Burnley Grammar School

On what basis should you not be playing football at the beginning of the school day? Such an odd comment that.

Ron Parry was still teaching PE at Burnley Grammar when I was there in 1968-72. I liked him and he was a very hands on kind of chap. He was one of those PE teachers who was insistent that boys gym should be done only in a bare chest and shorts. That photo tells the truth as I remember it. It was a strict gym rule rarely broken in his classes. Showers at Burnley were mandatory, communal and nude. He was also one of those teachers who openly showered in front of his classes and many times I saw him do so unconcerned. He'd sometimes hold boys back for private little chats about things, myself many times, alone or in small groups of three or four.

Your former school is an even stranger place than I could have imagined if it never put PE in the timetable first thing Alan.

But then you have told us your school, a secondary boys school if I remember correctly, only had the one male PE teacher and that doesn't seem at all normal. Exactly how big was your school if it only had one PE teacher and could manage not to bother with PE early in the day.

School for me began at 8.45am and one year I had to start Tuesdays and Fridays with PE which began immediately after form registration period was over at 9.10am. Often on PE days the form teacher would cut the registration period shorter than he had to so that we ended up going along to PE to change even earlier so that we were actually changed and ready for 9.10am prompt for the PE teacher, whether that was going to the school's gym or out to the playing fields or associated adjacent surfaces.

If you are saying only daft schools stick PE, or football, on in the morning then what else are the PE teachers meant to be doing exactly, unless you are saying only outdoors PE like football, rugby and the like should not be in the early morning and presumably the gym is fine then.

Comment by: Alan on 12th October 2023 at 03:09
And just to throw a question out - what daft school would schedule football as the first lesson of the day?
I would suggest some of you need to get over your Stockholm syndrome.




You are just looking for a reaction for the sake of it with these two comments which can't be taken seriously.

Charlton wrote "They even show new privates how to wash their privates in the army, well they did in the eighties when I joined."

I wonder if THAT was really necessary in 1985?. I don't disbelieve you - I have heard of something similar elsewhere, but it just seems to confirm that one of the main purposes of officialdom is to humiliate the plebs. Most people are perfectly OK with hygiene a lot earlier than 18. I admire you for joining, it saved those who did not wish it from the terrors of conscription but I cannot imagine WHY anybody wants to be directed and dictated to on any aspect of life at any age, especially in the later teens. Life at that age is for self-discovery, and freedom, in my opinion. You are a long time dead!.

Mick - even our wreck of a school never scheduled football or any other sports lesson as the first lesson of the day it was a serious question. I'll leave you to your John McEnroe quotes.

Quote <And just to throw a question out - what daft school would schedule football as the first lesson of the day?>


^
What kind of daft person would ask such a daft question as this?

To use an old tennis legend, you cannot be serious!

Outdoor toilets did not end in the 1940's Alan. My parents home still had just the one outside toilet until 1972 believe it or not, and they lived in a rather nice district of north London, Finchley! It was in a bricked area joined next to the coal bunker. I remember being in it one day in the 60s when the coal man came to deliver and the noise as the coal was emptied right next to me like the walls were coming down around me. I remember sometimes putting a jacket on when I required more than a quick tinkle.

Jason: I don't know if you were being obtuse, or if I didn't make myself clear, - if the latter, allow me to explain. One of the many excuses given has been lack of bathrooms at home - just the other day somebody told us that in 1985, which I remember well, his parents didn't have a shower. I remember because we had one) for a mere £5 or so you could buy a shower attachment which connected to the taps in the bath which allowed you to shower., to avoid bathing in your own dirt. I used it every day. The outdoor lavatory/tin bath routine must have ended in the 1940s, along with the "I have a bath once a fortnight whether I need it or not" mentality. MOST people are clean these days and we have deodorants etc.

Geoff seems to be trying to provoke bad feeling. A lot of the pleasure teachers get is the "power" and "them and us" routine. They give their orders (or did) knowing they couldn't be disobeyed. Even Nathan told us a few weeks ago that the PE staff at his establishment were not allowed to use the pupils showers (and quite rightly so IMO when the pupils were using them), but they couldn't use them after school students had left "because there is no lock no the door". How terrible!. Good to know that the us and them routine is still alive and well in 2023 schools- no privacy for the students, many of them now much older than the old school days, but the blushing teachers have to be safeguarded.

