Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Neil on 25th March 2024 at 21:10


"...Alan may disagree with my view but when you are saying that gay men and women should not be doing certain jobs such as teaching because their sexuality means they cannot be trusted to conduct themselves appropriately, .."


Neil, I think you have misread what I said. I have said several times that I have no problem with homosexual teachers per se, just NOT employing them in P.E. departments. At my school there were always rumours that our art master was homosexual, for instance, but that didn't bother me - then or now - the art teacher can't see you and watch you having a shower or taking your clothes off. That was my problem with our PE teacher, who spent far too much time in the locker and shower room, especially as you got older.

I won't rehearse my arguments for taking a hard line on this matter, nor will I apologise for it.

Comment by: Mickey Grant on 25th March 2024 at 00:20
Personal attacks? He's been handing them out for months.
Noteworthy how few people challenge him on his homophobia - if that's not a personal attack I don't know what is. But I guess some targets are permissable?



Mickey, there have been people calling Alan out for his comments that appear to be blatantly and generally homophobic a few times that I have read, so there is no need to feel too hard done by, he has been called out for this and not been given a free pass.

Alan may disagree with my view but when you are saying that gay men and women should not be doing certain jobs such as teaching because their sexuality means they cannot be trusted to conduct themselves appropriately, and should be penalised based on their sexual characteristics then that in my book is clear and present homophobia and there is little point denying it really.

Comment by: Dean on 24th March 2024 at 18:35


""Nathan's 64" should just keep their shirts off at stop whining, they lost a fair vote.

Actually I doubt any of them are whining like you know who here. Sorry Alan but you do go on a bit. Did you never ever accept having to go shirtless in school PE then? Surely you must have got over it at some point. All lads do, no matter how shy they are or lacking confidence.

I did."

Thank you, Dean, for your pep talk - very kind of you to spend your Sunday evening enlightening me.

All I can say is that I am not alone on this board with my discomfort (which is a comfort!). Everyone has something they are uneasy with. Fear of spiders, for example - there are grown men who really get uneasy seeing them. Luckily for me, that is not a cross I have to bear - just as well, for decommissioned electrical/electronic equipment often harbours a few once you take the case off. I wonder what your secret fear is?. Care to tell us. I don't sneer at people who have phobias or fears.

I will also say that if you had spent 5 years, for 40 weeks a year, two or three times each week with our teacher (it varied according to what year you were in - (our last year it was only twice), you might well have had similar reservations to me and some of the other lads who took part.

Personal attacks? He's been handing them out for months.

Noteworthy how few people challenge him on his homophobia - if that's not a personal attack I don't know what is. But I guess some targets are permissable?

I am quite happy to say that nobody is 'whining' about their lot in PE. Nobody ever has done so over the issue of the occasional bare chest requirement. My decision to take soundings on the issue was completely unilateral based solely on many of the comments I have read across many of these pages in the past year or so. Nothing more. There was no pressure from anyone at all for me to do so.

I've had a handful of pupils ask me if the results were what I expected and I had to say that broadly speaking they were in the range of my own expectations.

I can endorse many of the comments said here by Seb. I'd also say that doing PE in a bare chest removes all restrictions on movement quite effectively too. I also think that lack of confidence and shyness is something to challenge and overcome and sometimes confronting mostly minor anxieties such as taking your top off in front of others is worth doing.

Chris: As I said, I am no expert on the education system, but I was fairly sure the Scottish system IS different to the English, and it be so:

https://www.sharpscot.co.uk/how-is-education-different-in-scotland-from-england/

I assume as Wales has it's own devolved system of government, they might well also differ, but I cant be bothered to find out

"Nathan's 64" should just keep their shirts off at stop whining, they lost a fair vote.

Actually I doubt any of them are whining like you know who here. Sorry Alan but you do go on a bit. Did you never ever accept having to go shirtless in school PE then? Surely you must have got over it at some point. All lads do, no matter how shy they are or lacking confidence.

I did.

