bareskin running, but I wanted to say that in some places in the world (such as the US where it's warmer), bare skin running is normal and you'll always see shirtless runners on the trail of all ages. Thanks to school in the UK, I was aware of how interesting it is to feel the different sensations of weather on my chest, and I realized that a shirt is often cumbersome and uncomfortable.

When I was young I always would hope to see other shirtless runners or cyclists as I felt it gave me permission to do the same. I worried so much about it because I was scared people would call out things to me, embarrass me.

Excellent Rick J. You should set up a local whatsapp group like I did and find others who want to do the same or give it a go. We've got 17 so far on mine. Going running tonight at 8pm in the dark!

Good article that was. People are so judgmental at times aren't they. If someone wants to run in the snow with their shirt off whose business is it but theirs. I agree it does give a feelgood factor. Tonight will be quite a fresh run out, so far we have 9 due to join us, so a big one. Always come back feeling really good.

I've read some of the comments from a few months ago about school cross country's and how some of you here would run them bare chested and then I saw someone write up about the new phenomenon recently of bareskin runs which is still very niche to say the least.

Well I've done both.

Is there anybody who hated things in school that they like as adults? I never much liked cross country running in school and didn't exactly thrill at sometimes doing it stripped off more than I wanted to. Now I've just hit my 50th and took up running again when I was 45 and got myself back into good shape, and now I often go out with a pal of mine and we do this new fangled bare skin run which takes me right back to school days because some of where we both run is exactly the same places I did in school years back. I'm really enjoying something at the age of 45 to 50 that I had no time for when I was about 13 to 17. It has worked wonders for my mental faculties and sharpened up my brain as well as my brawn.

If my old PE teachers could see me now they'd be amazed at how physically active I've become through my 40's having not been since school, actually they'd hardly recognise me as the young guy they had who was always quite reluctant.


I'm hoping to try it in the colder weather after I saw this item in the Telegraph from two years ago.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/forget-wild-swimming-bareskin-running-now/

A strange school that even partly blames the kids for the actions of the teacher.

Ian's comment - "Our whole class was treated as guilty as the teacher in not remembering and also had to explain why nobody had noticed his regular day clothes sitting untouched in the changing room and getting left behind. It was a good point but nobody could explain it. The PE teacher got one hell of a disciplinary and at the end of the school year left."



My reaction to this was, "what!".

The responsibility is in no other person's hands other than the teacher who acted like that. Why should his actual class feel the rap for that? You had to explain yourselves for the decision of your teacher, wow. Guilt by association doesn't apply in this dynamic in school. Teacher holds 100% the fault, the class 0%.

Steve.

Going back ten years to when my own son was in school his was one of those casual places that allowed pupils to make many of their own decisions rather than be constantly told. In our case his school had shower facilities and they were allowed to use them on a purely voluntary basis, but as he told me, nobody did. What was interesting to me was he said that although nobody volunteered to shower after PE there were a few who wanted to do so but were afraid to do so incase it made them look strange in front of everyone else, presumably because of taking all their clothes off by choice, so they didn't attempt to. To me that just makes the case for compulsion like I had. Had my boy's school been like that it would have raised no complaints from me at all.

That Ian Walker story makes me wonder if all did forget. If I'd been in that class and realised he'd been left in the cupboard I just know I'd have enjoyed the spectacle of him being left there for a laugh so it makes me wonder if others had that same mischievous intent, even more so if you didn't like either the one in the cupboard or the teacher.

I think your whole take on the school, the shower and general feelings about 'nasty men' out there very refreshing Marion. I hope most people think like you do but it's hard to tell nowadays when offended minorities shout loudest and longest over the quiet majority of us out here.