And just to throw a question out - what daft school would schedule football as the first lesson of the day?

I would suggest some of you need to get over your Stockholm syndrome.

I'd quite like to know how Craig got on with his midnight bareskin run on Tuesday and also ask if he'd still do it in the kind of tipping down conditions I arrived at work in late tonight. I remember those kind of very dreary dull rainy day cross countries at school where the darkness was already evident with lighting up time and the sun had set even before the final school buzzer at 4pm. Yes we finished at four! They knocked almost half hour off the school day about two years after I left.

There was no last lesson bonus of just clearing off though. We still had the same routine shower just like when I did PE first thing. The most irritating teacher was the one who kept us out right to the last minute bang on 4 o'clock.

Some people like discipline. It's why I joined the regular army as a private on leaving school in the mid eighties. I liked the feeling of belonging, of bonding with others tightly. I didn't mind being shouted at, told what to do, how to do it, being called by my surname, losing all my privacy morning, noon and night. We used to get 20 minutes each morning for what they called a sh*t, shower and a shave. That is not very long when sharing with a lot of others. They even show new privates how to wash their privates in the army, well they did in the eighties when I joined. I didn't do it for long, saw some sights, travelled far, made friends and most importantly although I was back in civvies by my twenties it gave me enormous confidence and positive character changes. Ironically the PT we did in the army was mostly done in vests, unlike my school which always went without the tops completely during gym. But so what to that I say.

I'm a fit and active 60. I left school 44 years ago, can it really be I often ask myself, as it feels so recent when I talk of the second half of the 1970's, where did that time go so terribly fast, does anyone actually know?

My PE teachers were no angels in comprehensive secondary school that's for sure. Some were what I'd call a bit full of themselves, loud and overbearing. I'm sure some of them liked to play up to the stereotypical image. I used to meet one of my PE teachers out of school in town on weekends and he'd talk to me like a completely different person, then back in school come Monday he was what I called back in PE mode.

I can remember getting pulled halfway across a football pitch by my earlobe by another PE teacher once for a dangerous foul I did bringing somebody down. It seemed like everything was generally more physical in those days whether it was the visuals of going naked for showers and being able to check exactly what your mates had hanging there or feeling a teacher grab you or slap your head or in some rarer instances the plimsoll came out. I saw a big thrashing in our changing room as a 12 year old that has never left me, on a boy's bare behind for what I think was not showering or something like that. In 1975 that was par for the course.

I think many teachers just preferred the quick sharp pain rather than dragging out an hours detention because it meant some poor teacher had to supervise it. A good friend of mine from school who remains in touch has often dined out on his caning at our school three times in one term for going down town in his lunch hour for smokes when banned from doing so, saying that every time he had the cane it made him more determined to do it again not less.

In my primary school the head teacher, a woman, once pulled three girls out of the assembly we were having, the whole school was sat crossed legged on the floor and all the teachers in chairs along the edges of us all, and the head took it upon herself to lift their skirts up and smack their knickered bottoms for talking during assembly.

At home I remember being smacked regularly by both my parents, at least a couple of times per month is my guess. My father's smacking really hurt the most and could sometimes make me cry. My mother's less so. I don't think they smacked me past the age of 10 though.

Graham.

I don't have time to go further tonight but I would just like to jump in and say that you wrote a good common sense post right there and there is nothing I disagree with, despite the fact we come from completely different teaching generations. I'm more than happy to back up everything you said.

The word 'solicitous' was used. I had to just make sure and double check it meant precisely what I thought it did. It means showing interest or concern / keen or anxious to do something. Is it really so hard to believe that applies to nearly all teachers.

Steve - yes I quite enjoyed p.e. at school - the academic side of things could get a bit intense so p.e. came as a welcome break even if it could be quite cold outside in winter in just a pair of shorts. I also got on well with the p.e. teachers - they were generally very encouraging.

Geoff - I'm sure Graham was a very conscientious p.e. teacher - certainly not a voyeur. I caught up with one of my p.e. teachers in a pub a while after I left school. He told me that they were supposed to keep an eye out for possible abuse - made possible by our minimal kit and passing through the shower area on a regular basis.

