Burnley Grammar School

Hi Donna,

Very sorry to hear you were sexually assaulted.

The way that teacher treated you was horrible but not surprising.

I had heard before of primary-age kids having to shower after PE but this must surely have been very unusual.

Sorry to disagree with you about boys having it easier in the showers. It certainly wasn't that way at my secondary school, where we had a communal shower while the girls had cubicles. Sometimes, in some schools, girls did have communal showers, it sounds like you did, but for boys communal showers were universal.

If boys seem to take things more in their stride than girls, well, that's exactly it. The key word is 'seem'. We are made to feel much more than girls from the earliest ages that our feelings are not appropriate to many social situations and so we learn to mask them. The boys you remember might have seemed like they were taking it in their stride but that was because they had no choice but to do so. Boys found communal showers humiliating as well.

If you are referring to the female school inspector that has posted here I wouldn't hold my breath. I agree with you - I would have thought that someone championing the benefits of school showers would have regarded the feelings of the adolescents who had to undergo them as a primary concern. But Christine already stated in, I think, her first post, that she and her colleagues made a specific practice of not consulting individual children about their feelings and experiences of school.

Comment by: Donna on 25th November 2024 at 23:28


Donna, a few years before he died the poet Philip Larkin was asked in an Observer interview if he regretted not having children (I think this was inspired by his poem "This Be The Verse"). His reply was immediate "Children are very horrible aren't they? - nasty, selfish, vulgar little brutes"

I have every sympathy with your plight, both in school and out of it, but I think there is little difference between the bullying of boys and girls in school, frankly. I went to an all boys school and the bullying and name calling could be intense - I imagine the same is true in girls schools. Judging by the din that happens near to me, the girls are just as foul mouthed as the boys as they wait at the bus stop each morning.

I sadly don't think there is an answer to it -0 the "be kind" message of the Covid years will never be remembered by children of either sex. But privacy should be a human right for children just as it is for adults. I was also an only child, by the way, like yourself, so I fully understand what you mean

.



Comment by: James D on 26th November 2024 at 02:21
I'd like to add a different angle of mine to this shower and privacy debate stirred up by the recent comments made by an ofsted person and also references made to comments underneath a news item on the subject........

.

.....But there was one thing I didn't like. The attitude of many (not all) PE teachers. I strongly disliked the way many of them watched us while showering. I don't mean striking a casual glance, I mean really looking and keeping their eyes on those of us showering, instead of knowing we were in the showers and just leaving us alone to get on with it. The intensity of the watching over was not needed, in my school at least. I lost count of the amount of times I stood there thinking to myself will this guy just f**k off and leave us to get on with it. "




I think you are correct - some teachers were FAR TOO interested in the lads ablutions and that should raise question marks, not least among their colleagues. If they are too scared to report them to the head, perhaps part of the inspection process should be interviews with staff on a confidential basis. For all the "inspections" far too many schools are a dump, and some very questionable staff get to keep their jobs and pensions. Just to say, James, that I went to a very tough school, and if any lad had caught another looking at his body - even clothed - it would have resulted in a fight. I can't imagine what would have happened in the showers.


Ms. Sanderson will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand many of these otiose "inspections" are done by prior appointment, unlike previous times when they could call unannounced. Plenty of time to get the dubious teachers out of the way, clean up the lavatories and generally run the Mr. Sheen and Dettol round the building. I frankly don't see the point. Perhaps that is whey schools like The Royal Liberty got away with Mr Quinlan for so long. What are they really inspecting? - a rehearsed display, with the ragged edges filed off?. Checking to see the regulation Dulux Magnolia has been touched up this year?. Boxes ticked, exercise done.

As regards that absurd idea by the University of Essex that boys who shower are fitter, stronger etc. Consider this. At any school, any day you will see a class of lads - some will be a thin as a whip, some will be on the larger size and many fall in between. I assume they all take the same lessons under the same dictat, showers or not. I was as skinny as a rake, my best mate was the opposite end of the scale - pardon the pun - we were both taught in the same way under the same rules. I think they were clutching at straws on that one (on public money no doubt)

I'd like to add a different angle of mine to this shower and privacy debate stirred up by the recent comments made by an ofsted person and also references made to comments underneath a news item on the subject.

