Burnley Grammar School

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.

A couple of intense stories here.

Going by what Christine said it looks to me like there might have been an improvement of sort in schools more generally after Ofsted was set up in the mid 90s when she said it was formed. Is it any coincidence that the couple of decades before that just happen to be the 1970s and 1980s when a lot of people at school in those days feel things were out of control in some way and the treatment lacking.

I think my own comprehensive state school in those days was a law unto itself where almost anything seemed to go and few rules applied, or if they were then they were broken week in week out. Through the late 70s when I was at a rather uninspiring school I often saw male men=bers of the class getting waht can only be called a battering by quite a large number of teachers from any subject you care to name almost. It always seemed to be men who looked about 40 that did this, who were often badly dressed but expected us lot to look immaculate with our top buttons done up. Mine was undone once and my tie a bit loose and a teacher nearly strangled me, I actually choked a bit.

I also saw someone running along a corridor once and a teacher actually stuck his leg out and sent him tripping and flying through the air, sliding along the floor and all his books scattering, then getting pulled up by the collar and pinned against a wall.

As we got older in comprehenive school we actually got treated worse, not better. So by the time I was 14 or 15 there was never a class that went by that didn't seem to descend into bad temper by a teacher at some point over something completely trivial that wasn't worth the hot air. I was misheard calling the girls PE teacher a bitch once under my breath when she asked me to put some gym stuff away from a girls lesson after I'd just finished our boys class, separately. She said she heard me say it and told me she was going to report me to my own PE teachers. I'd actually said the word 'bench' not bitch as that was what she wanted moved and she obviously saw this strapping shirtless 15 year old lad with his muscles and thought, he'll do nicely for the task. She didn't believe me when I said I hadn't sworn though. I was in the changing room and was in the showers and above the sound of loud running water heard my surname shouted out a couple of times and got out to see what they wanted, the girls teacher had reported I'd sworn at her and called her a bitch. I couldn't believe she did that. I hadn't sworn at her, it was a misheard misunderstanding of an innocent word. But anyway, I was dripping wet, no clothes, no chance to grab my towel and this teacher grabs me in an actual headlock and gets me bent double and holds me in that position while the other teacher took a gym plimsoll off his foot and literally thrashed the life out of my backside what must have been at least six times straight at my arse in full view of everyone. There was real anger in that thrashing, my skin actually bruised. That felt barely legal even in those days to me. I thought it was over after that but I also got an afterschool detention the following day, a letter home to say why and a trip to the head's office the next day where he strapped my hands too. So I got punished THREE TIMES for one small misheard word. Even if I'd called her a bitch that was a bit much don't you think. They might have killed me on the spot if I'd gone the full F word or worse.

It was really sore for me to sit down for a day or two, I even showed my dad the teachers handywork on me. He was appalled by it but just told me to keep out of their way and not wind them up again in future. How do you keep out the way of teachers in school. I was no softy in school when I was 15 and could handle myself, seemed to be simialr size to the teachers, probably why two had to grab me, but that episode knocked the stuffing out of me for ages and I did find it so hard not to completely cry in front of friends, not because of the pain inflicted but because of the total humiliation and the injustcie of being falsely accused of something I hadn't said and not being heard, just given an immediate thrashing before I got a chance to say my piece to defend myself.

I never held many teachers at my comprehensive school in high regard because they refused to hold us with any at all. As a friend once said to me about our teachers, a core group of them used to use the boys as some kind of anti-stress punchbags to relieve their own frustrations. He was right. Boys in mid 70s comprehensives could be treated like they were a piece of dirt, and not only that but my PE teacher once told a number of lads they would make nothing of their lives, what did they ever know, condemning us at 15 for life like that, and nearly always wrong too.

Comment by: Stuart T on 30th November 2024 at 23:59

Stuart, your story is one of the reasons I have always been against this sort of locker room mentality enjoyed by so many schools. It is bad enough when it is a school policy, but it is even worse if it is left to the whims of individual teachers. I was the opposite to you, in that I was very undersized - in all departments - and, like you, I had a teacher who loved to embarrass and gave encouragement to other pupils to do so. four years of absolute hell.

