Fulwood County Secondary School

I remember doing something in my class when I was around eight or nine years old with many of us in class walking around in our bare feet. I then asked if I could go to the toilet and was allowed to but teacher would not let me even put my socks back on to walk down the corridor to them. When I got into the toilet someone had splashed all over the floor around the toilet and I realised too late before standing in it. I then tried to put one foot at a time into the sink under the tap to wash it off which was hard to manage and taking time when my teacher came along opened the door and saw me and thought I was just mucking about and pulled me back along to the classroom with one foot still wet with the urine of somebody I'd trodden in. Horrible memory and a horrible teacher too and I always hated being barefoot in school even when I didn't step in something not nice.

Further to what's been said about paint, I never did that kind of thing as an infant schookid at that young age. But going ahead to age 18 and I went off to do a college course in Northampton for two years in artwork and graphic design. In the first few weeks of the course we did some quite juvenile tasks as I saw it that I would have expected of primary school. For a while it was like going back in time. I was one of the youngest on this course when I started in 1990. Some of the others were well into their twenties and one person was 26. Like the first person to mention it who talked of painting with their feet, we had what I can only describe as a messy afternoon breaking the ice session which at one point involved all of us ADULTS walking around with paint on our sockless feet on various coloured canvasses. We did many of these. I think there must have been 15 of us in this college class. I remember some of what we created was hung up for weeks across a wall but I just looked at it thinking it was a meaningless mess but it got given the title of "spacial awareness". One of the main college tutors seemed very way out and the type who could look at a pile of bricks and call it high end artwork.

Back in 1990 I'd wear white socks all the time, it seemed fashionable then to do so. I remember the end of this afternoon because I had to catch a train back home so didn't have time to properly clean up and just stuck my socks over my painted legs and feet, much of the paint had now dried on anyway. When I got home and was asked what I'd got up to at college that day by my mum I sat down, took my socks off and said "this!". Mum was a teacher in a local infants school herself and her reaction was priceless. Suffice to say that I've never needed in my professional life to use the skill from that day in college and the course did settle down into something a bit less bizarre not long afterwards.

I didn't doubt your own teacher's integrity in any way Duncan incase it seemed that way. Nice little story.

Robbie, I must stress - my teacher was kindness itself. She meant no harm.

Good Lord it makes me wonder if some teachers have feet fetishes with their young charges. I vividly remember us having to pretend we didn't have the use of our hands in some kind of disability awareness week kind of thing and having to use our feet (bare of course!) to write, paint a picture and mould a clay object. Luckily I was spared dunking them in a pot of actual paint like some of you here, how mad was that.

Nick, you have my sympathy - at least, my teacher was kind.

You wondered about possible reasons. (I still have the original hand- and foot-prints amongst my old schoolwork). We five-year-olds were doing topic work on ourselves, and the teacher took the opportunity to measure our handspans.

I also remember plasticine - rolling it between my palms to make a snake - and rubbing dried PVA glue off my fingers.

I started school somewhat later, in 1989, but some of the educational practices were the same (and may still be). Interesting to exchange memories; thank you.

Comment by: Matt on 5th May 2022 at 22:36
It was probably my teachers looking at me in them that I disliked more than the other guys from my form.

Replying to the above - Absolutely this. Okay I wasn't too keen but I wasn't too touchy about being seen naked by the rest of class as we took showers at the end of PE lessons, but I felt very different about being looked over like that by my PE teachers who were always watching everyone quite closely. One of my own PE teachers had this noticeable habit of beckoning over lads to talk to them as they were coming straight out the communal showers still dripping wet. He did this to me one time by taking hold of my upper arm and pulling me across to him before I could even get to my towel on the bench hook nearby. Standing in front of him he spent more time looking down at my bits and pieces between my legs than at my face. We're talking 1985 here.

Oh Duncan I so agree with what you said about Gary's paragraph, but even more your story of putting your feet in paint hit the spot for me so much. I had a teacher at that kind of age 5 to 7 years old or so who loved pouring coloured paints into trays and getting her children in class like me putting their hands into it to make prints. But she also liked telling us to get our shoes and socks off and put our bare feet into these trays of paint and start walking over paper leaving footprints all over the place. I hated it!!! I didn't like getting my socks off that much and having to get so messy and stick my feet into paint a couple of inches deep was so messy. I didn't see the point in it and I also found the sight of footprints rather embarrassing to look at for some reason. I have no clue how we cleaned up either, I think we must have had a big bowl of warm water or something and paper towels to clean up but can't remember. This was back in the mid to late 1970s. Why did teachers like telling young kids that age to dip our hands and feet into paint like that, any answers?

Then there was plasticine. Who uses that nowadays? It was in all 70s classrooms. We also had to roll out plasticine so we could stand on it and make footprints and handprints on it too.

