Burnley Grammar School

Sean M
You say that during your time at Primary school you did pe in your pants (Y fronts) When your son attended 20 years later had things changed or did the school still have mixed pe classes with boys in their pants and not tops and girls the same. Or had attitudes changed by then?

Comment by: Toby on 5th July 2023 at 21:45


Apart from wondering why they took such a keen interest, I wonder if it ever crossed any of their crass minds, that they were encouraging - perhaps even leading - bullying?.

If a kid hears an adult making pejorative remarks, it gives them permission to copy, to legitimise put-downs and insults. You would like to think the sort of behaviour of the past wouldn't be tolerated today, but sadly because so many teachers seem to be socialy inadequate, I suspect it does go on. Only recently in my own area , a teacher was forced to resign for repeatedly swearing at pupils during one of his hissy fits.

As a boy PE done shirtless followed me throughout my entire school time from more or less the beginning. Some of my first memories soon after starting school are doing PE in my pants only, in mixed classes of boys in y fronts and girls in knickers, also girls not having a top same as boys. Most of us being too young to care at that age. It was something I've strong memories of, although it wasn't a constant, so I'm not sure how we found ourselves doing early PE like that sometimes and not other times. But at that age in that time boys and girls were treated exactly the same sometimes.

Then going up to primary whenever we did PE in the school hall the boys went to PE there in a pair of shorts without any tops on, we were all shirtless and shoeless, and primary rarely separated the full class so boys did PE with girls, who did wear a polo top of some sort, often blue or white in my school. The vast majority of my primary school PE was taken by ladies. It was at the primary school age I began to be much more aware of what I looked like and also noticed others around me.

I began my primary school in 1974, my son is exactly twenty years younger than me and went to the same primary school as me, starting in 1994 and one of the teachers there twenty years later was the same one who had taken me for lessons, including PE in '74 and thereafter, she must have been early 30's at the time, and my son had her too, and in '94 he was doing PE in the school hall shirtless with no difference to me in '74, with one of the same teachers I had. Little seemed to have changed in those twenty years or so. Primary hall PE in '74 often involved using a lot of props such as hoops, ropes and beanbags and a lot of mat work, sometimes with music.

At secondary level the school sports gym was used twice weekly, and another session of PE was outdoors. In that sports gym at my secondary boys were once again turned out shirtless nearly always but no longer associating in any way with girls, except for summer sports afternoons when we all came together.

So I got very used to such things throughout schooldays and childhood until the mid teens, and boys not being asked or told to wear shirts for physical stuff like PE in school, or actively being told they shouldn't or couldn't wear shirts and tops of any kind was seen as perhaps more normal than sticking a top on in many schools.

What is maybe an intriguing question is if you asked any of these schools we went to who decreed PE was done in this manner, boys shirtless, many of them would not be able to give a definitive answer other than it was just the way it was. In my case I think my primary school is especially interesting, boys were never considered able to put tops on in PE lessons inside there, in an overwhelmingly female run environment and it was like that for a very long time.

Luckily for me I didn't have anything about myself and my appearance that I fixated on unlike those on here who mention birthmarks, their big feet or even belly buttons! I was content with how I looked, so even at secondary when the time came along to hit those large group communal showers after PE I dealt with all that demanded naked showering remarkably matter of factly, but knew one or two who were at least initially absolutely petrified at the prospect of such stipulations in school and I must admit to seeing some shockingly unsympathetic PE teachers laying into ones who didn't feel great about all that.

I'm sure there are many people on here who feel it was probably character-building for us, or made men of us. I'm not so sure. I do get that argument, but having an outer belly button just killed it for me.

I daresay you both felt the same.

Toby, I hated my feet as a teenager and the school gym was done barefooted and regular shirtless. I was a huge size 12 before my 15th birthday (1975). Infact one weekend at a shoe shop the left measured 12 and the right a half size more. I ended up size 13 as an adult. Perhaps the daftest question I got asked at that age was in PE when I got - how come your feet are so big - to which I wanted to say - how come you're asking such a silly question. My PE teacher was fond of telling me and the rest of class how my feet had grown too big too quickly and made me less able and clumsy. It wasn't my free choice. I used to really wish I had the better looking feet of some of the boys 4 or 5 sizes less and became quite horribly obsessed and conscious during my last year or two in school PE.