I was never anxious or concerned about the rule I had to shower after PE at school when I reached eleven, or any time after. I didn't mind that they made us do it, that it was a teacher demand on us all. I was never anxious or much bothered about sharing a shower with my classmates, rubbing shoulders with them all while stripped fully naked, no modesty pants in the shower either. None of that gave me any kind of fears. Actually I quite liked the ability to see others and judge and compare them to how I was, not just the obvious but the whole human form. I thought it was interesting to see what others looked like under their clothes and I didn't care if anyone looked at me and thought the same. Sharing the school showers seemed quite normal and sociable to me. I thought of it as a quite grown up thing to do, we were now at big school after all.

But there was one thing I didn't like. The attitude of many (not all) PE teachers. I strongly disliked the way many of them watched us while showering. I don't mean striking a casual glance, I mean really looking and keeping their eyes on those of us showering, instead of knowing we were in the showers and just leaving us alone to get on with it. The intensity of the watching over was not needed, in my school at least. I lost count of the amount of times I stood there thinking to myself will this guy just f**k off and leave us to get on with it. I didn't let it upset me or anything like that and was fine with the showers, but the teachers just got on my nerves, especially the joy some of them took in getting everyone ready to shower or chasing down boys who tried to slip away without one.

It's okay to have compulsory communal showers in school as far as I'm concerned, but if you're going to do that just let them get on with it and leave alone, no watching. It wasn't prison, it was school. We didn't let our parents watch us bath or shower or stay in the bathroom when we became old enough or young teenagers, we told them to keep out the bathroom while we were in there didn't we, and PE teachers should have done just the same. My classmates were entitled to see me naked and wet after PE, they were too, and the same age, in the same boat as each other, and a lot of the time we needed that shower. But those teachers had done the lesson and should have just kept clear while we did it.

So I'll stand up for the principle of school showers. I think it's quite healthy for your classmates to share and not be afraid of each other like that, or might I add to be shirtless for the main lesson, I was heaps of times. But teachers, get lost.

A question for Christine.

You mentioned that it was up to the school or a teacher and not up to inspectors like ofsted or Her Majety's Inspectorate to dictate policy on whether schoolchildren took communal showers after PE lessons. Fine, that's clear enough. But I'd like to know if Ofsted or previous inspectors actually have an official stated opinion, or would have had an opinion in the past on whether school showers should actually be compulsory or not for all, like in my time in the 1980's, or whether they should have been available but voluntary. It was quite a big deal for a lot of us you know!

I once slipped and fell stark naked in front of the p.e teacher because I was rushing to get in and she humiliated me in front of the whole group. Was awful and I'd still like to smack her in the face for it over 30 years on. I was only 10. I was an only child and not used to taking all my clothes off in front of others and had the task of p.e showers in primary and comprehensive, exactly the same as all the boys did. I had also recently been sexually assaulted and just wanted to die, there and then. Fair enough, the teacher wasn't to know that but she would have been hauled over the coals for doing what she did, these days. Wasn't at all against the principle of showering at all because I hated getting sweaty and smelly even back then but the lack of privacy was awful, especially as I had an early puberty.

Boys had it easy in the showers compared to the girls, even with you all sizing up your extra bits with each other. Nearly all girls felt humiliated by showers in school but I'm sure a female schools inspector already knows that if she has the facts at hand or spoke to anyone.

Hi Terry,

I wasn't even referring to Christine in my last post. I was referring to the Essex University report that referenced the data compiled by her colleagues and her.

Regarding the 'everybody's different' argument, well, I don't think it washes (boom boom). If you go to that BBC article and down to the comments you can see it for yourself. Post after post after post detailing bad memories of communal showering at school. Clearly a lot of people feel the same about this matter.

Every few years or so some random hand-wringing news article crops up in this or that newspaper or whatever news website, asking essentially the same question: why, oh why, are the nation's teenagers being put off school sports? Well a lot of the respondents to that BBC article supplied one of the main reasons for this in plain English. In fact one respondent even made the cutting comment that the only other groups in UK society compelled to undergo communal showering are army recruits and people in prison.

