Burnley Grammar School

Jay on 12th April 2023 at 17:07


It was on the backside, Jay. Mr. B was far too canny to leave marks where they could be seen. I was the only one on the receiving end that day, but other lads got in on other occasions for equally petty reasons. You didn't tell your parents you had got the cane because it was something to feel ashamed about, even if it was administered for nothing.

Reading Ross's comment about having to take your clothes off to do a quiz in a classroom for example, is the reason I think all teachers, but especially PE teachers, should be made to undergo a psychiatric examination before they are employed, and if their behaviour continues to be the same, each time they are employed in another school or LEA. They were just able to continue to (at best) display their Adolf tendencies, or at worst to take their prurient "interests" with them.

Chess Boxing? Ugh, that sounds very Alan Partridge. I hope a few know what I mean by that here.

In respect of your comments Bernard, shoeless running is actually a bit of a thing, there are numerous videos out there online, on YT for instance, of people, almost all of them male, who really rate it as something positive. But these are adults who are doing it freely. I'm not so sure about adults forcing children to run outside like that if they don't wish to. I'm almost certain your teacher Bernard never practiced what he preached did he, and wore trainers and a top. They were all like that in the past, do what I say, not what I do. One of the things about teachers that used to wind me up.

Tanya - our kit did seem like the most sensible option - I would have hated having to stop to dig plimsolls out of the mud only to put them on feet that had probably been put down in the mud. I think I would have hated even more having to try to clean the plimsolls later at home.
We had to clean off what we could on the grass before we entered the school building but the showers did get very messy.
You're right - most of us didn't really mind getting very muddy and a wet shirt would not have kept us warm.

New to a PE lesson near you - Chess Boxing.

https://www.huckmag.com/outdoor/sport-outdoor/chessboxing-the-new-craze-where-brain-meets-brawn/

Chess sounds like it was suited to a lunchtime chess club or something for those who made it known they showed an interest in it, rather than dumped on everyone for part of their timetabled PE session. I can get why a PE teacher would be somewhat annoyed by someone else telling him he had to do that. Chess may well be a defined sport but it sure isn't physical education, more like ME, mental education.
I think the teacher in your case Joe sounds a bit petulant but as you didn't do an entire lesson playing chess and did actually do some proper PE then it doesn't seem completely weird, as it would have done if he'd known about and you'd done a whole lesson of chess and he'd made you go that kit style, no shirts no footwear for that and that alone.

You were all just a bunch of pawns really weren't you. The whole thing conjures up one strange image I must say.

Peter and Mike,
I went to secondary school in the eighties, an old-fashioned comprehensive. I wrote about it on this forum a few weeks ago.
The idea to introduce us to chess must have been someone else's. I remember that our PE teacher was quite angry because 'they' had made him give up his valuable lesson time for what he considered to be a waste of time. I suppose making us strip to the waist for chess and giving us a hard time at the end of the lesson was his way of getting his own back. Alternatively, you could say that he just took his anger out on us.

Joe's comments reminded me of the very rare but occasional times when the weather was deemed too extreme to go and do the lesson outside and when the indoor Gym and sports hall were in use we'd all be then marched off to a classroom often at the other end of school and all us lads shirtless and barefoot just to sit a room to do a sporting quiz or put in groups for chess or board games. Quite why we had to change into our indoor PE kit for that I've no idea.

It could have been worse Joe.

He could have got you playing chess in the pool;

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-budapest-hungary-playing-chess-in-an-outdoor-pool-of-the-szechenyi-59879006.html


You didn't say how far back that was but a crazy one I agree.

What an extraordinary story you have there Joe. That's certainly a first. Your teacher sounded like the bloody minded type. What a prat.

Chess is actually a game that takes a bit of time and concentration, it would certainly eat up an hour no problem. What a strange thing to invite a chess club to do that and factor it into a PE period like that, but then make you do actual PE just before you played some chess and then afterwards too. I can imagine the chess members really did look on in bemusement, I think I would have done. Yes, it's a sport of sorts but you don't wear the same thing for all sports anyway. Some people think fox hunting is a sport too, wouldn't wear a PE kit to do that would you.

Like has been said so many times on here before, some people love the power tripping their job gives them over others, we can all name various occupations it happens in and teaching, and within teaching PE teachers have a special place of their own.

Perhaps the saddest part is your admitting failing to share your enthusiasm openly to the chess visitors just because you worried more about your own teachers reaction if you had.

I'd be more than interested to hear more of your experiences if this one is anything to go by.

Alan.

SIX strokes of the cane for sneezing and then moving your hand to your face - in the 1980's, just because he told you to stay still.

Across your hands or behind was that, and at what age?

I actually find that quite incredible. You certainly don't sound to me like you were a bad lad of any kind. That is excessive.