We had another olive skinned boy with jet black hair at school who suddenly developed very dark haired hairy legs between the age of 14 and 15 which drew comment too. Not long after that he began showing noticeable dark hair across his chest as well, which I suppose was less common in one that age. Once again a PE teacher made comment, a positive one as he saw it. When we turned up and began changing in PE subsequently the hair he'd had was just completely gone and one or two of us asked what happened to it. His mum had apparently put some product on him to get rid of it, getting self conscious on his behalf about his legs and his chest. Well that was the story he told us anyway.

Chris, Wayne

Wouldn't you think even if PE teachers couldn't display sensitivity, they would at least observe the common manners of not pointing out birthmarks, scars, or even outer belly buttons?

I've got a birthmark on my upper chest and shoulder. Quite sizable and when I was younger it was much redder than it is today as it's faded over the years. I hated it as a boy but it did not give me any sympathetic right not to join in with everyone else in bare chested PE when it came along, I still had to go without and bare my body like the others, and like the silly PE teacher mentioning that boys navel, I also had the PE teacher make a deliberate fuss the moment he saw my upper body for the first time in PE, I think he was so ignorant he thought I'd been burned.

Toby.

My secondary was around about a decade earlier than you. Gym PE seemed to split 60/40 skins to shirts, I just remember that we seemed to wear nothing above the waist more than we did actually put the vests on. One teacher never let boys in his class do gymnasium with the top and was firmly in the shirts off category of PE teacher. I remember that man rattling on about puppy fat on more than one occasion and paying attention to what we looked like physically, more often as jibes rather than anything useful. He used to pick on boys and go on about their rounded shoulders. When we arrived in gym and lined up he was always going on about standing straight, feet together, shoulders back, stomach in, chest out, chin up. He was an incredibly critical bloke about the way we looked, our posture, and was capable of picking out something with anybody at all.

In my case it wasn't any specific imperfections as such but every time I went shirtless in PE I felt that my body hadn't developed as it should and I didn't have a developed torso as well as I should compared to the others. Not helped by one day having my upper arm grabbed by him and being told 'not much here'. Yet it was only in my mind, not the reality, I now know that but at the time I was doing PE in school under such a critical teacher who made his classes strip shirtless I doubted how I looked. Shirtless PE did not work the confidence trick on me.

Comment by: Woody on 3rd May 2023 at 18:43

My PE teacher drew attention to my belly button which stuck out a little bit, telling me and anyone else in earshot that I was quite rare like that, thus instantly making me feel self conscious and fixated when I hadn't been at all or even noticed such differences.

This exact same thing happened to me! To be fair I had already noticed mine was "different" and hated it. Even though my brothers were outers too.

I think, to answer Pat, this was one of my main reasons for hating being a skin. It sounds silly now, but that wasn't how it felt at the time. So yes, very much around "imperfections".

I don't recall what we did at primary school. Secondary school 1985-92 we were only shirtless in occasional games of shirts v skins inches sports hall. I think there may have been the odd time in gym or if you forgot your kit but that was exceptional.

Rachael it used to be that you could send your children to school with a normal non branded and non logo top and that was fine. Now for some reason I cannot begin to explain, some of these pretentious schools now insist that you buy items of PE kit emblazoned with the school crest or logo, not just on the tops but also on other items. My sister has to buy such items for her two boys and even the shorts and socks must have the school crest on them. I'm sorry, but why? Like you say, they'd be better off without the top entirely and save the cash. As it is they are made to fork out even more money than is strictly necessary when the school crested items cost far more than a perfectly acceptable equivalent without. I just don't know why parents go along with it.

.

In the cash strapped extortionate world of school uniform I'd welcome not having to buy £30 branded t-shirt for both my sons PE lessons. Going barechested in the gym wouldn't hurt. Ben I read your post with interest and seems your school showed some common sense and I loved that the teachers put up the sign in the changing rooms, obviously in case you forgot ????

In the current climate in those schools that ask/instruct/tell/demand the boys in PE do it barechested then perhaps if they are shy/unhappy/embarrassed about it they should pull a trick that was not available to us older ones at school in previous times......insist on wearing the PE shirt but tell the teacher you are identifying as barechested.

Sorry for introducing a bit more humour Alan, but a serious point in the absurdity of self identification being allowed in school and the extremes you could push it to if unchecked.

I'm more than pleased I went to school in more straightforward times, warts and all.