Gary wrote something quite thoughtful. Some shower chat on here and I was a shower hater and I found the thought of showers in school quite scary. When they finally happened I wouldn't say I was scared but I disliked the whole thing about being told to take all my clothes off against my will like that and with so many others. But if I am honest I cannot really explain why exactly and pinpoint the exact nature of my fear, although I suppose there is no point denying a lot of this schooldays showers dread is penis related shyness within full nakedness.

Gary, how beautifully put and how interesting.

I can think of examples in other areas of life - some people may be frightened of certain innocuous creatures (such as dogs) and others be untroubled by them; certain routine medical procedures may be harmless or hellish depending on the circumstances or the personalities of the individuals subjected to them. As a five-year-old just into school, I was nervous of putting my bare feet in a tray of green paint to make footprints on sugar paper (the teacher gently encouraged me). Other children were innocently unconcerned.

People view the world differently. Our perception of reality IS our reality because the human mind is subjective. Yes, some people may share the same beliefs, but their way of thinking can be different and you have to acknowledge the fact that people may also have differing opinions. It’s easy to misunderstand someone because we don’t know how their brain reacts to things. Did their environment nurture how they think? Is their behavior a product of their nature? When you realize that each one of us are different in terms of our experiences and such, it becomes easy to see why people do things that you cannot fathom, because at the end of the day, our minds are biased and we will one way or another do impulsive things. The next time you see a person do something you cannot understand and you ask why, just know it’s because their why can best be understood only by themselves.

I don't think school shower anxiety was ever a phobia Jason.

Where to start with Jason's pile of crock.

What's wrong with compulsory showers Adam? You were not being victimised by being asked to do them. I would have thought they knocked the hang ups out of most people quite quickly and surely that's a good thing in itself. We were all in the same boat together and I think they were a great leveller too. I never got why some feared not just their own but others bodies. Such a needless phobia.

You missed getting wet Eamon.

The boys can fill you in on the rest, I couldn't possibly say from a male viewpoint.

I was a schoolboy in Ireland from 1985 to 1997. For some reason my High School never had changing areas with a shower so the whole thing passed me by, never had one after physical education ever. When I hear so many did I wonder how I escaped it. I wonder what it would have been like.

What did I miss and what was it like guys?

Why were showers at school always this compulsory thing you had to do rather than something you chose to do and were there if you wanted them? I never understood that or why it was one of the strictest enforced rules by schools and their p.e enforcers.

No Nicky I don't think it makes you that unusual. Yeah we all had anxieties about doing that kind of thing but that's not the same as being outright phobic. Anyone who tells you they didn't have a little flutter in the stomach the first time they had to do this is probably telling a little white lie. I was always led to believe boys were never much bothered by this and that it was girls who worried most.

It probably does Nicky, especially if you were ginger. Hahaha. I shouldn't laugh but we had geeky ginger twins in my school year and one of them shared my games classes when I was a teenager. He got the mick taken out of him in the showers something chronic for the ginger pubes he was made to display. The rest of us looked quite drab in comparison. I salute your confidence and attitude. I was quite a nervy school showererer at first and would've rather not had to go in them but after six months we'd all seen and got used to everything. It was probably my teachers looking at me in them that I disliked more than the other guys from my form.

So sorry to hear you felt so bad about showering at school James whenever that was in the past. I was the one really pale white skinned freckle faced and body, copper topped ginger haired boy in my class and never gave a tuppence about such things very much. A good job I was given confidence as well. I was never shy about my looks or letting my body be seen by my friends or even the teachers very much. That doesn''t make me that unusual does it?

Sam,I didn't at the time like being forced into a tightly grouped shower area.There was no privacy and it was humiliating and degrading.
Boys shouldn't have been forced to do that.

Don't you think forcing kids collectively with no privacy into full scale nudity on demand when they go to school is just a bit of an outdated concept in this day and age Jason?

Nobody even years ago really liked the experience of being forced to cram into a tightly packed group shower with everyone they knew in class. Would anyone have really chosen to do so if they hadn't been made to do it? Few I suggest.

What's wrong with compulsory school showers Dando? Because you have to be naked? So what. Nearly every single male over the age of about 30 in this country has been told to get stripped fully off and into them at school. There was nothing wrong with being told to do so when you were at school following games class.

Hello. My name is Nathan Hind and I was shown the comment below by a close works associate this afternoon who read it and then told me about it. I've worked for seven years since 2015 at this very same Roman Catholic secondary school in Greater Manchester, Salford that the previous guy below mentioned and gave the link out for.
Not withstanding the fact that some random guy with no connection to our school is worrying himself about our uniform list and other rules, what has it got to do with a thread naming another school called Fulwood?
I find the last paragraph utterly repellent naming Putin and conscripts alluding to the current Ukraine situation and giving some kind of (false) equivalence about what goes on in a well run and respectful school to all that.
How bad have you got to think we are treating the youth of today in school to make such a statement like that.

It is a pity that in post covid Britain some schools still mandate showers for boys and girls.

Here is one offending Roman Catholic school in the UK.

https://www.allhallowssalford.com/parents/pe_kit/

All pupils are expected to have the school P.E. Kit. This must be bought from school.
All Hallows polo shirt* : Gold with : Royal blue lettering
All Hallows shorts*
All Hallows blue football socks (boys)*
All Hallows blue P.E. ankle socks (girls)*
A note must be brought in to excuse any pupil from P.E. or shower

Andrea & Claire please join my campaign. No pupil should ever need an excuse note for avoiding the school shower. It is time to ban Putin style nudity in all British Schools for 2022. We will no longer be conscripted to the school shower, and are cannon fodder no more!

It's a pity that this thread seems to have veered away from sensible discussion.

What a rich mine of erotic reminiscence Quota is! This piece is cobbled together almost verbatim from two responses by two different contributors to a question about nude swimming in schools from a couple of years ago. Thank you Google!

Now for me and my hubby this did happen now when we went to swimming classes it would be all girls and female teachers as well and if you turn up with no swim suite you had to do the lesson naked, and often there would be a few of us girls swimming naked, and we did have a couple of girls that did not have a swim suit so they would always do the lesson naked Not that i worry us as after the lesson we would all have to shower with each other and we were all naked in the shower as was the teachers as they would shower with us

Now for my hubby it was the same it would be all boys that went and if they had no trunks they had to do the lesson naked as well and it would be the same at the end of the lesson they would all have to shower and also with the teachers now he did tell me that some times they had a female teacher as well as a male teacher and it would be no different no trunks you still had to swim naked.

All 3 of my brothers were required to swim nude in high school. They attended Thornton High School in Harvey, Illinois in 1974. This was in Cook County, which includes Chicago. It was still happening in 1977. I don’t know if the practice continued in 1978.

Girls were not allowed in the pool area when boys were naked. At the naked swim meets only other males were allowed in the gallery to watch because male genitals were exposed. During open swim times the whole pool staff were naked including the teen lifeguards.

In high school boy’s swim class was naked including the student teachers. Also in high school swim team practice only males were on the team so all practices were done naked. Since the crowd was mixed at high school swim meets the boys wore suites.

We must stand together and end gender discrimination in the school. Even today there are still some schools which require boys to wear White shorts where it is possible to see the underwear underneath the uniform.

http://www.as.lewisham.sch.uk/77/uniform

Additional for Movement
Girls: Black leotard
Boys: White shorts
No jewellery is permitted during PE lessons

There are also those schools who stil think it is acceptable for boys to bring spare pants and swimming trunks to change into under PE kits.

https://www.bb-hs.co.uk/uniform/

In line with the National Curriculum requirements a note from parents is required if students are unable to actively participate in the PE lesson. ALL students MUST bring PE KIT as they will be expected to officiate/coach in accordance with the National Curriculum.
All kit should be clearly labelled
Forgotten kit – kit may be borrowed but this will be recorded with a kit mark in the staff register.
NO valuables to be worn, all watches, money and jewellery, will be collected before the lesson and locked away. Pierced ears must be plastered over if recently pierced. Any valuables left in the changing rooms are left at your own risk.
Long hair must be securely tied back.
A towel should be brought to all lessons as showering is necessary on occasions.
In swimming, anyone with a medical complaint e.g. epilepsy, asthma, heart condition must wear a differently coloured cap to the rest of the class. Minor medical conditions – WHITE. Major medical conditions – RED. Blythe Swim School hats of all colours are available for purchase from school
Boys will need to bring swimming trunks or spare underpants to wear under shorts for all activities, both for personal hygiene and comfort

Now that all school children are returning to their clasrooms tomorrow it is time to build back better and cease discrimination against males in PE.

When it came to forgotten kit our school was less forgiving than yours Hannah and we were compelled to do the lesson in nothing more than our knickers and barefoot. I remember doing that once or twice a year inside and out.

Mr Dando, a.k.a. Maltamon, does seem to have been going on about this for rather a long time, and in some very strange places: A quick Google produced:

[2013] https://www.historyworld.co.uk/photo.php?page=92&sort=0&l1=&l2=&id=1607[
[2014] https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thefreeballersforum/pe-clothing-t3551-s10.html
[2014] https://www.voy.com/225383/11.html
[2017] https://www.voy.com/242785/5/1945.html
[2017] https://www.voy.com/242785/5/1945.html

and there are no doubt others.