Those sorts of teachers - and I bet there still are some - are the lowest of the low, but even in the 1970s the most ignorant amongst them must have known the damage they were causing, and if they didn't, more enlightened teachers, or the school psychologist service should have made them aware that what they were doing was wrong.

One of my customers has the misfortune to have an office overlooking the outside area of a brand new school - this is a primary school, and they play great store in physical activities, and he tells me that you can always hear some loud-mouthed PE teacher bawling "encouragement" to the pupils. They can't be seen, but they most certainly can be heard. If that is how they are treating younger kids, God knows how they will treat them when they go into secondary education. They remind me of TV sports commentators, getting worked up and excited to levels that defy reality - all probably an act, but they need to be told to tone it down. Clearly if you went into the RAF you were much more fit than your school idiots thought you were.

Comment by: Mark on 30th November 2024 at 21:26



I totally agree with you and take your point, Mark. The only problem is, unless every lad agreed to do it, it wouldn't be effective - most PE teachers are bone-headed and they would "shame" or bully boys who did it, into conforming to their desires . You always get a few goody-goods who do exactly what they are told, even if they don't agree with it or find it uncomfortable. Schoolboys are a bit like politicians in that regard.



Comment by: Frank on 30th November 2024 at 20:44



I'd be interested to know what decade your experiences happened, Frank. Since the 1990s it has been illegal to use physical punishment on school pupils, so if it were after that time he committed a criminal offence, but since you incurred an injury if it wasn't too ling before the 90s, he might be bought to book retrospectively. We have seen in recent years teachers from even the 60s and 7os convicted of criminal offences.

The problem is, I think, that far too many adults review schooldays through rose coloured glasses - they forget the really bad times and bad teachers, the aggressions, the inadequate teachers and facilities - and the fact that schoolboys (and girls I assume) are really vile to each other and every difference is pounced upon - hair colour even, physical size, one or two on here have said they felt uncomfortable because they were circumcised (one lad in my own class had that experience with almost constant taunting), so being homosexual would be the pinnacle of derision. There really should be more safeguards, including a right to privacy.

I often wonder - now we have people forced to stay on at school well beyond childhood, and some actually come out while at school - how they are treated by fellow pupils and teachers. I think, even now, with many schools having metal detectors at school entrances, because of the number of pupils who carry knives, I would be very circumspect in declaring sexuality at school.

I don't think it works like that Mark I'm afraid, but good luck trying I suppose. Frank your comment got to me fired up enough to share something with you, I don't know when you went to school but I switched from the small primary to the much bigger nearby secondary school in the early seventies.

I should say right now I was one of those rare overweight kids at the time, not due to overeating but because of a hyperthyroidism condition that was left untreated too long at the time. I was very podgy and received all the typical names you might care to think of. PE lessons in our primary school when I first became quite big for a young boy were a nightmare to me but the teachers in school were very kind and allowed me to wear a baggy large tea-shirt rather than a slim one or vest so that my bigger body shape was not as obvious and this made me more happy. I was obviously not as agile as some of the slim kids but could take part and manage most things with added effort. The teachers knew this and praised me. I have nothing but good things to say about primary school teahcers even if some of the others my age used names behind their backs.

Rolling on to secondary school in the early seventies and I tried everything to look less big before I got there but nothing worked. I can't remember what my weight was, but think I was more than an adult of average height or something even at eleven, possibly twelve stone when I was only maybe 5"1' or thereabout. Very big for a kid anyway. I feared going to the secondary school because I knew what might be in store and wasn't wrong about it and it was actually far worse. The teachers were all against me too.