Graham Butterfield, thank you for your comments. I don't doubt my old teacher's good intentions for a second.

Everyone else - please don't mind my asking, in all seriousness - does anyone have any pleasant recollections of their schooldays they would be happy to share?

What kind of a pupil were you when you were actually on the gym floor or out on the playing field Alan at the time in the eighties I believe it was with you? Did you display your aggrieved personality or just keep yourself quiet and endure it to yourself?

Does anybody else think that the retired PE teacher Graham has just been called out as a voyeur on here by Alan just for explaining how child welfare works?

Guess what Alan, most of us probably quite liked doing PE at school, got on well with at least one or two of our teachers and couldn't care less if they saw us naked showering in the enclosed male space of the boys changing room and didn't think they were voyeurs because they dared to look at us, commonly known as doing their job properly.

Everyone has bathrooms in their homes that they use daily. Thanks for telling us.

What use is that for those who go out to PE first period in the day at school, who might be out on the football pitch doing that or rugby, not just sweaty but dirty too? What about in the gym, especially in summer where the sweat is dripping off you if you're doing the lesson properly. What use is the bathroom at home when you've finished first period PE exactly, like I had many times myself.

Sorry Roy. It is just that I get really annoyed reading the damned silly. excuses that are dished out on here for voyeurism - from the "hygiene" excuse (not needed these days as everybody have bathrooms in their homes, which are usually used on a daily basis), to "discipline", and now setting themselves up as part-time NSPCC hobbyists.

Certainly in our school the regime was carried on because our teacher enjoyed it, both the looking and the opportunities it gave him to make snide remarks.

It is about time the profession and it's admirers sorted their story out and got it straight (if you'll pardon the pun).

Nathan, I remember in the early 1980's when I did an after school sports club that there were three particular PE teachers at the time who would actually share the shower with us and at the time it started I was only a first year kid. The after school club had various ages from a number of years and we all mixed. Even though it was an after school club outside of school hours we were still treated like we were in school properly in a normal PE lesson and told to shower. Yet the PE teachers never shared the showers with us in normal school time PE lessons, only the after school sports club ones.

I suggest a published works by Dale Carnegie would be a good read for you Alan.

Graham Butterfield: I had no idea P.E. teachers were so solicitous. What a pity this years Nobel Prizes have already been dished out.

Comment by: Alan on 10th October 2023 at 03:22
Mark and Matthew S:
I am sorry to be blunt, but do you really believe that teachers were looking for signs of ill-treatment?





Well I have sat this out for a bit but now is a good time to re-enter the fray. I think it was me that made the original comment a long while ago that was noted by Matthew.

The answer to the question above is, yes. Very much yes as well.

I'll be blunt too. The way the question above is asked is not a correct representation. It is about being aware and observing anything notable or possibly suspicious, but not actively seeking, looking or searching out ill treatment evidence on anybody on purpose. Showering gave good opportunity quite clearly for screamingly obvious reasons to notice such things in a subtle manner. Tim appears to fully grasp this.

The school medical in years past was once quite thorough and could also be used for this as well as it's primary focus, although such a thing was at best annual or sometimes maybe just once in school life and in the way it used to be given is no longer as common, rare even. Boys (and girls) used to strip down to their pants in the medical room to be checked out when I first began teaching.

By the way, there is a world of difference between corporal punishment (which I am not in favour of) and ill treatment.

If I noticed anything the first thing I would do would be to approach that pupil and ask the question and if I didn't feel satisfied with the answer then I would mention it to colleagues and there would be a heightened awareness in future. PE teachers are uniquely placed to be able to do this on a regular basis.

Without getting too technical on here, there are certain minor injuries and scrapes that can happen during the course of PE that show up regular, such as shins and knees. Certain types of bruising are also commonest in PE.

I hope the current PE teacher will feel able to back up what I'm saying even though he started his career the year I ended mine, 2015. It's good to see that our profession is defending itself on these pages against a tiny minority narrative of one.

Michael 10th. October at 08:10

It was normal for boys back then to have an array of knocks and bruises up and down both legs, and I certainly did, probably not helped by being centre forward for my junior school football team. I left junior school in 1967, and as you’ll remember, boys wore shorts all the year round and in all weathers until secondary school in those days. Mine being shorter than most of the other kids too due to having a mother who came from Berlin, who certainly didn’t like the longer shorts many boys still wore then, which would be more fashionable today. Due to this I also remember seeing big red hand slap marks on the inside of my thighs, seeming to take a long time to fade, which were the routine choice of reprimand, given out only to boys from our elderly headmistress, for what seemed very little misdemeanour.