I'm genuinely angry on your behalf. I can see why you hold such deep resentment. What did your parents say at the time?

My whole experience at school in the same time period just over forty or so years back was completely different. Quite fair minded PE teachers in the main, only one or two other teachers who were a bit unlikeable, nothing unusual in that. PE was mostly in proper shirts and shorts and only occasionally did our tops come off for the skins team side. Never went outside without full tops on. After the first couple of years by third or fourth form the showers weren't even compulsory anymore and we could leave without and nothing was said.

Which is funny really because I didn't mind in the least taking my shirt off for PE on the few times I did it and going in the showers was something I got used to almost instantly and thought almost nothing of, although others did I know that. Never heard of any corporal punishments either. I can't say I even remember PE teachers shouting very much in any kind of anger.

I went to a normal regular average comprehensive school as far as I'm concerned.

It seems that Alan’s experiences and mine are actually quite similar. The PE regime, no stopping, no talking, always barechested inside or outside he describes is very familiar to me. There were never any exceptions of any kind. I remember a very unusual lesson when I was about 14. We were to be introduced to the game of chess by members of a local chess club and it was decided that this should happen during PE hours. Of course, our PE teacher only complied grudgingly. When we entered the gym, he told us that we would be playing chess and that that it apparently was considered to be a sport. As such, we would have to get changed. I quite clearly remember us boys looking at each other thinking that he would surely not make us strip to our shorts only to play a board game but of course he did. We then entered the gym as we always did, barechested and barefoot, forming two lines for the last two boys who had to run the gauntlet, doing five laps around the gym before standing to attention in front of him. He put us into pairs of two, had us take out an exam table and two chairs, set the whole lot up and made us stand to attention behind our table while the very bewildered looking elderly members of the chess club set up the boards for us. They explained the game to us and we had time to have a go at it. I actually quite enjoyed chess but dared not to show it in front of our teacher. 15 minutes before the end of the lesson he abruptly interrupted the matches made us a line up again and put us through the most gruesome and intense work up I had had up to then at the end of which we were completely soaked. He then sent us off to have a shower by saying that a sport that didn’t make you sweat was for sissys. I actually remember it so well because I felt very embarrassed not because we were made to strip to the waist but for the members of the chess club who put a lot of effort into their activity, which was ridiculed by our teacher. I also felt ashamed because I didn’t dare to show them my gratitude for fear of our teacher’s disdain.

Nathan
I remember a few years back going into the local Co-Op - there was a lad there on 'work experience': he was not happy. Something about having to get up in the morning, and be where he didn't want to be, and packing shelves in a tidy manner, and folding up empty boxes. I'm afraid he got little sympathy from customers - one lady said: 'Cheer Up! Only another forty-five years before you can retire!'
This is 'off topic' but: there are lots of very good lads (& lasses) about- a credit to their families & communities but some others do worry me. 'Nuff said

Tim H, I follow your reasoning . I like many others left school at 16 . At that time we were the "Top Dogs" of the pupils. Prefects etc. Then straight into work back to the bottom of the pile and treated as such. The managers were strict and to be obeyed. Addressed as Mr. ..... no matey first name terms.
So all aspects of secondary school I suppose prepared us not only with academic education but prepared us "for the great outside world"
From my latter years at work i think youngster finish their education whether school or college or university and expect to walk straight into the top jobs with no idea of how the world really works.

I agree with Stuart & Lance ... the ability to face up to things 'as they come'.

Bear in mind we'd all be moving (eventually) out of home and school into jobs or FE - the move could come as a shock, especially if, as many did in past days, you moved into an apprenticeship or 'manual' work - you grew up quickly.

Isn't being "tough/acting like a man" a combination of physical fitness and mental fitness" OK, it's running in winter stripped to only shorts etc etc, but also the mental strength to accept that sort of thing.

Robert Coulson - briefly we had a teacher who was a sadist - two actually - the other one was worse, but that is another story. This particular teacher played mind games. One minute he would be quite jocular, then suddenly he would change and become beligerant (either mental health problems or too much to drink). One day after one of these episodes he told us all to stand up and not to move until he told us to. We were in the (so-called) science lab. After five minutes I sneezed and automatically moved my hand. I got six for that. Totally unjustified, and I loathed him even more from that day onwards. If I had done something to deserve it I wouldn't have felt so angry about him. Teachers had far too much power, and it went to the heads of men like the late Mr. Boreham. I fully agree MOST teachers were probably more like you, but the rotten apples should have been weeded out by their colleagues and headmasters, and shown up for what they were, as it gave the profession a bad name. I like to think that taking away the 'power' of the cane made his final years in the profession miserable. I think it was phased out completely in 1988/9, which was a year or too late for me to enjoy seeing him banned from performing his favourite hobby.