Jim. You have cearly not read what I have written previously. If the boy chooses to do PE without a top that is fine by me, but it should not be dictated (and apart from private schools I suspect it isn't these days). There are lads - and there have been a few adults on this site who have put the case quite clearly - Jonny being the most recent example - if they feel uncomfortable it is quite wrong to force them - especially in mixed classes. Though you have treated it with your customory levity, there are kids who are pretending to be the opposite sex or - what they describe as "furries" (i.e. domestic animals), and these attention seekers are taken seriously, which I think is as repulsive as it is ridiculous. I also repeat my question to you, as it seems you are omnicient - what pleasure does it give middle-aged or elderly men, who left school behind decades ago, to relish the idea of boys being made to feel uncomfortable and running around in minimal kit. Wbat IS this obsession?. School is to educate, not humiliate.

Well if you start identifying as a cat at school and they accept your new self identity then you should be getting sent home immediately shouldn't you - cats don't have to go to school do they. You don't need a school psychiatrist and medication to cure that one, just a bowl of milk, some whiskas and go-cat and they'll soon be back as a human being in no time at all.

I used to identify as a genuis despite my grades not reflecting that.

So you no longer care about what gets worn in school PE Alan, you've changed your mind then. I thought it was quite important to you, so you've now been persuaded that enforcing shirtless PE was okay and still is okay?

Comment by: Andrew D on 26th June 2023 at 00:31

I think, Andrew, that many teachers (not just PE ones) think they are like politicians and can do exactly what they like without being questioned - things that civilians would most certainly not get away with, but they seem untouchable, because so many people seem to place undue reverence on their profession.

Can I also say, without naming any names, it is puzzling why so many middle aged men are almost obsessive about the idea of young boys having to wear minimal kit in 2023. Why are they so concerned, having left their own schooldays behind decades ago?. Perhaps they would like to see the cane restored. If I were a parent, I would be more concerned about the woke rubbish that is turned out these days, and children being allowed to self identify as a cat or even the opposite sex. If any of our lot had done that, I suspect that they would have been having psychiatric intervention. That is the real concern, not what they wear - or don't wear.

Although I didn't have the benefit of a private education, I went to something I'd describe as an adequate state school from 1976 to 1981, I probably spent about the same amount of time as Ian's son doing the gym at that school without the top on, all religiously enforced is how I remember it, and I hated it from the first day I did it until the last time.

In my case the school was the usual mixed, and the trepidation that came over me the first time I discovered we would sometimes share PE with girls who could get to see boys like me unwrapped as I thought of it, was like being chucked to the lions with no escape. I can remember girls making catty remarks about boys bodies even before we arrived at the gym, walking and waiting around near it in an embarrassed state of undress feeling awkward with the body language.

My early days recollections of gym PE were of large numbers of quite awkward looking boys the same as me who would have thrown a t shirt on in an instant if it had been allowed. Of course after a short while everything settles down and you adapt because what else are you going to do.

Mixed PE then stopped after the age of 13 completely and we remained segregated by gender from that point onwards. I was relieved at that.

The prospect of having PE like this by mid morning to lunchtime on a Monday always used to spoil my Sunday evenings as I thought about it and I still recollect all those reluctant walks to school on those Mondays in particular when faced with impending gym stripped off to the bone. When I caught up with one of these exes in the year 2000 about twenty years after the event, it must have taken less than ten minutes for a recollection of doing gym at school to crop up along with an accurate description of what I used to look like, very slim and awkward when wearing so little among others at that age, especially girls. The surprise was that someone remembered so well.

So my thinking on PE as I did it, comparing it to say Ian's son currently, are that I think boys are actually more confident nowadays anyway than we were in my time but also that it doesn't work for everybody. What can make someone prosper and be confident can also make another go the opposite, with perhaps the majority sitting somewhere between the two extremes.

I disliked showering at school for the reason that under some teachers they could be quite a dehumanising experience in general where in a mass of enforced nudity I felt I lost my individuality quite badly and this was where I developed self image problems that took a long time to shake off. Respecting children and their rights was not as high up the agenda as it could have been.

Ian, thank you for your interesting post. I'm glad your son is flourishing at his school.

Don't mind my asking: is the school single-sex? Just wondering if that might make things easier regarding any self-consciousness and the like.

A good post Ian. A school that wants to keep both their brains and their bodies fit. Quite right.

It's almost as if you feel you have to justify and apologise for it in some way nowadays isn't it juts because it goes against the prevailing orthodoxy.

What a fascinating debate this is on the whole issue and purpose surrounding the non shirted style of doing physical education.

My own son is in private education at school in Cambridgeshire right now, and earned his place through his academic achievements. He is fifteen. I was made fully aware from the start what the expectations would be. This did include one of the two P.E lessons taken through the week being done in the bare chested state, plus bare feet, and so it has proven to be over the past three and a half years or so. It is indeed considered to be the gym uniform. I do not take issue with that as long as it is applied equally amongst all accordingly. His school also requires a shower to be taken in the traditional school way. Once again, I take no issue. At the age of 61 I remember my own years of schooling, also privately educated, where all these requirements were expected of each of us without complaint. While his school is first and foremost about academic excellence it pleases me that physical education is not neglected and also taken with the seriousness it deserves. I think the style they expect serves to show that seriousness and gives boys like my own one a mature and positive outlook once they overcome any discomfort about their bodies. Mine overcame his and has prospered.

Here is a gender equality story today about going topless.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66029635


In those schools that still tell their male pupils to remove tops for PE, either all the while or occasionally, I wonder if the boys could cite gender equality nowadays themselves to prevent themselves having to do it if they were especially set against any mandated barechested PE when girls are never faced with the same situation.

Alternatively the girls could pull the trick in the other direction I guess, similar to the story here.

Replying to Ben on 25th June 2023 at 12:17
Your school sounded great Ben with such an importance attached to physical education, I’m sorry that I wasn’t educated there.
I agree entirely that most lads would enjoy bare chested exercise if given the opportunity to experience it.

I had an overfamiliar PE teacher at school in the early 90's just like the one who is shown in the changing room/showers interacting with these lads in this short film called The Coach. Too keen to be mucking about with us while we showered after PE. Watch from 12 minutes in. I was just the same as the suspicious boy in the film standing there showering looking at my own teacher in 1991 when I was 14. I often wonder if I was right about him, as he had a couple of strong favourites in our class.

https://dailymotion.com/video/x5p66ie

Oh wow. I attended a boys only boarding school which took a rigorous approach to exercise and timetabled 90 mins PE/Games daily including Saturday mornings which oddly were never popular...strange eh! As you walked into the changing room there was a large sign with big black capital letters saying "All boys. Strip to the waist before entering the sports hall" so that was clear enough. We all knew older boys from 13 up were often told to remove tops and vests for outdoor PE or Games lessons, a couple in our dorm had older brothers who knew all about what to expect and and we'd often see them doing so from the classroom windows but for us 10 year olds 13 seemed a long way off. Change was in the air and returning from the summer holidays on that first day back we were sat listening (or pretending to) as the notices were read out. There was one announcement that got everyone's attention. Boys from the age of 11 up would begin performing outdoor PE activities stripped to the waist with immediate effect.
That was us....II do remember the words "where appropriate" being used somewhere. So after changing into vests and shorts we were taken outside and lined up on the field. Our teacher picked a new boy and made him stand in front of the class and take his vest off which he did and went down the line picking out a skins team.and within a couple minutes there was a line of vests on the field. That was a taste of what lay ahead. During winter we did at least one class a week outside barechested often it could be more. I do remember we were pushed hard but there wasn't much moaning...grumbles about going outside when it was freezing or in the rain absolutely but no-one shirked from doing it. With the warmer weather just now I've seen a few informal games of skins vs shirts football with lads showing bare chests. All they need is for their school to encourage that and let them embrace and experience barechested PE. There's no doubt the majority would love to give it a go

When I was a primary aged schoolkid in the early 80s I was a quite shy and reticent individual who kept my head down studiously and was not a natural at anything much in PE. There was a lad at the time in my class who used to be a pain in the neck and mildly bully me mostly with comments about me, knowing I was shy and not yet very confident.

In the run up to going to secondary school he said more than once to me that I wouldn't survive being in secondary school. He obviously thought I was too soft or something. Well he was wrong, I thrived at the school when I arrived and began liking PE. I soon got used to doing the showers even, but he ended up being one of those wimps who got into trouble for trying not to and being the wimp in PE generally. He thought I'd be like that. I walked past him quite confidently one day in the gym with my shirt off as we did some beam work and he was crying in front of our teacher over how hard he found what we were doing. I felt vindicated and this lad who'd low level verbally bullied me through my last couple of years at primary never did once when we went to secondary. It must have disappointed him so much to see me enjoy myself and do so well and be confident when he was the one who suddenly discovered he wasn't coping like he should.