When I started I remember how I'd sometimes cry to myself quietly in bed at night hoping my parents couldn't hear me, just because I was so unhappy at the thought of another PE lesson ahead when I got up in the morning. My teachers were downright cruel and sided with those who made fun of my size. Unlike in primary they would not let me wear a baggy tea-shirt in the school gym or outside and I was forced to do the PE there with a bare body like other far slimmer or average looking boys which was absolutely horrific for me. Not only would I receive name calling and abuse from the other kids but I got it from the teachers too, and when the other kids saw them doing this they thought it gave them the right and it was okay to make my life a right misery. At the secondary school they used to laugh at me if I struggled. I could barely get two feet off the ground climbing a rope, and was called completely useless. One day a PE teacher brought one of those flimsy tape measures out of his pocket and thought it would be fun to wrap it around my tummy and tell the class how big I was compared to the rest of them. I'm unsure what I was, I think he said I was 10 inches bigger around the waist than others, they were something like 28 inches and I was 38 inches, something like that anyway. Bear in mind I'm a decent enough intelligent kid at the time who just happened to be overweight, that's all. I didn't skip classes, I didn't mouth off, I tried to do my best and soak up all the abuse and negativity about what I looked like and the dreadful sensation of being forced to commit to doing PE with my body all out to be made fun of.

In the end I became so ashamed of my body and what I looked like that I did start to miss a few lessons though, mostly because of the showering which they forced me to do and where I was the butt of so much attention and teasing about my size, and then the size of my bits compared to my tummy and all that. My size seemed to give other boys permission to actually touch me like I was some kind of freak show and not a real human being, none of the other boys would have dared touch each other. A few boys actually grabbed hold of my stomach in the showers and pinched it and even felt like they could physically pinch my balls too. That kind of thing was unheard of with anybody else. Meanwhile the teachers ignored it all or even egged some of it on. I was even clouted over the head one day in PE by a teacher for complaining about such behaviour. It was like an overweight schoolboy a bit different in shape and size repulsed them. I used to cry comparing my old school to these unsympathetic bastards.

When I was about 14 I went to the GP about my weight and they diagnosed hyperthyroidism and gave me treatment. Within a year my weight had lessened and so had my size and tummy. But I still received the abusive nonsense for ages about my parents starving me of food, untrue. School PE in the secondary had laid me right open for all this abuse, the fact I must have been overweight so young because I was an overfed overindulged ill disciplined glutton and not because of a legit medical condition. Forcing boys my size at the time to shower witht he others with no clothes on at all was a school equivalent of water torture to me. I'm not saying that some of these things should not have happend or I should have been treated differently on account of my size but I am saying that the way I was treated should have been very different but I was allowed to feel almost worthless and unpleasant to look at and quite useless.

Schooldays are like another lifetime completely when I think of them. I have not been a particularly overweight adult and in my younger years I joined the RAF as a support technician and managed to pass a physical examination to get in so couldn't have been quite as useless as my PE teachers made me out to be be, could I.

Some of these men in the early seventies were a breed of their own. In the RAF I was always treated very well by everyone. So why couldn't I have been at school even when a bit fatter than the others.

Paul's point.

If school makes it clear there is a uniform for PE that you're expected to provide but you turn up and the teacher goes all shirtless gym lessons instead most of the time, surely on that basis you could refuse to go shirtless and wear the stated uniform if it was what you wanted to do.

I was scared out of my wits by the school showers, and we had a very abuusive gym teacher who demanded I had to strip in front of the other boys and shower nude with them every day (without supervision so they'd have every chance to do whatever they wanted to me). His excuse for this was that the next year we'd be attending a different school which would require the same thing so he had to get us used to it. (This was an utter lie, they required no such thing.) I had already been beaten up regularly because they thought I was gay, I didn't need to give them confirmation and a chance to murder me unseen.

I actually started refusing to go to school. My parents were not understanding about it and forced me to go. I developed severe insomnia about it because I'd be up all night, terrified about the next day. (The insomnia still bothers me about 35 years later.) When I was there, I found it exceedingly difficult to concentrate or do work because gym was at the end of the day and I'd spend the entire day in terror that it was coming. Eventually my father realized he had no choice but to intervene or see me flunk out of school, so he had us meet with the principal several times. The principal was the father of one of my friends, or I probably would have just been flunked out. He compromised with me that, because I had gym at the very end of the day, I didn't have to shower (I could go home and do that) and could change in a toilet stall. (I was officially refusing on the reason of "modesty".)