So on this school showers thing, when I started at my upper senior school, a regular pleasant enough comprehensive 52 years ago now, the boys always had to take a proper shower together after every PE lesson I can remember following an initial grace period of voluntary use as new boys. So I do remember when I started we had this grace period where it was voluntary for ages, although I don't think the teacher told us this as such that I recall now. All that happened was we'd come back to change and the shower was on for us and some boys used it and some didn't and nobody argued about it. I used it. The boys that didn't were not judged by anyone else for not doing so and the teachers didn't care. It was like this for many many weeks until something just flicked and there became a zero tolerance to not showering and those boys who had happily been skipping showering suddenly had to start doing it or else. I remember how this rather changed the atmosphere around the changing room at the time which had been calm and relaxed and then became a bit more tense with more assertiveness and obvious control being given. I think the way we had been going during this grace period was actually more amenable to everyone concerned. So I support the use of school showering at the close of PE but found voluntary worked best and in that situation I was always prepared to use what was available to me.

I'm reminded of a boy in my class who got put in an outside PE store cupboard to cool down after causing trouble in a lesson I was in when we were playing football in the early 80's. The PE teacher actually locked him in it. It was used like a sin bin. Everyone then forgot he'd been put there and school finished, PE was last lesson, and we went home. He's been stuck in this cupboard at about 2.30pm not long after the lesson began and was finally let out at 6pm, more than two hours after school ended when someone from home contacted the school worried sick about his no show.

Our whole class was treated as guilty as the teacher in not remembering and also had to explain why nobody had noticed his regular day clothes sitting untouched in the changing room and getting left behind. It was a good point but nobody could explain it. The PE teacher got one hell of a disciplinary and at the end of the school year left.

Marion's comment on 20th September here is one of the best comments I've read in a while.

Comment by: Mark on 20th September 2023 at 11:15


You have hit the nail on the head there, Mark. It wasn't just the somewhat questionable "interest" certainly our Mr. R showed in some of us, it was the aggressive and bullying manner he barked out his orders. I suppose this was part of the 'control' M.O. he employed, to suppress any questioning of his pathetic authority, but like you many years after I left I can still hear his voice.

I wish I shared Marion's faith in the innocuous nature of (some) P.E. teachers. As I have said earlier this week you would hope bad behaviour ended years ago when younger men and women went into the profession, but still the bad apples are ending up in court in the 2020s, charged with offences of the most appalling nature.

Marion I totally agree with your closing comment " I do not agree with people who live in terror of a potential abusive adult around every corner, you just cannot live live like that."

It is because of this culture that people are reluctant to volunteer to work with any groups especially children or the vulnerable.

Like a few other people have posted to be able to use a shower was was a novelty where bathrooms were often a rare thing. As for the undressing. I got used to this when camping as a Scout when about 6 boys would share a tent and have to get undressed for bed and dressed again in the morning.
I do not know what is included in P E lessons nowadays but I certainly enjoyed most the opportunity to climb ropes and use the wall bars. Is this still included or has it fell foul of the Health and safety gurus. I know that pupils have to be protected but making a risk assessment
for such an activity would be a headache.

Thankyou for explaining the mix up Drew.

As an oldie myself at school in the 1960s we girls had school mistresses who were the equal of many men I think. But where showering is concerned, I did this in those days with the usual feelings anyone would imagine at certain stages, don't we all, but do not have a problem with the current generation being asked the same as us if they are, such as a grandson somewhat unexpectedly confronted with a school, Willingdon, asking him to get himself showered with PE. I think in this day and age there are a huge amount of safeguards now in place, more than ever, and although a shower is a shower and it is what it is, where you are being asked to remove all your clothing briefly, I feel school is now safer than it ever has been. I think if you do feel embarrassed by such things then its just another obstacle to try and overcome in life. I do not agree with people who live in terror of a potential abusive adult around every corner, you just cannot live live like that.

Marion,
Apologies - I meant to put your name as the first word of my post, as it was in response to your post, but inadvertently typed it in the name section in error!!

I want to make it quite clear that I am not a gymnast in any way whatsoever. But I was able to hold myself upside down on top of the horse without being held by a teacher when I was at school and nobody else in class could do it apart from me. My arms were not especially big and strong and I was very slim build. My gym class looked just like the boys above, no shirts were worn. Could anyone else do the horse handstand without any aid?