In fact, according to the BBC article the report did actually cite concerns about showering as a barrier to participation in school sports. I think we can assume Christine was not involved with this part of the report.

Christine actually ended her last comment with the following;

'One final thing, where enforcement of school showering took place after PE, parental pushback against the practice of offering or requiring showering with PE was negligible to nothing in findings.'


So no complaints then. That sounds right. Didn't one of the PE teachers on here a few months ago actually say that almost no parents ever complained about showering at school, or for that matter shirtlessness. I think so. If I'd seen the wording from the website I'd assume any child of mine was showering, and I would not complain about it if I discovered they actually were doing so.

Is there anybody reading this who thinks they would complain about it if they had a minor family member being told to shower in a school?

The BBC news item about school fitness and showering was hardly a bombshell revelation in my opinion. Like many surveys they often discover the bleeding obvious. My take on that, a school that takes PE seriously is more likely to have fitter pupils in it and is probably more likely to do and have all the things needed for PE, including the ability and need to shower. It's so easy to understand I don't know how anyone can argue about it.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 25th November 2024 at 15:06


I should have thought one of the duties of an inspector would have been to talk to some of the pupils to get their views, and to express their opinions, but Ms Sanderson seems to have viewed them much as she did the equipment and facilities, just as figures to be noted down on the clipboard or spreadsheet. She tells us she had been a school governor, but these posts are very much taken by people who seek them out. She told us her findings were facts and not opinions, but she merely cites the University of Essex study, which, again are based on supposition not concrete fact, so they are the University's opinions, and she apparently agrees with them. I repeat you can juggle statistics so that you get the findings you want to put across.


Tom made a good point - his son's school website suggests that showers are encouraged but not enforced, yet he tells us they are in effect, compulsory - you have to wonder why schools are so nervous in making these facts known to parents.. What are they afraid of? - complaints?.

No doubt the schools, like Ms Sanderson, must imagine because nobody complains, everyone is happy with their arrangements. This clearly is not the case.

Well thankyou for answering my question there Christine in a quite informative manner.

PE changing and showering privacy was addressed in one of Christine's previous answers Yours Truly. Privacy was addressed she said in more generalised terms rather than one on one individually looking at the arrangements.

The thing about privacy is that everyone is slightly different with it. Take my old school changing room for example. Some in that didn't care if they were swinging their boy bits in your face while changing or drying off, while others wrapped towels around themselves and faced the wall to prevent more looking at them than was necessary and were definitely hiding themselves. Most of us fell in between.

Even this site, some people are more open than others and reveal more. Each to their own. Did you notice for example how three of the PE teachers that commented on here over the past year or two all used their full names and gave a lot of personal information, so their privacy guard was set low, and of course they were all in favour of school showers and had no concern about shirtless PE mandates either. Just like soldiers, PE teachers don't go big on privacy because it's not practical for them to do so.

I have by no means read all of the nearly 600 comments on that BBC article but virtually every second one cites communal showers. How much more obviously can it be made? In fact one response even expresses surprise that the issue of showering privacy had not been addressed in the report. Well, exactly.

Christine Sanderson, thank you very much for your willingness to take the time to answer our questions so fully.

My own lad's school still does the shower thing for P.E, much like I remember in my day. The school website says 'we offer and encourage showering'. In practice I'm told their teachers have made it mandatory. So why not just say this on the website then? I don't mind, but just be more straight about it. What's your view on this Christine?

Good comments Christine. All makes perfect sense to me, I'm not sure why others see a problem with all that. That link beeb story was interesting and so were the comments underneath, hundreds of them, I've only caught a few, will go back and read some more of them. The beeb likes reporting things like this, does anyone remember this nonsence headline which they presneted as a serious news item some time ago - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-42236608 - all about asking if your boss can ask you to get into work in your birthday suit. Who writes this stuff!

Chris G your final paragraph is quite correct there. They is a lot of hard work involved. Some people have a total misunderstanding of what school inspectors are and what they do. There is nothing self appointed about it, it's a proper and very responsible full time job requiring a lot of hours and a lot of paperwork. It's only voluntary in the sense that I chose to apply and go for interview the same as any other position. I've been involved in inspections of schools catering from ages 8 to 18, but mostly secondary schools. I was asked my background, well I was not a teacher but had been a parent governor and then a non parent governor who had also held down a private sector job associated directly with child welfare and educational issues. I'll leave it at that.

I've presented some facts, not personal opinions. They are not unique to the findings our teams did. Actually the university of Essex used some of our data not long after our findings and also did similar research of their own around Essex schools using similar numeric methodology and numbers of pupils and found similar results, again around about ten years ago also. Their research on the back of our published data caught the attention of BBC who reported the following item in 2015 that I knew of and have just tracked down again for any interested eyes. The headline sums up what I said the other day about our inspectors findings, although these were not inspectors but university researchers in this case.

The Blair government did not abolish the school shower, most schools still have working shower areas connected to PE. They have to. It's the school and the teachers that decide if they are used, not the government or ofsted. One final thing, where enforcement of school showering took place after PE, parental pushback against the practice of offering or requiring showering with PE was negligible to nothing in findings.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30796304

Christine - looks like Andy's prediction (Comment, Nov 23rd) is coming true. Perhaps you should educate everyone here as to the exact role of OFSTED in the School Examination system in England (I can't speak for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland), with an indication of the operating brief of a typical Examination and the background/qualifications of the Examiners themselves.

Some of the posters seem to be of the opinion that School Examiners are self-appointed busy-bodies, but after nearly ten years as an elected Parent Governor at a County Primary school in the 1990s I can assure everyone that they are not.

And an OFSTED examination is not a push-over either. If I remember correctly, during my time as Governor we had two Examinations, each carried out by a team of four or five Examiners and each lasting four or five days, with not a stone left unturned, almost literally. By the end of the week we were all, Staff and Governors alike, utterly shattered.

Christine Sanderson, thank you for your detailed and interesting account of your experiences.

Please don't mind my asking, just from curiosity: did you ever work in or inspect primary schools as well as secondary? Did you work as a teacher before becoming an inspector?

Thank you.

Comment by: Andy on 23rd November 2024 at 20:34


No Andy, I am just wondering what qualifications Ms Sanderson had for her "inspections"?, or is it some sort of voluntary post, like those terribly good people who set themselves up as "Neighbourhood Watch Supervisors", which gives them legitimacy for their lace curtain twitching?

Also she repeats her assertion that schools that have nice showers will succeed better at sports. It is like saying a £5000 trumpet will make you play better than a £500 one. If somebody is not interested or not proficient, all the equipment in the world will not make them more interested or more successful. Still, who am I to tread on her dreams.

I ran a number of shirtless cross country runs at my school in Dundee in the eighties and didn't find them as much fun as some do in school running like Oscar and his mates here, as he's clearly very good at it and has the body like his mates to match. In my case many of the boys simply struggled to keep up with the best half dozen or so runners who went way ahead of the rest with one teacher and another teacher had to remain with the larger slower group. Teachers refused to ever muck in with this shirtless ethic they instilled onto the rest of us, including throughout the rest of PE in the school gym where no teacher in the whole school let boys stick tops on for PE, it was shirtless and nothing else. The exact dark grey nylon shorts had to be worn or it was underpants only. I could not have got away wearing the kind of different shorts like the one in the video here for example who lines up shirtless with his cross country running team from school.

I posted a similar comment earlier today on the link to the shirtless forum that was left here last week sometime and where I saw this video where I answered the boy on the left.

I just wish I could have been as chilled out as these guys here. Scottish school cross country running in no shirt was not as fun as Florida cross country school running.

https://fl.milesplit.com/videos/581053/sunlake-boys-interview

Now sit back and watch Alan Giles pick apart what Christine has just written.

Terry before Ofsted was brought in under the Major government in the early 1990's the schools were inspected by Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools as they were known. While I was an inspector the number of people inspecting was increased considerably compared to during say the years years under Margaret Thatcher or the immediate governments to hers. We used to give considerable notice of inspections but when I left it had been reduced to just two days notice, which I still thought was too long. Speaking for myself I would much rather an inspection could be carried out almost immediately without notice and unannounced to head teachers, for very obvious reasons. I think all meaningful inspections of any organisation and its premises should be taken on that basis.

My factual data seems to have met with the disapproval of someone, but others have managed to read and interpret the data accurately regards the connection to schools arrangements on PE provision, showering availability, requirement and implementation and increased physical activity levels within those schools where this is a feature compared to those school where it is not.

If I cast my mind back 20 years our team used to visit many schools, often in the less affluent areas in the Manchester suburban area and slightly further afield, large secondary schools that were deemed adequate where PE curricular options were not being offered as widely as they were expected to be and the explanation given was down to the lack of not just relevant teachers in the subject where PE is concerned but also lack of appropriate changing and showering facilities for the numbers attending, and in some rarer cases even an unwillingness to maintain the facilities that were already at school to a usable standard, which was a fail.

In the days of HMI's before Ofsted was established just over 30 years ago, the government education inspectors had wide powers and could access any part of a school at any time of day and speak to any member of staff or a pupil. Go through the sek of the head teacher, eat the school dinners and look around the kitchen, and even stand in a PE changing room and observe the working school environment. There could very well be men here who might have seen a PE teacher of theirs standing with a complete unknown figure as they slipped in or out of the PE kit or even having a shower. This practice was before my time but was common before 1992. An inspector may appear in a class situation, or a PE situation and just quietly observe, along or in a group, saying nothing at all to anybody including the teacher, or they may engage with questions.

As this is a forum largely based on PE in schools, I'm well aware of some of the previous comments here and how many pupils viewed their PE in school. But one thing an inspector would not go around asking to individuals are things like, do you like doing gymnastics, do you like football, do you like swimming, etc, or do you like you PE kit, do you like a shower or wearing no top for boys. Any question would relate to the actual content primarily but other such answers were given obviously one would listen. If a pattern emerged from multiple individuals it could warrant further investigation and looking into. On changing rooms for example points of interest would be to make sure there was enough space and appropriate privacy for the class, but not the individual within the class. I went to a school once where the changing room was on the second floor above any overlooking buidlings or features, but there was one clear window close to a shower area and instruction was given to replace it with frosted glass. We were informed it had been broken and replaced by the wrong type of pane.

I've focusssed in on the parts most relevent to those here in this forum but my own duties had a far wider remit. I'd like to just reassure that we were very pro-active if inspections found any issues and they were dealt with immediately with advice, instruction and if needed formal notice.


Another quick piece to conclude on child welfare issues. I can confirm that teachers are always encouraged to look out for signs of physical abuse and that those on staff such as PE teachers can play a very vital part in this and will be encouraged to report anything suspicious immediately. This was always the case. I was troubled to read about the teacher who failed to do so when I caught up here. I know a lot of children and now adults look back and think the teacher was paying too much attention to them as they either changed or showered, but he or she could just have been making sure of the welfare of you all. But I do not have any need to be reminded of many cases of teachers of all subjects, and PE in particular where they fell far short of expectations or fell foul of the law and were dealt with accordingly. I know some here will have encountered poor schools and poor teachers and will have been failed, and that's why we have inspections. We don't just want average, adequately rated schools, we want good schools. A good teacher stays with you for life in any subject. We all want fewer bad memories and as many good ones as possible.

From 1978.

Age 13. My p.e teacher made me attend every p.e lesson shirtless because i forget to bring my p.e attire 3 time in a row.

He confiscated my p.e shirt when i wore it later and never returned it unless my parents asked for it from him by visiting the school.

Of course i preferred to be shirtless rather than asking my parents to visit the school over my mistake.

It is incredible the number of people who suffer from Stockholm Syndrome here, and make excuses for being treated like prisoners or army recruits in retrospect.

I think "YT" summed it up perfectly when he suggested that dress ought to be a matter of free choice, especially with older pupils, and - let's face it with the school leaving age getting higher and higher, it won't be long till men and women have to remain at school till they are 21. Nobody has the "right" to tell an 18 year old man how he will dress for P.E. , even a teacher, who frankly, is only an individual given a little power, ("dressed in a little brief authority" as Shakespeare had it) and might well have their own motives, but are treated in some quarters as above suspicion, like the Archbishop of Canterbury. Perhaps that is not the best example to follow - a man who knew of abuse being carried out in his own organisation. and kept his pious mouth shut for eleven years.

Christine was merely using her statistics to bolster her own prejudices. It was merely her opinion, not scientific fact. Petty officials are very good at that sort of thing.

If somebody is comfortable doing something, that is fine - let them
persist in it, but those who are not comfortable should not be forced to do it as well. We are not living in a Communist state - yet.

When I was studying sport science at university before I dropped out after the first year, Professor Davies our lecturer would invite a local well known bodybuilder into lectures but eventually he asked for volunteers from the students with more regular physiques who he would invite up and pose for his physiology and anatomy lectures. He used to get three very keen chaps from our lecture hall every time who looked like they couldn't wait to do it. I asked one why he was so keen to do it and he told me he hoped it might get him a date with a girl in our lecture study group who was there.

I was skinny as a rake, all skin and bone and few obvious muscles but being a bare chest in school held no bother to me, even when someone told me I didn't have the body for it. My schools required it at middle and comprehensive many times. I didn't care what they thought I looked like. I felt good doing PE like that and took to it with ease. How could I fear my own body for goodness sake? What a crying shame so many others allow teachers to get under their skins (excuse pun) and get all anxious over it.

I think the ofsted lady comment has been completely and perhaps deliberately mis-interpreted and mis-represented on here.

What she said made perfect sense to me and I understood the points made clearly. She was saying that a few years ago half the boys and a third of girls were at schools that showered them after sport, and that those pupils in these schools were more active and achieved better than the schools that did no longer make the requirement or do so.

The correlation is easy to understand. Schools with all the facilities available and who make pupils use them will more likely be in better places that also push the pupils more, because having the insurance policy of showering means a class can get be pushed to do more and get as sweaty and mucky as they like in the knowledge they won't have to spend the rest of the day like it and can clean after proper exertion. Schools that no longer provide these facilities are must be aware they better not make pupils get too sweaty or mucky because they can't clean properly afterwards. That's my take on the research and it's blindingly obvious isn't it.

It's not that showering at school makes you more healthy as such, but that the PE you do at schools with them is likely to be a better quality and more challenging and that schools that will provide a shower for pupils take their PE much more seriously all round. I get that.

I wasn't at school as far back as some people on here, my time was during the 90's but I rarely came in from the sports field looking as clean as I'd run onto it, or left the school gym without sweating out through my vest when I wore one, which wasn't always, teachers asked us to be bare-chested many times too which we did quickly and without discussion. The lessons were all quite strenuous and not easy going, perhaps they would have been less so if I hadn't been at a school that provided and made sure we all went in the shower afterwards.

Hello A Yorkshiredad,

Several posters were triggered by the apparent indifference to any gender bias disadvantaging boys in Christine's post. I was one of them. I hope I was not hostile to her. What I said was not intended that way.

Sorry to disagree but the idea of more minimal kit and compulsory showers actually favouring boys is ridiculous. Certainly in my time anyway boys were just treated worse. It was judged that we didn't need any consideration and we needed to be conditioned to disregard our feelings. In stark contrast to the girls. I can remember girls laughing and joking with their games teachers out on the fields. On the other hand, our bastard teacher, with his air of simmering anger and menace left us with the impression that if you dared to laugh or joke with him he'd punch you in the throat.

Minimal PE kit for boys is fine as long as the girls are held to a similar standard, (obviously with tops on, of course). I was taken aback to read Simon's and Danny C's posts about the blatant sexism in their schools, whereby girls could wear this, that and the other, even to the extent of tracksuits, but for boys it was a pair of shorts and absolutely nothing else. There are only so many times I can keep stating this before it becomes repetitive: this was gender discrimination against boys.

If having their bodies on show is so beneficial then do it to the girls as well, they deserve good health just as much as boys do.

You also state that the lessons are taken more seriously and that the boys are easier to discipline. In other words, they feel more vulnerable and so are easier to control stripped down. Why is it girls can be cooperated with but boys must be subjugated? Your term, 'forced motivation', says a lot. Seemingly nobody is forcing girls to do anything. They seemingly weren't forced to 'take anything seriously' and this is the point.

You do state that boys are have the option of doing PE shirtless. Well done to you. This is the whole point. Having the option to do so. Being granted a measure of control over your own life and body, something that our school system so often denies us. Choice is vital.

A Yorkshiredad, I hope Christine will post again here. She had an individual insight. But I suspect the criticism she has already drawn has sent her running for the hills and I think, sadly, we will hear no more from her.

'Sir, do we have to take our shirts off?'

'Yes, I want to see just what I'm working with'

'Aww'

'But sir, we..../....enough, just get on with it we haven't got all day'


A real conversation I had in fifth form. We'd never done shirtless school gym before there, not even shirts/skins stuff, we just used coloured sashes over us. The only time we got shirtless was changing and jumping in the showers. New teachers come along and are like a new broom sweeping away the old. This guy was one of those sorts, keen to make his mark, and this was one quick and easy way to make a statement. Assembled down in the gym he picked out the sporty one in our class, stood behind him hands on his shoulders making him face us all and told us he intended to get the rest of us into proper shape before we all left school next summer.

He did this, and my final year before leaving was the busiest, fastest non slacking gym I'd ever done, and the first we did compulsory shirtless ever. I was surprised when I began to really like it this way and feel better all round. He was a bigger taskmaster than our other teachers but did seem to get results out of us a bit late in the day.

Some of you are being very harsh to Christine Sanderson for her very informative post. All she seems to be saying is that in schools where showering was not seriously implemented , activity levels in PE were also not seriously addressed. This particularly applied to the girls. I find this very easy to accept and it means the boys were being treated in a preferred way with the better outcome, not being prejudiced against.

She also gave her own opinion on boys PE in just shorts which again I would largely agree with. If there is any justification for continuing the practice of occasional bare chested PE for boys it is that it can be motivating. In my own classes I have noticed out of the corner of my eye, even the youngest kids sometimes showing off their barely existent pecs and biceps to each other, they clearly have a concept of body image and want to be seen as physically fit. Having their bodies on show to each other makes them more aware of the need to exercise, self-motivation. Additionally I think the lessons are taken more seriously and discipline easier to implement, forced motivation if you like.

In my own classes a shorts only policy this summer went down very well, so much so that it has been decided that the boys have the option to work that way throughout the year if they so choose. I hope Christine Sanderson will post more on this site, I am sure she has lots of knowledge and experience she can share.

Comment by: Will on 21st November 2024 at 23:25


I think your comment Will shows the need for more privacy for boys as well as girls in school locker rooms and showers. Sadly kids will make fun of any difference they are too ignorant to understand (there is no such thing as an "average" penis any more than an average anything) - everyone varies, and nobody's life should be made a misery. It is no consolation to say that in the USA it would have been they who were in the minority. It was also the case that the teacher was just as ignorant in joining in, or by silence, condoning what they were saying. It should not be impossible, given the rise in the school leaving age, and the use of cheap plastics these days, to arrange individual showering arrangements as they do in modern sports centres.

Comment by: Simeon on 20th November 2024 at 19:59

I understand your guilt Simeon but the real guilt here should belong to your teacher who witnessed what were obvious harmful marks on the body of one of his boys and did sweet FA about it and made a joke of it to threaten others. Moron. That is unforgiveable. Perhaps your classmate Michael had made excuses to the teacher about what had happened. I got a shin bruise once at school from a kicking I got from someone and it was noticed at home but I just made an excuse for it that I'd hit a brick wall with my leg. I didn't want to admit that someone, who was meant to be a friend of mine would you believe, had actually taken a shot at me with his boot.

School showers and shirtless PE does have this great advantage that you can at least be seen all over so injury cannot be masked but that's no good if a teacher looks at marks and pretends they are nothing to see is it.