You're over complicating matters Alan, whilst I also understand the points of historical context on early sixties America.


Isn't it just nice to be fit and healthy and look good? If you are all of those things then better all round mental wellbeing also follows. It's a win win situation.

I used to make a bit of a fuss around comprehensive PE lessons at school in the late 1970's, often trying to find excuses for not doing things, deliberately forgetting to bring my kit and preferring to do the alternative. Often trying to skip the school showers, mostly always failing. Dreadfully self conscious about my whole physical appearance for no good reason. Disliking not having my top on when told to remove it many times in gym and all that. Trying to dictate to various teachers what I'd actually prefer to be doing rather than what they wanted.

If my much older adult self could have given the younger me some advice I'd have been quite different. I rather regret acting like I did and rather admire the style of the La Sierra PE lesson which would have probably done me the world of good and left me with no time to be concerned about what I was doing or looked like. I think even timid weedy Charles Hawtrey could have benefitted.

Comment by: William on 20th June 2023 at 18:44


Le Sierra was a display of strength - a sort of gung ho display of power (of a sort) as America entered the long, ultimately pointless Vietnam war. I am sure that over the top training paid excellent dividends for the men conscripted into the military, especially if they wanted to join the USMC, but honestly, what would be the point in 2023 Britain? - the toughest guy to toss a burger, quickest off the mark to answer a call in a call centre?(have a nice day!).

The truth is that if there is a third world war, it won't matter if you are Charles Atlas or Charles Hawtrey - the result will be the same, and when the politicians come crawling out of their nuclear bunkers, they are going to have to build their own houses.

1962 is sixty odd years ago, what would be the point of such nonsense today? By the way, anybody who wishes to dream of the 1960s, the deviser of that fitness programme made many silent films in colour and black and white, of his pupils/victims, and all these years later the family and estate of the person concerned has put these films on You Tube

Dan, A belated response, but like you stripping off for gym didn't bother me. We never wore tops indoors. I don't think anyone would have dared to protest and as it was the same for everyone no-one felt hard done by. Same with showers: startling at first but quickly got used to them. In time, stripping off made me more confident about my skinny body and I grew to like our minimal kit.

Robbie, A belated thank you for the film clip about La Sierra. It was remarkable and shows what boys can achieve if they are pushed out of their comfort zone and motivated to make a special effort. Better that than being allowed to opt out - a recipe for underachievement.

I can remember what some people said to me in school 65 years ago Tim, so forty, easy.

But I do often forget where I left the house or car keys. Such is life.


Thankyou again Joe for sharing your identical TV school punishment with me. I'm quite sure there are some people who will have found these type of goings on in school rather hard to believe. They occurred in schools that liked to think they operated in a mature way, such as the fictitious Kings School, but I don't think it's a mature grown up way to go about things. My school had so many petty minded rules I lost count. One was to stand facing the wall with two hardback books balanced on your head for a few minutes. If they fell off while doing so you added more time or received another small punishment. Discipline in school in the late 50's and early 60's was not all just about corporal punishment, and in PE lessons themselves one favourite was always to drop you to the floor for rapid press ups if you annoyed the teachers and sometimes you might even feel a foot on your back as you tried to push back up. We would also have to hold onto parallel bars until we could no longer take the strain and fell off, no mat underneath.

Don.

Your full blast common caught my eye. I may be completely wrong on this, others will have their own recollection, we all did it after all, but I'm convinced my own school shower had no full blast option and was just switched on and went at the same steady stream always. Sometimes a bit of a power shower or ability to blast it a bit more would have been advantageous because I remember many a time bending over trying hard to remove dirt off my legs and wishing the water was not only a bit hotter but more powerful. You didn't want to be bending over too long like that at school, you can imagine the unseemly comments that often did the rounds in those days.

Sensible comments here from William, Gary, Mike & Tanya.

Looking at 'That'll Teach 'Em', in the bits I've seen they're playing for effect - you can't take these as representative of schools seventy or so years ago (in one scene I think you see a 'production assistant' ducking out of camera shot). What strikes me is standard of knowledge compared with those years, which still seems to decline.

Another thing - it amazes me how people can recall exactly what teachers said to them in Primary School - forty years ago.