But your mentioning of the traditional boys black eye, is what brought a particular memory back to me. During my last year in junior school we were having a games lesson, being a game of rounders, boys against girls, as out fantastic female teacher always seemed to want to do. She would always be on the girls team. I was bowling, and she was next in line facing me with the bat. Now, she was a ‘heavy’ woman, but always sporty, and in fact ran our boys’ school football team. I must have thrown a good bowl and she really swung for it, supported by all her weight. My vivid memory is not having time to get out of the way as the ball increased in size until a total eclipse and it hit me right in the eye. I don’t think I was knocked out but it did knock me off my feet and onto my back seeing stars. I remember coming round with all the girls, including her, fussing around me, which I quite liked I think. We had a line of basins with mirrors above in the toilets where I looked at my eye seeing that it had become very red. The next morning it was black, and seemed to stay that way for at least two weeks.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, (plus possibly later), it was nothing unusual for boys to sport the occasional "shiner" (black eye); or bruises, scratches or minor cuts.

It was a more 'physical' time, when boys were almost expected to get involved in 'rough and tumble' with each other, and accept corporal punishment from parents and teachers as routine.

With this 'fisticuffs' normality as the background, a boxing match in the gym was sometimes arranged by my PE teacher, as a means to settle a dispute.

Although just another avenue of violence, at least the bout was supervised and brought to an end in a timely manner, with the loser having graciously to accept defeat. This was far preferable to the potentially serious outcome of an uncontrolled fight in the school yard.

Discipline: however you define it. Isn't that what is missing from today's society?

In reply to Alan's posting of 03.22:
Yes ... I really believe that teachers were looking for signs of ill-treatment (and possibly signs of illnesses that parents may not have realised were there).

Alan ... “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, ..., than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Mark and Matthew S:

I am sorry to be blunt, but do you really believe that teachers were looking for signs of ill-treatment?. Explain that theory when in my day and earlier many teachers used physical punishments themselves on boys (and girls as well I expect). Who's is to say some mark might not have been inflicted on the lad by one of their number rather than their parents?.

Anyway, when you read - far too often - of the appalling injuries inflicted on children by their parents, often leading to death (which is why we read of the cases since the parents are in the dock charged with murder), clearly it is a gambit that doesn't work.

Anyway, if it gives you comfort, believe it if you will. but it seems a desperate theory, but then, as T.S Eliot wrote "humankind cannot bear too much reality

Matthew S.

I think it was explained briefly once before by one of the retired PE teachers that wrote here that being able to see pupils without clothing also served as a means to observe any unexplained cuts and bruises that might be signs of maltreatment in the home.

I had some scratches from the family cat once when I was in school and had to explain those to a teacher who questioned me when seeing them across my shoulder.

I realise these are only small details, from somewhat later than most of the other recollections, but they might be of interest.

In my first, or one of my first, PE lessons at junior school in the early 1990s, we got changed in the classroom beforehand. The boys put on white shorts with our chests bare; the girls wore white shorts and white T-shirts. All of us had bare feet. The teacher handed round an open metal tin in which we placed any spectacles, sleeper earrings, watches or other jewellery.

We filed along the corridor to the school hall and the teacher told us all to run round the hall in circles. I had been very self-conscious in earlier PE lessons in infant school, but that was easing, to my relief, and at that moment, not quite eight years old, it was rather exhilarating to be scampering around the parquet flooring at peace with myself.

As we children were running round, the teacher, a kindly lady, suddenly called me over. On the side of my left foot, there is a dark, large, flat mole. She pointed at it and asked, "What's that?"

I explained (not much troubled), she accepted my explanation and we went back to the lesson. Only now, as an adult, does it occur to me that she was, perhaps, discreetly observing the children for any, very rare, signs of mistreatment (partially explaining the minimal PE kit) and that the mole could easily have been mistaken for a cigarette burn.

On a lighter note, I am invariably reminded of PE lessons from when very young whenever I hear "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite.