Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Paul on 2nd July 2025 at 20:11



".....As I see it I think every gym teacher has the right to tell his class of male pupils to go barechested/barefoot in just shorts if they want when in the actual gym at school. There should be no argument with that....."

Well, sorry Paul, you would get an argument from me. If I had a son at school being treated so badly in 2025 the headmaster would never hear the end of it, In my opinion , a P.E. teacher is just another teacher. No other teacher could make you appear naked before them, and no other teacher could tell you to remove your underwear and wear only shorts. We had such a P.E. teacher. As I have said before they add NOTHING to the academic achievements of school pupils, which is the main reason for going to school.

"Just shorts" in our school meant just that - but then the teacher was homosexual, and in my view before being employed, every teacher, especially P.E. teachers ought to undergo psychological assessment. No assessment, no job.

We also ought to remember that Britain worships the ECHR, (often to our own detriment), there must be in the small print of that charter some reference to allowing people - "even" children, the right to privacy and dignity - even convicted criminals have that, even in prison, so why are school students not allowed those rights. There is no dignity in the whims of some P.E masters. To make any pupil, especially older ones, conform to those questionable rules is disgraceful - just to give a teacher his jollies, in all likelihood.

Hi Paul,

'As I see it I think every gym teacher has the right to tell his class of male pupils to go barechested/barefoot in just shorts if they want when in the actual gym at school. There should be no argument with that.'

You might have wanted to argue this with this to my late dad.

There was an extensive list of PE kit uniform items detailed when I went up to secondary school. Different tops - yes, at my school we got to wear tops indoors and out - different pairs of shorts and different footwear for indoors and out. It was a lot for a struggling working-class Irish couple like my parents to meet and I can just hear in my mind the sour reaction from my dad if he had ever heard that, after being directed to fork out for all that PE kit, the PE teacher decided to impose his own regime and we were doing it in shorts only. So, no. You don't have the right to impose your own regime.

Have you not read the recent comments from men who felt incredibly uncomfortable with that minimal kit?

And why only the boys? The same challenging principles will benefit the girls just as much. Make those girls strip!!! Mary's recent account was pretty fucking disgusting tbh. Make the girls wear bikinis. It will be character-building for them.

I have no arguments on showers apart from two things.

One: as long as they are equally imposed. There should not be any preferential treatment for girls. Girls should have to shower communally.

Two: they should be optional for both genders. Especially when, as at my school, you were going straight home afterwards, which made the showers feel utterly pointless and kind of ritualistic.

The teacher has the right, but the child doesn't have the counter right to refuse Paul?

A familiar feeling I encountered from teachers at school in 1990s compulsory bare chest PE lessons in my school gymnasium, it was permanently bare chests in that place. No say in it at all.

Yours Truly.

As I see it I think every gym teacher has the right to tell his class of male pupils to go barechested/barefoot in just shorts if they want when in the actual gym at school. There should be no argument with that.

But some people here have suggested this went further with themselves, and they did this on things like cross country outside school, or a sports day with viewing outsiders. In these circumstances I do think the normal gym rules should have been reconsidered with more flexibility.

There should be no argument on showers if they are needed, and anyone doing an hour of high physical activity needs a shower when finished.

I'll tell you what Mary, you would probably be taken aback by the answers you received if you were to ask the men to open up about their innermost feelings on many subjects.

I'm male, and quite confident, had what I thought were lots of quite confident friends in the 80's until I began getting in touch with some of them again online about 20 years ago or so, the usual chatter ensued about school and all that, what we liked, who we liked, what we hated, etc. I found out that a couple of my friends were anti-communal showers and one of them described himself as being scared when he had to start doing them at school. I didn't notice that, and shared the experience with him, and he never told me in those days, but a certain passage of time elapsed and all of a sudden all these free flowing admissions came out. I didn't care one bit about the showers at school, or the regular skins classes we got into, but found out others disliked the whole set up intensely about going skins for PE. These were people I knew well, and shared these things with.