I was still very traumatized by it because all the other boys were constantly trying to peer at me over and under the stall as I changed, and the gym teacher encouraged them. (I took to wearing billowy boxer shorts, which I would not remove when changing. This was against the rules but the teacher couldn't admit to knowing about it because he had no legitimate way of knowing.) He gave me a hard time in class every day and even hit me once - he didn't hit me hard enough to hurt me (hitting a student was very illegal) but I did stumble badly and break a toe. (Only bone I've ever broken.)

35-ish years later I had a class reunion with many of those guys in attendance, and now I'm out of the closet and they all know for a fact that I'm gay. Several of them came up to me and, unprompted, apologized for it. This meant a lot to me, not mostly that they were sorry (which is nice but I've had a few decades to move on), but that they realized it had been traumatic for me without me having to bring it up to them.

The horrors adults and kids do to innocent gay kids... :(

The trouble with Reedie's comment about moving somewhere else if you have a problem with the requirements of a school is this;

My secondary school had an exhaustive PE kit list that was bought for us by our parents. I remember the list well and everything on it that my parents had to buy ahead of new school year and term start up. It was quite clear ahead of time that we were being told we always wore sweatshirts outside, vests or t-shirts, with our shorts or sometimes long jogging bottoms were allowed and even a track suit top. PArents had to buy all this kit just for PE, a full indoors PE kit and a full outdoors one that covered playing various team games.

There was never any mention of PE at my secondary school being done shirtless ahead of joining the school.

However when I turned up at school weighed down with all this kit in my bag, plus towel for the showers of course, I soon discovered that what the school PE kit list said and told our parents to buy, and sggested we would wear while in PE was largely a work of complete fiction. For our first lesson in our school gym all the boys did wear the new kit we had, I think we wore white vests with a small pattern across the middle. But the next time we came to PE the teacher gathered us all in the centre of the gym and asked to collect all our vest from us and said we'd do gym without them in future. I can remember being unbelievably nervous at this moment and couldn't believe it as he threw all our vests aside.

So the school officially said one thing to the world and our parents but once the boys like me got into the realities of the school gym the teachers rarely allowed us to put anything on and kept us shirtless. Yet there was no official mention of doing shirtless PE anywhere.

Forgot to say.
Never came to "like" PE, but I did come to see it as a challenge and I found it became compelling after we got used to the hard work.
Also, although the PE teacher was a bit of an ogre, he did seem to show some consideration to less able or extremely shy lads. To the rest of us mortals, he was a pretty fierce disciplinarian!

Enjoyed your posts Reedie and Tonk (22 Nov).
I was never confident about being shirtless or taking showers (partly because I'm circumcised). Gradually though I became a bit more confident. One day, I suddenly realised I liked being shirtless on cross country - amazingly in the worst weather imaginable, with strong gusts of wind lashing sleet into our bodies. Completely bizarre I realise!
I don't think that being shirtless was a force to improve my PE, that was more my teacher (see my post 21 July). I even worked out first and last thing in my bedroom to make the gym classes easier.
It did have a good result. A few years after leaving school, a friend accidentally saw me taking a shower. He was very apologetic but, shall we say, that did not stop him having a good look. A couple of weeks later, at a party, he blurted out that "Ian has a great body". I did not know weather to be embarrassed or pleased - I think more the latter. So the hard work was worthwhile.
Just a final point about your trip to the headmaster, Reedie. I guess you were in England. In Scotland, individual teachers had the right to act "in loco parentis" i.e. administer corporal punishment. Very much part of my PE teachers approach - I felt every one of your head's six strokes! And in Scotland your classmates would have seen the real thing, not just you being dragged off.
And the mention of parents. They very much approved of the new PE teacher's approach. I was mortified when my Dad went and talked to my PE teacher and was shown around, including watching a PE period.

Comment by: Reedie on 28th November 2024 at 23:38



"I'm not sure why there's so much fuss about what seem quite reasonable rules for boys' PE. If the school policy is that boys wear white shorts and no top, that's up to them and you can either abide by the rules or send your son to a different school......"


With all due respect you seem to be one of those people who think If I'm happy, then everybody is happy, but life isn't like that, and as your experience dates to 1971, that is 53 years ago, and things should have moved on since then.

As we have seen if you go back a few pages, quite often a school will demand a whole sports shop full of gear, and the parents, some of them, not well off, buy it only to find their some are only wearing shorts in their lessons. So schools don't necessarily tell the truth (there's a novel concept!) so unless you specifically ask about the dress code, you might well get a misleading answer, and by the time the truth is discovered, it is too late. Also, of course, this is often at the whim of the individual teacher, who has his own agenda.

Just because you had no problems, doesn't mean to say everyone is the same.

As regards Ms. Sanderson thinking there should be more PE in schools, that reminds me of the people who think that National Service should be reintroduced - usually stated with conviction by people who never served themselves, and whose main exercise these days is going to get the morning coffee at Costa. So easy to tell others what to do, provided you don't have to do it yourself.

This triathlon sports forum Slowtwitch is amazing, some women get offended by seeing blokes in the gym without their shirt on and feel 'deeply offended' by the sight of a males bared chest, OMG! GET A FREAKIN' LIFE!

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/t/shirtless-wonder-on-or-off/615509


I only left school in 2012 and we were always hanging out shirtless in class and in front of girls. I#ve hung out around lots of women down the gym too and nobody has ever given me so much as a funny look about it, some admiring ones yep. Some women are trying to get us guys to become like them. School was really great encouraging positive body awareness and enabling us to go shirtless, sometimes we chose to other times we just had to. Most guys are not showing off by going shirtless ladies, and if you're bothered by it then stop looking in me or my fellow males direction, how's that sound.

I'm not sure why there's so much fuss about what seem quite reasonable rules for boys' PE. If the school policy is that boys wear white shorts and no top, that's up to them and you can either abide by the rules or send your son to a different school.
Yes, I'm sure many teenage boys are reluctant to bare their chests, whether it's because they're pale-skinned, lacking in muscle or overweight for that matter. But another way of looking at it is that there's less incentive for a boy to work harder at keeping his body in shape when he can just hide under a T shirt or vest.
In a situation where it's compulsory for every boy to take off his top, surely that can encourage them to put in more effort at building up biceps or a six-pack, or losing weight - and long-term that must boost both their fitness and self-confidence.
In any case, presumably the school also requires boys to be bare chested in swimming lessons, so why should it be so different when they're running around in the gym?
Every school gym I was ever in did bare chests in PE, my first, middle and comp. Even had to start showers in the middle school. We did 3 PE's a week in middle and 2 in the comp, none of this once a month if the weathers nice stuff.
Bare chests in the gym and group showers never did me any harm. I was even dragged to the headmasters office from PE for spitting on the gym floor once and stood there in my bare feet and bare chest as my PE teacher watched the headmaster crack three strikes of his belt across both hands held out. My god that stung like hell but worst was everyone seeing me struggling with the teacher as he pulled me to the headmasters office for that hand whacking. This must have been in 1971.

It makes you wonder what they'd do without a camera pointing down at them in a room such as that. They must know it's there. Plus, why is it there anyway? A normal respectful human being knows how to treat others, adults and children alike. It doesn't take training. I was only on the end of one bit of rough physical treatment in school that I can remember from a teacher, as a twelve year old child in school, pulled up and grabbed by the neck and frogmarched naked to my first school shower and thrown in it, slipping in the wet tiles onto my knees, it lasted a few moments but even just one incident like that never leaves your memory ever, even after having a fair relationship with such a person after they behaved like that.

The boys at Sunlake in their black shorts remind me of shirtless cross country running I did in the upper sixth. Just like that we were, black shorts and barechested, albeit a smaller group of older boys took the free period PE session in sixth form. Those boys looked at least 17 or 18 to me. Isn't it nice to see young non-tattooed clean looking bodies nowadays free of ink and American youth that are actually in shape rather than obese before they leave school like so many are over there nowadays. No mega food portions for those boys I bet.

Thanks for the reply Christine. I thought you might give that type of answer.