My definition of toughening up would be nothing to do with anything physical or about muscles and shirts coming off but more to do with mental attitude and resilience of the mind, and maturity of thought.

I think from a PE teacher angle they simply thought of it as taking whatever they threw at you and putting up with it without answering back. Which most of us did obligingly.

When two men fancy having a pop at each other, such as in films, you often see one or both of them whip their shirts off quickly before starting any fisticuffs with each other and then fighting barechested as if that's the manly thing to do. So it's quite clear that getting boys in PE into their barechested state is one of those manning up kind of things they used to make us do. Real men take their shirts off and show their physique whereas those who don't like doing so are seen as wimps or girls. Not my words but the words I once heard said to a couple of boys in my PE class when I must have been no more than about 12 years old when I distinctly remember a teacher telling the pair to take their vests off and stop acting like girls about it.

Bernard,
I agree with you entirely that the PE kit rules were sensible and had been properly considered and were not decided on a whim. My mum was pleased that she only ever had to wash a pair of shorts when I did gym and cross country running. When it rained as it often did doing cross country shirtless was more comfortable than having a sopping wet shirt stuck to your back.

"Toughening up"

To me at my school it meant being very fit, not worrying about being cold/wet during cross country (thus not shirt, bare feet), accepting minor bruises during sport, cold showers, accepting canings if deserved and so on

Sam and Steve both with comments about toughening up and making men of boys during PE. What does it even mean anyway?

You never hear about girls and making women out of them do you.

Bernard

Thanks for your response.

We had to run cross country shirtless, but wore plimsolls. Other than one lad who always ran bare foot - his choice, or maybe his fathers (his dad was military and believed "boys need toughening up etc")

I would have hated being barefoot, but maybe we had a different type of course to you. Not just because of ground conditions, but also it would have seemed even more of a punishment on a freezing day in winter to be not only forced to strip to the waist, but also to have to strip to all but nothing, in that we world have worn only a thin pair of shorts and been on full public view.

Are you saying you were running ankle deep in thick wet mud with literally nothing on your feet Bernard in those conditions, with it also raining and having to go out stripped off bare chested too at the same time, and you approved of that? What a mess you must have made coming back into change with all that muck on your feet. The showers must have looked a right state.

But I guess you boys like getting muddy don't you at that age and perhaps still wouldn't mind. All that mud must have given your lot great feet, as long as it was the right sort of mud!

What school and where Bernard?

Why do so few people actually name names on here.

I had a PE teacher who took our whole class out cross country running one day right through the centre of town (Banbury) and back to school again TOTALLY SHIRTLESS the lot of us. I just wanted to hide and kept looking at the ground as we went. Absolute tool. He was one of those 'it'll make men of you types'. I think it was in 1979, late summer, just back to school.

I'd like to respond to Tom's comment of 6th April 2023.

I was dismayed to read your comment Tom. I can assure you, and others that even fifty plus years ago kicking a child in school would be considered well beyond acceptable.

I was actually very surprised to see the drama from 1983 showing a boy being hit in his PE lesson like that because that was not something I ever encountered even many years before that time, in the late 1960's or 1970's and it is not how many I knew behaved.

By the beginning of the 1980's although corporal punishment in schools remained legal for a further few years until I think it was about 1986 when it finally ended, many teachers would not have gone near using any kind of physical admonishment in school by that point.

I was interested to see you Alan say you received the cane in school yourself, are you not a 1980's schoolboy. What did you receive it for?

I remember in my early days teaching and hearing from an old hand in my first school about his long career which must have stretched back pre-war and him telling me how he used to strike this boy and that boy time and again for this and that, to which I said something like well if you had to keep doing it over and over to the same boys again and again then it really wasn't working was it.

Steve - Yes barefoot and stripped to the waist. We thought it a bit odd to start with but appreciated it after the first heavy rain. Our route had several sections which became very muddy after heavy rain. Plimsolls were the alternative and these would soon have become detached from the feet they were meant to be on. It was really a sensible kit - we didn't have to stop a number of times to retrieve filthy plimsolls. In addition, muddy feet were a lot easier to clean than mud-encased plimsolls.
It was not uncommon to fall over and get very dirty so it was practical to only have a pair of shorts that needed cleaning - my mother certainly appreciated that!
I was very fortunate in that my school tended not to do things on a whim - there was usually a good reason even when the rules might have seemed strange to start with.

Matt, seems a sensible arrangement.

Bernard

Did you have to run cross country barefoot as well as stripped to the waist ?

If so, how did boys/parents react to that.

Thanks

Though I in no way condone violence towards or against anybody, did anybody else see this story?:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11954249/More-one-10-teachers-physically-assaulted-pupil-year-survey-finds.html


I wonder what percentage of pupils were assaulted by teachers for no good reason when they were allowed to use corporal punishment? - and it is not that many years ago, either.