Comment by Alan March 24th

"I know Scotland has it's own system, and I am not competent enough to talk about that. I daresay Wales and N. Ireland have their own systems, I am talking about schools throughout Britain."

Britain is the largest island of the UK, comprising the mainland entities of England, Scotland and Wales. So "schools throughout Britain" include most schools in England, Scotland and Wales
For completeness, and to inform non-UK readers, Great Britain comprises the aforesaid island of Britain, together with all of its off-shore islands
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) is just what it says.

Comment by: Russ on 23rd March 2024 at 14:46


"It could be a lottery within the same school though. Many teachers had their own way of doing things in PE lessons I seem to recall that could vary from one to the other."

I think this is another excellent reason why there should be standardisation in the State education system. When you allow individual schools - let alone individual teachers - being allowed to do their own thing it can become confusing and uncomfortable for the pupils.

Moving away from PE, one of my customers, who is a bit older than me, but not by that much, forever complains about his spelling in emails. He told me once he was taught by the method known as the Initial Teaching Alphabet (no I didn't know about that, either. I found a link:

https://theliteracyblog.com/2015/05/14/i-t-a-a-great-idea-but-a-dismal-failure/


The idea seems to be you spelt as you heard the word "warta" for "water" for example.

Some schools embraced it, others didn't.


Where state education is concerned it should be like buying a can of soup from Tesco, it should be the same price, the same quality in London as it is in Lands End. I know Scotland has it's own system, and I am not competent enough to talk about that. I daresay Wales and N. Ireland have their own systems, I am talking about schools throughout Britain.



"...A lot of people find going shirtless to be motivating. For those who have aesthetic goals, it draws their attention to their body and how they want it to look, driving them to work for those goals. For others, they feel it is expected that if they take their shirt off, they must be exerting maximal effort. They would feel embarrassed to give less once the shirt has come off, so it drives them to reach for maximum performance...."

Seb, with all due respect, you sound like a sports/fitness fan. You have to remember that many lads at school just regard PE, like they might regard Art, for example, as just another subject they have to study, but have no interest in it. From what I see, most people these days seem obsessed with their faces - I was on a bus just yesterday when a teenager (male) was arranging his hair and his demeanour - to take a selfie. As long as people are well and healthy, they are no much interested in circuit training etc - they might want to watch sport, in the same way they want to listen to music, but they have no interest in participating.

I worked very hard playing the trumpet (believe me you practically needed oxygen to play a Maynard Ferguson chart!) but I never took my shirt off to do it, and I fail to see your analogy there - just a couple of weeks ago I posted a You Tube of some lads in a London school studying for GCSE P.E., all wearing shirts, all working hard. You sweat, and you wash your clothes, just like you wash yourself.

I will repeat my usual rider - it lads WANT to remove their shirts, that is fine, but the average lad who is just going along with the lesson because they have to, not because they want to, should not be made to feel even more uncomfortable than they do already. Remember Nathan's 64 - they do exist.

So it's been asked why anyone should actually go shirtless in PE.

Firstly it's good to see a mostly positive attitude to going shirtless in PE from that school who had a chance to air their views. But I definitely think the teacher should also do so, mine at school at the tail end of the 80s did so with us.

So why go to PE bare chested? Nobody, not even a PE teacher has come on here yet and tried to explain why so let me give it a go.

Going bare chested really is one of the most comfortable ways to workout. It maximizes cooling and evaporation of sweat. A sweaty shirt can get really uncomfortable. Special wicking fabrics can help with this, but they tend to be more expensive and are still not nearly as good as simply going bare chested. They still retain some heat and the sweat can’t evaporate as quickly as it does from the skin. The next best thing are probably cut-off shirts with no sides, the less fabric the better. These are cheaper than expensive moisture-wicking fabrics and probably allow even better air circulation and cooling, but they retain sweat longer once they get wet and that can still get uncomfortable.

A lot of people find going shirtless to be motivating. For those who have aesthetic goals, it draws their attention to their body and how they want it to look, driving them to work for those goals. For others, they feel it is expected that if they take their shirt off, they must be exerting maximal effort. They would feel embarrassed to give less once the shirt has come off, so it drives them to reach for maximum performance. Still others simply find it makes them feel more virile and powerful, giving them a mental edge in their workouts. Some feel that even the presence of someone who is working out shirtless is a motivator, even if they lack the confidence to shed their own. It creates an environment of exertion and performance. While this may be intimidating to some, this can usually be overcome with proper PE teaching and encouragement and the benefits likely far outweigh the drawbacks.

Personal hygiene is often cited as a reason not to allow boys to go shirtless for PE. But wearing a shirt is not a good way to keep the gym sanitary. A bare chested class in PE is cleaner all round, saves on sweaty tops going into school bags and being carted around all day long too.

Sorry Mickey but please lay off.

I agree with Nicholas here, I don't wish to come on here and see these kind of personal insults directed at anybody, it's pointless and is disruptive.

Comment by: Mickey Grant on 23rd March 2024 at 12:27

No personal attacks please. They are not wanted.

I've just noticed I forgot to leave the actual details of the clip I was talking about and left the quote for, so here it is.

Title - CoEd Gymnastics PE.

https://youtu.be/l_gb0CUzwX0?feature=shared

It could be a lottery within the same school though. Many teachers had their own way of doing things in PE lessons I seem to recall that could vary from one to the other. Infact in my school I seem to remember the way you were treated changed between actual school years as you went further up and as we got older we seemed to gain what looked like little privileges that the younger years didn't get.

I'd actually describe one of my PE teachers as someone with a hardline attitude to PE, he made us sweat and ache like were had just signed up to join the marines while another took a more casual approach and allowed us more freedom within his classes, including deciding what we did. The hardline teacher liked seeing us laying on our backs on the gym floor out of whack breathing heavily I think, while the more casual one just seemed so much more chilled out and willing to let many of his lessons just go with the flow so to speak.

One of my PE teachers was very much team games not just on the sports field but inside our gym, while another made provision for more individual style PE or whole class involvement gymnastics.

What a nasty piece of work.
I don't normally read his hate-filled, bitter posts, and wish I hadn't mistakenly read the diatribe I just did.

I don't know if anyone has ever left this example of a mixed PE lesson with shirtless boys on here, with girls at school, and I make no apologies for using it despite a comment that references posters who leave short clips on here.

The first thing that got me about it was that they look like they all have to pass a very set standard of some kind, elements of which are shown by a boy who looks quite competent to me. This seems to be 80s/90s so about the time I was in school. No memories for me of having to meet such standards, we turned up in gym and just did whatever the teacher fancied for that day and got on with it and it seems a lot more lively too.

The boys are all bare chests in a mixed gender gym class too, and this gets a few mentions, one of which I think is worth a repeat here from what looks like a female writer who counters a sexism accusation and makes out the boys should not feel put upon being like that or disadvantaged, she says,

@laurasmith6250
'Someone here said that this video was sexist, supposedly because the boys wear shorts. I think one needs to clarify what sexism really is. Sexism needs to be seen in relation to the reality we live in. In a world in which women were not discriminated against it would not be sexist to show a woman’s bare legs. Sexism is a tool of oppression against those already disadvantaged. The reality in this video is that of a PE lesson. A great amount of research shows that it is girls that are almost always disadvantaged and get victimised by boys for not being sporty. It is the girls that are discriminated against and that could be a victim of sexism. The boys in this video display a very assured typically masculine composure by being completely at ease with being stripped to the waist. In fact, being clad in shorts only and bearing their chests allows them impose a physical superiority along the lines of: “Here I am, look at my muscles, I am the boss here!” The boys in this video are nowhere near to being the victims of sexism!'

Comment by: Ollie on 22nd March 2024 at 23:53

"When I was 14 years old way back in 1991 I moved to a new school and for the first time ever I found myself doing completely shirtless PE at school."

There was a similar situation in my area, Ollie. A school virtually down the road from our dump always had the lads in shirts indoors and out. It was a much better school in every respect - less problem pupils, and less problem teachers. We were like a rest home for old men with their various "problems". They all just liked to pretend it was still 1948.

I honestly think this lack of standardisation is one of the most frustrating aspects of state education (and that is the only sort I am competent at speaking of). Teachers are allowed far too much "power" in their little fiefdoms to implement their own particular whims and fancies, and this should not be the case. It is very much a lottery as to how you are treated,

When I was 14 years old way back in 1991 I moved to a new school and for the first time ever I found myself doing completely shirtless PE at school. I remember the teacher at the time noticing how I reacted to this and I remember explaining how I'd never ever done PE at my other schools by having to remain shirtless and he simply told me not to worry because nobody expected anyone at 14 to be going around looking developed with big muscles anyway. It was kind of meant to sound somewhat reassuring but rather had the opposite effect, as he said it to me while I stood in front of him, stripped down to the waist, nothing on top as he looked me up and down in a way that felt like he was making a personal judgement about the way I looked. Then I was simply sent out to get on with it and not make mention of it again.

It's certainly interesting that you could go to one school and never find yourself doing PE shirtless and always be expected to wear a top of some kind and move just 10 miles away to a new area, go to a comparable school and find that one so insistent that you and the entire class had to take PE completely shirtless the lot of you whether you wished to do so or not. I think being shirtless is a very particular thing that some take to easily and others find far harder to do with ease but school never took this into account.

Showers at my first secondary school were actually voluntary from 1988 to 1991 but we would get our PE grades marked down if we didn't take them, so they always told us, and so most of us did so on that basis. At the second school I was at the choice was no longer there and we always got forced into doing so, herded about like sheep into a pen at times, quite unedifying and our hair had to be drenched wet through when we came back out or we had to get back in again. Full nude of course, no shorts in the showers allowed.

Comment by: Andy on 21st March 2024.
"Is sometimes being asked by a teacher to do boys PE in a bare chest acceptable to you?"
You used the word "asked" here. In reality should that not have been "told"?


This reminds me of back home when I was young being told by the old folks - 'I'm not asking you, I'm telling you' when they wanted me to do something.

Face it, asking just means telling doesn't it, and a teacher never expects a knockback to what they 'ask'.

I don't think anyone needs to justify a shirtless PE requirement.

But out of interest, Nathan's question was,

"Is sometimes being asked by a teacher to do boys PE in a bare chest acceptable to you?"


You used the word "asked" here. In reality should that not have been "told"?

The word "asked" suggests a choice to me rather than an instruction. This is why questions in votes such as referendums are so carefully decided even when the question at face value looks to be easy and direct.

I personally think you opened up a pointless can of worms on that one that you never needed to bother with. If you were a genuinely confident PE teacher who had faith in your decisions you would never have chosen to go down this avenue. What this whole question thing says to me is that you are somewhat unsure of yourself and felt the need for some kind of personal reassurance. Luckily you got it, but as can be seen here, there was then a focus on what to do about 64 lads across the 10 classes who didn't think it was alright to be asked not to wear the PE top. I don't think firm leadership means resorting to asking for votes to aid your decisions. You are paid to make those decisions yourself in my view, and now you do have a result those 64 must accept that, unless of course you just let the class decide for themselves.

My question is, why does the class all have to look the same anyway? It was always the way with my school gym, the same footwear, socks and shorts colour, and vests, and when not vests all had to be shirtless together unless going skins and shirts teams. I may have just argued against myself there, thinking about it.

Looking at the comments and the results of the school referendum that has been posted up on here takes me back to something I saw on a forum I used to dip into a few years ago on an American website known as Topix which is now defunct. That site used to have a lot of education threads on it and there was one where an American school held a referendum back in the 1990s on something like 10 different questions to do with how the school operated and asked the whole school for opinions.

One of the questions on that school referendum at the time which I remember drawing a lot of discussion at the time was about a question being asked on the continuation of compulsory showers as part of PE there. It was just one question among ten, including uniform issues. The presumption at the time was that the pupils at that school would easily vote to end PE showering quite easily in that referendum but when they counted all the answers back there was a major shock that two thirds of them ticked for a continuation of having showers after PE. The school was named on the Topix forum at the time, this was a discussion I recall from the 2008-10 period there, sorry but I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the place all these years later.