Our family home in in the mid 50s was very cramped and although there was a notional bathroom it did not have a bath and there was definitely no shower at hand. Just a large square white sink and toilet with a long chain to a high up cistern to pull. The walls were not even decorated other than white paint on the plaster and that was it. A child or small adult could just about sit crossed legged in the sink and call it a bath of sorts. I was able to do this until I was about 12 years old but then became too big later on. We had one of those silver iron tubs you could sit in but rarely used it.

Going to grammar school in 1955 felt like I was being introduced to luxury. A shower. A nice big shower with lots of space. That felt so special. I didn't obviously have it to myself but with 20 or 30 other boys but that didn't matter, it still felt special when I was able to do this. Other boys came from posher homes with bigger bathrooms with a bath.

I was able to use the school shower at least twice a week, sometimes three, we had two or three PE lessons each week, it varied over time. So I have a highly positive view of showers in school PE from those days long ago.

To be clear, I would just like to state that I am not the same Marion who placed the comment here at 11.11am today, whether this is a coincidence or somebody wishing to mimic me which seems possible. Thankyou.

40 or 50 years ago most teachers probably thought they were untouchable, that's probably the only explanation for some of the actions they took.

Going back to first experiences and my first memory of the school showers, or at least one of the earliest if not the very first was how aggressive a couple of our PE teachers often were about the whole issue and making sure we did it how they wanted, and of course the watching over us. That stays with me to this day and I left school in 1976.

It's a long time since I was at school, but yes I suppose it was a little embarrassing the first time we had to shower together after PE.
But as George says, we soon got used to it.

Actually showering at all was a bit of a novelty back then. Like most houses at the time, ours only had a bath rather than a shower. The only other time we came across a shower was at the local swimming pool, but there you rinsed yourself off while still wearing your swimming trunks (or costume for the girls and women)..

Kevin: I know the excuse about öne rotten apple in every barrel" but THREE in the SAME barrel.?. To quote a notorious groomer of the past , Oscar Wilde, ´one might be regarded as a misfortune, both looks like carelessness'but THREE for Gods sake?. At the very least the current head should resign in shame - and the gravamen is, the older lads are kept at school and treated as children, the bigger the danger. When you know what went on 40 or 50 years ago, you can only hope with police checks and the British ´lessons will be learned" mantra, paedophile teachers would be a thing of the past. It is a terrible shock to know things are as bad.

Not sure it's helpful to keep putting up those kind of newspaper articles Alan. I think we all know there are rotten apples in this sector of education.

What those people who behave like this in schools seem to forget is that all those very young pupils who they treat as powerless and having to do as they are told will not remain like that forever and will grow into adults, leave school and retain the memories of what was happening to them and in many cases then speak out if they've been asked to do something they shouldn't. How can a teacher get away with forcing naked swimming on pupils and locking them in the pool area to do so and think he is ever getting away with that in the long term. I would have gone right home and told my parents that same night.

Marion.

Most boys would be a bit conscious or embarrassed first time showering. I remember my first time being confronted by many of my friends and trying hard not to look at their willies but kind of wanting to as well. But you get over it quite fast and next time was already quite different once that first time was out the way.

When I look back on my school days I think introducing kids to communal nudity is probably quite a healthy thing to do.

https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/23785141.third-name-given-royal-liberty-school-romford-abuse-case/

Secondary schools and their equivalents for that age group are obliged in law to maintain in full working order washing and showering facilities to be used. Whether they choose to then use them is not set down in law.

(ex-governor at two schools, primary & secondary 1985 to 2006)

Embarrassed, weird but okay.

That was an interesting reaction, the final word doesn't sit easily with the first two.

He sounds mature enough to understand what he's being asked to do and needs to do.

On balance I think I'm more against schools nowadays that simply refuse to let them shower even if they wanted to.

I wrote on here last Monday about my grandson who started at Willingdon School at the start of this month and how he and his family were unaware of that school's PE rules including being told on Friday ten days ago that he had to bring a towel last Monday for PE.

I see some people have asked a question and would like to know some more. I can let you know that the PE class he was in was made to shower properly after PE last Monday. He described it to me as embarrassing, a bit weird but okay. I'm sure he will get used to it quite quickly. I think it was a typical reaction to doing that for the first time.