Maybe many PE teachers held my way of thinking and thought everyone else was the same. It never once crossed my mind when I was young that other boys hated being skins in the school PE lesson or were so unhappy at having to communally shower in PE class that they thought it was a scary thing.

Makes you wonder doesn't it.

One of my frequent PE teachers was a considerable size, horribly bossy and very intimidating so might have made all that worse.

Hi Mary,

I'm replying to your post of 29 June.

You speak very eloquently and perceptively about the double standard between boys and girls.

What were your feelings about Simon's experiences? Because he clearly felt very unhappy about the regime he was subjected to. You seem to be suggesting that any man that harbours bad, humiliating memories of school PE has simply re-written their past. Your male classmates buried and hid whatever adverse feelings they might have had, just like some of the girls at my school no doubt did with the gym knickers thing. Don't take my word for this. Read Kim's post. The boys you knew had no choice but to mask their real feelings. .

I am still unsure of your perception of the boys' PE kit. It sounds like you approve of it and just take it for granted that boys were to be held up to a harsher standard than the girls. What you are maybe not be acknowledging is that in a society where it is just assumed that boys will grow up to treat women as equals, unequal treatment at a young age is a genuine problem, it breeds resentment which festers and in severe cases can lead to full-blown misogyny decades down the line. Boys need to be treated fairly. And you'll have to explain to me why it it is we always need to be 'toughened up'.

'Shirtless, barefoot, no underwear — that wasn’t a choice, it was rigorously enforced. And yes, I do think it acted as a form of discipline: a way of toughening boys up, instilling obedience, and pushing them to accept discomfort without complaint'

Did you approve of this? You certainly sound quite easy about it. It was done to make your male classmates feel vulnerable and therefore easier to control. But why was it only necessary for them and not your female classmates?

Did you agree with this 'discipline'? Why is it that boys need to be toughened up?

I think you are absolutely right, It was really intended not for any spurious 'hygiene' reason but as a means of discipline, of subjugating boys by making them feel humiliated and vulnerable. I just don't see why it always has to be boys that seemingly need this kind of treatment.

'That kind of enforced near-nakedness, combined with the attention it drew, made PE a far more emotionally loaded experience for the boys. For them, it wasn’t just about sport — it was a social and psychological learning field, which might have been hard to endure for the weaker ones.'

What did your male classmates learn from being depersonalised and degraded that was of any lasting value?

I also take issue with your use of the word 'weaker'. It was clearly an impression you got from the boys being harshly treated and as if they were an inferior gender.

Dodging school communal showers was actually a whole sport in itself. Unfortunately it was a game that we always lost.

School showers/PE teacher 245 - Me 0.

I saw a group of three boys cycling on their way to school past my home this morning just after eight o'clock, two of them were peddling to school without their tops on, presumably their blazers and ties were in the rucksacks on their backs. The third one had his blazer over the handlebars but kept his shirt and tie on. I would be very surprised if they were allowed to ride through the school gates like that, so possibly they got the uniform on around a corner just before they got there. When I thought about this they were being sensible, it allowed them to turn up to school without a sweaty shirt ringing wet. What I want to know is how some people get away without seeming to sweat while others perspire madly with no effort at all. I can't believe these schools are making them go in with thick blazers on and not allowing them to leave them at home.

Kim that's an absolutely mad story about your son there. He must have known he would get caught, but perhaps that's what he wanted. These arguments have done the rounds on here before about topless sports days, not something I encountered despite a high prevailence of shirtless PE in my school, but had it happened I think I'd have taken it on the chin, I was mostly unfazed by being stripped to the waist in the gym and don't think a sports day would have altered my feelings much.

Comment by: Kris on 1st July 2025 at 01:43
'Think about it, once upon a time, and even now, sons and daughters, boys and girls, not even teenagers some of them, and many of us, could be summarily stripped naked, the majority of us against our inner wishes and against our will, by any old PE teacher who came along and taught us. Remarkable isn't it, that any teacher had such power to do that to any of us.'



When you put it like that Kris it sounds bad doesn't it, but in the spirit of devil's advocate, was the reality of it so bad as that? Did they really have the kind of power you suggest, as Alan has made the point before asking what could any of them have done if anyone or everyone had refused all this. Could it also be that we as youngsters failed to realise the potential bargaining 'power' we might have had in school situations, this being a clear and obvious example of one that riles so many. The fact is that most of us just gave them this power over us, me included, and you've mentioned sheep and cattle, a term used previously more than once by others, maybe we were all a bit sheep like.

Hi Kim,

Well said!

I'm so sorry to hear your son went through that. I went through something similar around ten years before. Although in my case the primary issue was bullying and the mandatory football matches and the infinite degradation of communal showers were only the cherries on the shitcake.

I think the transition from primary to secondary school is one of the hardest experiences in anybody's life. You are not only going to a larger school environment but also feeling the sheen of childhood come off and the dullness of adult life start to seep in and it's just a sad time, although nobody ever speaks of it.

I certainly struggled to adapt and I still remember the grinding horror of having to adapt to something that was just too much for me at such a young age. It was like going to a prison where they let you go home every afternoon.

An earlier respondent on here suggested I must have won the lottery because I never had to do PE bare-chested . They must be right because we were always allowed/ specified tops all through my school days. It was still horrible though.

I never realised just how prevalent this shorts-only regime was until I stumbled across this forum. I was aware of it being a thing in the post-war austerity years, which makes sense for back then. In a climate of conscription, rationing and corporal punishment, where children were to be made to do as they are told and their feelings were not even a consideration, it made sense to reduce the burden on struggling parents by making boys' kit as minimal as possible, a pair of shorts and a towel and the teacher's gym slipper across said shorts if you got things wrong.
But not into the eighties and nineties. Children have feelings. And adults are meant to be responsible and professional.

'Trying to get answers out of my eldest was like hitting a brick wall'

Boys are like that. There was nothing more you could have done, it's just how boys are. I was badly bullied but said nothing to my parents. As youngsters we just clam up. I think there is this inherent sense of shame because we feel we ought to be able to deal with everything ourselves so we don't just feel the hurt of the incident, we also feel shame that we couldn't defend ourselves from it happening. Or maybe that's just me, I don't know..

One last thing. Do you mean to say your son only started secondary school at thirteen? Because my sisters and I and everybody else we knew went up at eleven. Until I found this forum I had never heard of kids starting at twelve, which quite a lot of respondents have cited, much less thirteen. Eleven years old was one of the worst years of my life and I can only speculate how differently things might have turned out if I had been spared the incipient doom of big school for a while.

I hope Mary reads your post. I think she needs to.

Comment by: Russ on 30th June 2025 at 17:07


"Whether people like it or not, Anthony has every right to tell those in his class how to dress, doesn't he? Nobody would argue that he, or anyone else, makes boys wear shorts for PE would they, so why should it really make any difference when he says they can't put a top on in the gym. Bare legs fine, bare chest not, is that how it is?....."

A fine speech for the defence, Russ!. I would like to point out though, that the extremely long hot period we are experiencing at the moment is very rare in this country. This time last year I remember it was cool and wet, and it is often chilly in the mornings, especially between September and April. It can also be very cold and damp, even in the Southern areas of the country (even worse of course the further North you go).

It is not that unusual, as we have all read on this site, for boys and men to be more concerned about their upper body, especially if you get teachers or other pupils making personal remarks. Legs are an afterthought, though I haven't worn shorts since I left school myself.

Perhaps due to my own experiences at school, it always rather concerns me when middle aged men have such a predilection for having boys running round half naked, which is compounded when they take such an interest in watching them shower, which happened in our school all the time. It should frankly, not be allowed, especially these days with all the "diversity" and "equal opportunities" that infest public service is in operation. There should be stronger safeguards for pupils. Of course, not all P.E. teachers have sinister motives, but there does seem to be, especially in the case we are discussing, a great desire to control and dominate ("obliged" was an interesting choice of word). People give a great deal away by the language . they chose to employ. "The guys" when referring to his pupils - the pseudo matey approach, to try to disguise the fact he is domineering. "Guys" - at 11??. A control freak at work.


Comment by: Kim on 30th June 2025 at 20:18



"....I had a lot of trouble with my eldest son, then aged thirteen, thirty two years ago when it came to PE lessons at school. He struggled to adapt to the culture that comes with the transition to secondary school and various requirements at that time from his own teachers of PE,"........

That could have been me, Kim. I can only speak personally. In the July in my last year at junior school we were treated like children, called by our first names all the time, praised (over-praised, certainly in my case), for most work - P.E was just fun exercises. In September when I went to secondary the whole regime changed - always shouted at, surnames only all the time, constant criticism (like the over-praise in earlier years, totally out of proportion) - we were treated as if we had been sent to borstal. The slightest mis-step yelled at and often punished, P.E. lessons with a gay martinet, who was just a little bit too interested in us the older we got. School became a punishment, something to be dreaded each day. It still is, obviously for many, and like your son, I often truanted from P.E.lessons in my later days at school.

The American bandleader, Terry Gibbs (still with us at 100) used to give all his musicians one piece of advice, which I think should be given to all student teachers - "Don't take yourself TOO seriously". His point was that, though you should always be professional, music was a fun occupation designed to give pleasure, and you always carried on learning. To be too po-faced was a killer in the enjoyment department, and turned listeners off.

My view is, and always has been, that the less academic a subject is, the more self-important and dictatorial the teacher will be. He/she is well aware that if he and his subject were to disappear, it would not make any difference to the number of doctors, engineers, mechanics, scientists - and - yes - musicians we would have. His subject is a mere interlude, which will play very little, if any, part in the pupil's chosen career (unless he wants to be Andy Murray, Wayne Rooney or Tom Daley). They never forget their own un-importance in the scheme of things, and always need to compensate by being aggressive .They are very aware of their false importance to academia.

You can rarely expect any empathy from them. There has only ever been one teacher on this site, a man called Simon, a few weeks ago, who said that in his class boys could wear what they liked and showering wasn't compulsory. I hope there are more with his more compassionate, liberal views coming through teacher training college these days. It doesn't surprise me that your son's school failed to engage with you. They just hide behind their otiose "rules" and are unable or unwilling to explain them.

It would be interesting to know how he turned out, and I am sure the 45 year old is much happier than the 13 year old he was. At the time you go through it, though, you feel very alone. Like him, I never talked about school at home.

Comment by: Anthony Hayman on 29th June 2025 at 21:39
'Many of the guys will probably be relieved to be able to leave the school uniform off and do PE in bare chests tomorrow at school, which is the intention of me and a couple of colleagues who have already spoken online via video on Microsoft Teams tonight about our week ahead, which includes a sports day outside on Friday.'



Please tell us how your Monday heatwave school day went Anthony, and were they relieved, quite literally of their shirts or not. There seems some confusion to me as to whether you insist on some kind of outside bare chest type of PE or not. Maybe you could clear that one up.

What will your sports day entail at the end of this week, and what kind of PE kit is expected from them, you will definitely light a fuse if you say you tell them to do it shirtless that's for sure! Some people have been on here and said they had to do sports day that way in front of a watching crowd. Not all school sports days have visitors, does yours?

Think about it, once upon a time, and even now, sons and daughters, boys and girls, not even teenagers some of them, and many of us, could be summarily stripped naked, the majority of us against our inner wishes and against our will, by any old PE teacher who came along and taught us. Remarkable isn't it, that any teacher had such power to do that to any of us.

Kim, my PE teachers used to shepherd us into our school shower like we were sheep to be herded, truly we were cattle, he used to shout at us to hurry up stripping all our clothing off and physically manhandle some of us into the shower, crammed in together and once satisfied only then would he allow us the water he would turn on. This water started off stone cold before warming up every time.

I have never forgotten this, and I have no doubt that some of them enjoyed this aspect of the job and the discomfiture it gave a lot of us.

Your personal view on how to treat sensitive boys Anthony, please.

I had a lot of trouble with my eldest son, then aged thirteen, thirty two years ago when it came to PE lessons at school. He struggled to adapt to the culture that comes with the transition to secondary school and various requirements at that time from his own teachers of PE, especially showers which he didn't like at all, but also the wish those teachers then had for a lot of classes to be taken bare chests. In his school the gym component of PE was generally taken this way. The final straw came in June 1993 when me and my partner turned up for his school sports afternoon to find he wasn't even in school and we didn't know where he was for about three hours. I remember the sports afternoon very well because most, if not all the boys we watched either doing gymnastics or races were in bare chests (they all looked nice by the way) and although he never admitted to the real reasons he was not at school that afternoon at the time I was strongly inclined to believe the PE dress code might have played some part with his unauthorised absence.

Trying to get answers out of my eldest was like hitting a brick wall, and so it was with the school too. It felt like they closed ranks to me and I was quite surprised how dismissive and unconcerned they were about things like showers/shirts off anxiety and how unwilling they were to confront issues with worried boys not turning up possibly because of these type of things, except to give them detentions or even a full suspension was threatened at one stage.

Within months of entering secondary school in 1992 my eldest changed from happy go lucky with good attendance to much more morose and absenteeism, much of it I connected to PE lessons.

Whether people like it or not, Anthony has every right to tell those in his class how to dress, doesn't he? Nobody would argue that he, or anyone else, makes boys wear shorts for PE would they, so why should it really make any difference when he says they can't put a top on in the gym. Bare legs fine, bare chest not, is that how it is?

It probably would be more comfortable in a cool school gym with shirts off in this weather we have now, but obviously it would be madness to send anyone outside for an hour just after lunch with a bare chest, even with sunscreen in my opinion.

I well remember being sent out on the school cross country in warm sunny weather and not enjoying it very much, it was uncomfortable even with our tops off and no sweaty fabric clinging to us. I always found the colder days running shirtless more acceptable or those with cloud cover. I even remember us getting caught in the rain a number of times.

Whatever I may have thought of something, especially in PE, I never took the view that any teacher who took us didn't have the right to inform us what he wanted from us, even if that meant telling us we were being sent out in bare chests in the cool and damp, or the hot and humid to run two or three miles.

I don't think current PE teachers would deliberately send their pupils out for runs on afternoons of 90 degrees nowadays, even with shirts, but I sure remember many PE lessons in my time where the class was pushed to the point of what must have been dehydration and heat exhaustion and there being a rush for the drinking fountain, unhygenic things, bottled water unheard of.

Charles, it is not for me to defend this teacher, but he actually wrote:-
"........Pupils are encouraged to bring a sunscreen with a SPF of 30 or more, preferably 50 for going outside in summer, even in tops, with the sun at its strongest. They will not be allowed outside on a sunny day in a bare chest unless they have applied protection first, including the face. ". It is indeed true that skin cancer is more likely to occur with people forced to go out in strong sunshine , as this teacher's pupils are. I repeat that you need Factor 50, not 30, according to current medical advice..

May I also remind you, Charles, that 1965 is now sixty years ago, and though children/young adults were treated as if they didn't matter in those days, we have moved on (one would hope), and show them more empathy and respect. and, also, there are all host of reasons why some lads feel uncomfortable being forced into nudity or near nudity. I have already explained mine, and have no intention of rehearsing them again.

I think you'd find it very hard to get a sunburn inside any school gym even with some sunlight coming down through the often high up windows. I'm sure the teacher here knows what he is doing and doesn't send boys out in the midday sun to burn to a crisp without coverage, but of course you can get a quick and easy sunburn, especially us whities with pale skin quite fast even on a much cooler day, and with wind, and even underwater. I'm always careful on my regular holidays to Portugal.

Don't forget that some boys will actually want to get outside without tops on in this weather, I always did and still do, and I don't suppose this teacher will refuse by the sound of it, as long as they cream up. There will be other teachers that probably refuse to allow boys any chance to be outside shirtless in strong sunshine, or at any time, even if they'd like to be.

As far as I'm concerned, and I'm a bit of an old codger now, this is the healthy way of things and it's the schools that don't shower, or even refuse to let their students shower and mothball such facilities, and demand they all cover up with this that and the other that create the greater issues.

If you've got a phobia or are just a bit uncomfortable with yourself the best way to begin the process of overcoming it is not to avoid it but face up to it head on.

I've got a couple of junior school grandsons at the moment a few years away from secondary education. If any of this comes up in the future for them when I no doubt ask them what they've got up to, I'd say embrace it and don't push back against it. I never had a problem with my own kids showering in school for PE and even if they had disliked it, I would have told them not to be so silly, all boys have the same things, we are all so very similar while al[ being different at the same time.

I was at a grammar school in the sixties, starting in '65, and we were expected to act like big boys even when we were little boys. It would have been unthinkable for anyone to even talk about "being forced" to be shirtless in the PE we did, or "being forced" to take the nude showers with one another. To complain about these things would have been seen as slightly immature I think, rightly or wrongly, but these really were the days of peak stiff British upper lip even for children who proved to be very resilient. My grammar school even made the younger ones swim in the school pool with nothing on, all of us who went swimming had to line up and walk through a shower with nothing on before we could jump in the school pool, and if you were the younger ones they didn't even bother with you going for your swimming trunks until you were fourteen. As a grammar kid of the sixties I found it quite liberating to have all the normal barriers removed like that.

Comment by: Anthony Hayman on 29th June 2025 at 21:39





".....I see nothing wrong with obliging the guys to either remove all top clothing for PE and conduct themselves in their bare chest, even less so in current conditions.

How could you not shower after working out in such heat and humidity, as far as I am concerned it would be completely wrong to send anyone off and away from PE without a shower, it's the right thing to do.......


........Pupils are encouraged to bring a sunscreen with a SPF of 30 or more, preferably 50 for going outside in summer, even in tops, with the sun at its strongest. They will not be allowed outside on a sunny day in a bare chest unless they have applied protection first, including the face. Sometimes baseball or even beanie hats are permitted outside.

Note: I'm known as Anthony or Ant, I've never been called Tony."


A tip for any of Mr. Hayman's pupils who don't want to run around half naked today. Just forget to bring your sunscreen boys!

You refer to showering again - as I have said countless times, I like showers, but I like to take them alone, and certainly NOT with somebody watching me while I do it, which is what so many teachers do.

The more you write, Anthony, the more convinced I am that you don't teach in a standard comprehensive school. I suggest it is either a private school or a public school. Am I right?. I did wonder why you and your colleagues needed to discuss the week ahead, when it appears you adhere to the same old, same old every week, but that is your affair. Parents who can afford shorts with crests on them and sunscreen are certainly not poor - where I live there are several food banks and I don't think school, sunscreen would be on on the list of essentials, and you need Factor 50 in the current heat, 30 isn't strong enough, according to dermatologists concerned about skin cancer. I have read newspaper articles addressed to holidaymakers, which suggests that a light coloured top be worn in hot weather - and the weather is at it's hottest during school hours, but we musn't let that interfere with tradition, must we?.

We all have our sensitivities, but I am lucky that name snobbery has never been one of mine. I was in a band where there was already an Alan, so I became Al. I didn't mind in the least - it sounds more friendly, and so to some people I am "Al", to this day. Embrace the informality, enjoy the friendliness implied. Even Anthony Blair, PM and now leader-man of a worldwide "Institute" said 'call me Tony'.

Comment by: Jeff on 28th June 2025 at 19:00
I'll add my name to those here who did cross country all year round in bare chests (except Dec/Jan/Feb unless unusually mild). I've seen so many comments coming from the 1970s that say the same, what was it about that time that got our sports teachers addicted to cross country like that. Normal everyday comprehensive school pupil, early to mid 70s.






Same here Jeff, except a different decade. I was in my senior school from 1959 until 1964 and my introduction to shirtless gymnastics came in 1959 and in 1960 we started regular shirtless group running around school grounds and a surprising number of boys ran along the grass barefoot too but that bit was personal choice, the shirtless part was not.

You said a lot that made sense there Mary and seemed to gain an understanding from a female viewpoint, possibly aided by what Simon W had said, but you ended with the following which may or may not have been an unintentional slap at some boys such as the Simon's, Alan and many others here of this world....

'which might have been hard to endure for the weaker ones.'

Weaker ones? Do you see sensitive boys as weak Mary?

I thought your comment was excellent but with a sting right at the end of it.

Many of the guys will probably be relieved to be able to leave the school uniform off and do PE in bare chests tomorrow at school, which is the intention of me and a couple of colleagues who have already spoken online via video on Microsoft Teams tonight about our week ahead, which includes a sports day outside on Friday.

I see nothing wrong with obliging the guys to either remove all top clothing for PE and conduct themselves in their bare chest, even less so in current conditions.

How could you not shower after working out in such heat and humidity, as far as I am concerned it would be completely wrong to send anyone off and away from PE without a shower, it's the right thing to do.

We have a little freezer in our office with ice packs in there, often used for minor sprains or injury if required. These are crushed ice with various sized plasticky bags or in block form. Once out of the freezer they can remain very cold and effective for an hour quite easily. I will take some out and anyone in heat discomfort or wishing to cool down will be able to place one across the back of the neck and shoulders for a few moments for cooling relief, or across the wrists is also a very effective method for rapid cooling relief too.

Bigger isn't always stronger. I've seen some very little guys who have a lot of strength and endurance and other larger boys with bigger arms and legs who lack strength that somewhat smaller boys have. Boys who are smaller, thinner and leaner than bigger boys should not allow themselves to have a complex about themselves. Many are equally capable and sometimes more so. Most boys, even the less assured ones, become openly more confident quite quickly even if they have reticence on maybe not having a top on because of their size.

Many boys surprise themselves in PE lessons, they are not as "useless" as they think they are at things once they get stuck in, especially if they have not tried something before. Some boys are more team players than others, that is human nature. The PE teacher will always like anyone who tries and puts in an effort.

Pupils are encouraged to bring a sunscreen with a SPF of 30 or more, preferably 50 for going outside in summer, even in tops, with the sun at its strongest. They will not be allowed outside on a sunny day in a bare chest unless they have applied protection first, including the face. Sometimes baseball or even beanie hats are permitted outside.

Awareness of conditions has changed a lot since the days of the 1960's and 70's type of PE in schools, but I'll certainly not apologise for PE done in bare chests or a shower being needed.

Note: I'm known as Anthony or Ant, I've never been called Tony.

Matthew when I was at primary school, as well as first school, there was no segregation at all between boys and girls when we had to change for PE. We all had to go into what was our reading room, a shared room all classes used, and change together with each other, right down to our underwear and then whatever we put back on. The boys and girls would just naturally group together with each other by gender even at a very young age. This didn't bother me because much of the time we took our normal school clothes off and as boys would just walk out to PE in our shorts, nothing on our bodies or feet anyway. I definitely became more funny about this as I got older, this arrangement finally stopped when I was ten.

To Simon W
Thanks for your thoughtful and personal reply — it really brings out the heart of what I was getting at. Back then, boys weren’t just allowed to strip down for PE — they were required to. Shirtless, barefoot, no underwear — that wasn’t a choice, it was rigorously enforced. And yes, I do think it acted as a form of discipline: a way of toughening boys up, instilling obedience, and pushing them to accept discomfort without complaint. Most boys did seem very much at ease, even proud — as if they'd adapted or were trying to show they could handle it — but that doesn’t mean it was easy for all. Some just internalised the discomfort because there was no way to opt out.