I think school referendums (is the plural referenda?) are quite an interesting thing to undertake and they clearly don't always bring about the views that might be expected. In the case of the one that has been discussed on here I would have expected an even larger pro-shirts response on that, possibly a majority. You can never quite tell can you what people are thinking unless you actually ask them sometimes.

Comment by Alan, March 20th

"Graham, a bit like Sean, you seem to think that just because you enjoyed running around with next to nothing on, (and in your case sleeping naked) everybody else should feel the same."

Alan - if you read some of my earlier posts from back in the day when this board was a bit more light-hearted and less introspective, you might get a better insight into the reasons for my enjoyment of being bare-chested, which were basically parental inspiration and encouragement. In summer, we all enjoyed being out in the sun as much as possible. PE was optionally topless, right from the beginning of primary school, with very few dissenters. By and large, the environment back then, late 1960s, was one in which the average healthy boy was only too keen to let his shirt {and vest} off whenever possible.

"Fair enough, if that is your thing - that's fine, I have no problem with that - BUT - you should remember we are all individuals and you should give some consideration to people who are not like you, and that should equally be fine with you.*

Nowhere did I say that everyone else should now do likewise. I was just describing the bygone epoch of my formative years. Times change, and people's attitudes, even mine, change. While I am still to be found working in the garden on a sunny day wearing just a pair of shorts, I generally wear rather more when I go out shopping

"Just like the case of Nathan's 64 , their feelings should be respected just as much as the other 186."

That's the problem with binary "first past the post" voting The losers generally have to grin and bear {not bare} it

Comment by: Neil on 20th March 2024 at 22:47
"Comment by: TimH on 20th March 2024 at 19:32

That was a good video from 1938 and I think there would be a lot to commend that way of doing things in PE here and now in the UK."

Neil, are you seriously suggesting there is an equivalence in life in 1938, when everyone knew war was coming, - not if but when - that was the year of Munich of course, and 2024?. If there were to be another war now, when Prince William, Starmer and the other VIPs crawl out of their atomic shelters, they are going to have to build their own bloody houses. World War 3 - if it happens - will be a very different proposition - surely you can see that?. This country cannot afford to fight another unwinnable war, and you can scotch ideas about conscription, because the defence budget has been cut, not increased, and I doubt many lads or men would fight for nothing, as the MOD could not afford to pay them. Altruism only goes so far. Also, if Labour keep their promise of introducing voting at 16 - well, lets be frank about it - turkeys do not vote for Xmas.

Why this trawling through the internet to find these old films, eh?. . Those lads - the older ones that is - might well have lost their lives in the next 7 years, when they became army fodder. It is sad rather than inspiring.

I almost lost the will to live trawling through last nights messages. To the person who suggested that the vote in Nathan's school be binding, I would refer you to yet another video somebody posted the other day from an American school (but that one was only 44 years ago, rather than 86 years ago), and you had a class containing lads STTW, lads in polo shirts and a few in those strange "half vests" - crop tops, do they call them?. - they all looked comfortable in their own chosen way of dress and it certainly didn't affect their proficiency. They looked as if they were enjoying themselves rather than being drilled. I just remind you again we are now in 2024, not some dark corner of the 20th century. Times have changed.

Tim H: I know "Jennings" was male. I was assuming that his chosen name was a surname and not a forename. It might help if everyone just gave - or chose - a forename, rather than some of the strange handles they give themselves. I understand, from my knowledge of radio history, "Jennings" was a 1950s schoolboy (I listen to Radio 4 Extra as well! - comedy was much funnier in the sixties, seventies and eighties compared to today's woke efforts, wherever you find it), in the same way that "Mr Chips" who entertained us from France before Xmas, and left us just as the IP system came into use on this site, (a coincidence I am sure) is a literary figure. I suppose these people have their own reasons for wishing to hide behind made-up names.

Neil mentioned my "approval" of Nathan - clearly he is heterosexual, and if I were employing teachers where they have access to locker rooms, and showers, based on my own personal experience years ago - yes I would employ such men. Now that people are encouraged to "come out" (why don;t they go back in again?) and regarded as terribly brave for so doing, I would employ homosexual men (or women) in any school teaching role except PE. When I think of Roberts, Quinlan et al, it is far better to be safe than sorry.

I am sorry if that offends some of you, but I am being honest.

Comment by: TimH on 20th March 2024 at 19:32

That was a good video from 1938 and I think there would be a lot to commend that way of doing things in PE here and now in the UK. Too many boys and young men that age nowadays in their teens and twenties do obsess about their appearance but not in the right way, they are vain and self obsessed instead, often posing in front of mirrors taking phone pictures of themselves and posting them on instagram or other social media.

Going back to Nathan's vote, I couldn't help but wonder just how many of those unkeen 64 boys there had actually been on a family holiday somewhere nice in the last 5 years and been on a beach or somewhere while shirtless quite happily.

It's good to know that you think Nathan is a fit and proper person who can be allowed to take PE classes Alan. I'm sure he's pleased to know that. I think he dismantled your very odd argument quite effectively on who should be allowed to teach. Would you really want to live in such a dark society that made those kind of judgements about people and what they can do for a living based on their personal life arrangements?

Alan says - "Just like the case of Nathan's 64 , their feelings should be respected just as much as the other 186."


I disagree. They are a losing minority and that was a vote I presume they all accepted the outcome of. The worst thing for the PE teacher to now do would be to complicate matters and start making exceptions to the ways things are done at the school. Bare chests won out by a big margin in that vote, so that means ALL should accept it, not just the winners but the losers too. Those 64 should be expected to participate as required. Why have ever bothered with the vote in the first place otherwise? If the result had been reversed and 186 were against being told to go shirtless in PE then I'd expect that to be respected too in their favour.

I would find it very strange indeed if boys in those Year 10 and 11's who voted against were suddenly to clam up and want to cover up having done PE without a shirt for quite some time already. It wouldn't make sense to me.

I do think that the PE teacher should make an effort when he requires his class to do PE bare chested and do so himself at least once in a while. It's important for class to think that a teacher isn't asking them to do anything he wouldn't do.

I never got a say in doing PE bare chested and entire gym classes at my comprehensive school had to do so for gym. I agree it can be nerve wracking at first to do so if you are highly self critical about yourself.

@Michael F - 11/3/2024 - 3.04

'Men of tomorrow' https://youtu.be/65rww9nZtEA?feature=shared

My first thought on seeing this was - 'Adidas Mk 1' shorts ... not much different from what I wore when I went to Grammar School in 1960.

1938 - a period of 'unease' - with many people accepting that war was coming - and a need for fitness and not just in schoolboys - my father was 29 when he was 'called up'.

@Alan 04.17 20/3/2024

Alan - sorry but I feel I ought to point out that 'Jennings' does actually suggest that he is an 'he' in his posting.
Also - unless we have slipped into a time warp, Nathan is getting married in 2027 - not 2025. Will we get invited to the wedding, I wonder?

@ 'Jennings' 20.30 19/3/2024.

I completely agree with you on the use of 'Sir' & 'Madam' - certainly not being deferential. Unfortunately there are some people who would have things changed ... to the detriment of all.

Comment by: Graham on 20th March 2024 at 10:16



Graham, a bit like Sean, you seem to think that just because you enjoyed running around with next to nothing on, (and in your case sleeping naked) everybody else should feel the same. Fair enough, if that is your thing - that's fine, I have no problem with that - BUT - you should remember we are all individuals and you should give some consideration to people who are not like you, and that should equally be fine with you.

It reminds me of those proselytising naturists who seem to think there is something wrong with those of us who would never want to spend our time stark b*llock naked.

Just like the case of Nathan's 64 , their feelings should be respected just as much as the other 186.