And yes, as girls, we did talk about it. There was banter — often light-hearted, but sometimes sharp — about who looked confident, who looked awkward, whose body had changed, who looked younger than the rest, who had the nicest chest. It was rarely directed at anyone in particular, but I can see now how those comments, even in passing, might have added to the pressure of some boys.

That kind of enforced near-nakedness, combined with the attention it drew, made PE a far more emotionally loaded experience for the boys. For them, it wasn’t just about sport — it was a social and psychological learning field, which might have been hard to endure for the weaker ones.

Alan I read that story this morning about government and healthy food. My immediate reaction to it was - What business is it of government to tell grocery retailers how to present their produce. I think they've forgotten what a government is meant to really be doing and it isn't about telling Sainsbury's and Tesco how to run their business. Worry about food price inflation instead of waistline inflation, adults are free to eat what they like and if they end up like a 'Fat Cow' that's their own fault. What happened to taking personal responsibility?

If you'd looked the size of a shot putter at my school you'd have never heard the end of it from our PE teachers who were quick to pull boys up on any sense of weight gain, but on the other hand I also remember one man who would look at some of us and mention lack of strength and our slight frames too. Is it any wonder boys looked in the mirror at themselves like you've said Seth.

Mark comments on 27th June that four-year-olds would be less likely than secondary school pupils to feel self-consciousness about doing PE bare-chested. That may well be so, but I felt considerable embarrassment about it at infant school (albeit which I eventually overcame).

I came across a book "Perspectives on School at Seven Years Old" by John Newson (1977, reprinted 2012), containing interviews with parents of young children at a time when minimal PE kit was more common, and real resistance to it from the children was evidently surprisingly widespread.

Quoting directly (page 74): "Other complaints refer to... having to get undressed for PE", "A remarkable number of complaints had to do with the child's modesty being threatened by faulty locks on the lavatory doors... and in particular being expected to show their pants or even change altogether for dancing and PE".

One mother of a boy at infant school, referring to PE: "...to get undressed and that - he's quite upset about that. The thought of taking his trousers off, and that's it".

There are other, similar comments in the book.

Comment by: Fat Cow on 28th June 2025 at 22:58

"We should have compulsory PE for adults!"

Don't give Streeting and Starmer any more ideas. Streeting wants supermarkets to make fruit more "attractive". I can't imagine even he knows what he means by that.

We already have far too many do's and don'ts in this country already, and if you are working most of us are fit enough already.

Comment by: Fat Cow on 28th June 2025 at 22:58
'We should have compulsory PE for adults!'


It's been suggested by one of us on here that we already do.

We should have compulsory PE for adults!

The only thing is Seth that you don't see those oversized shot putters doing it shirtless do you, so why did you, and it's like it with so many other sports I remember doing at school that no actual professional athlete does at a high level shirtless. On the size thing, if you were in PE looking huge like a shot putter you'd be considered overweight and out of shape but those people are clearly fit and able for their sport. I don't see the appeal of trying to throw what amounts to a heavy rock that never goes too far anyway and doesn't bounce. We did it a couple of times at school and then moved on to other more interesting things.

Nowadays if anything was out of action you wouldn't do it, so PE would be cancelled if the shower was faulty, or you'd just not do it, you wouldn't be getting a personal hose down from a teacher, I'm not sure what to make of that but private schools do have differing ways it looks like, except it looks like state sector or private, showering and shirtless was a common theme whatever you ended up at in the mid to latter 20th century.

I'll add my name to those here who did cross country all year round in bare chests (except Dec/Jan/Feb unless unusually mild). I've seen so many comments coming from the 1970s that say the same, what was it about that time that got our sports teachers addicted to cross country like that. Normal everyday comprehensive school pupil, early to mid 70s. A fully attended bare chested boys school gymnasium was also the norm, we trailed the school corridor past a couple of classes windows to get there. Privacy, none. Laughably even the boys showers had a non frosted window on ground level beside them, one of those wired fireproof glass designs but quite clear to see through. Can you believe that Gary. We used to hang towels across parts of the window to protect ourselves and hope the steam would do the rest. The girls area was well hidden.