Clitheroe Royal Grammar School

"I attended a mixed secondary school from 9 through to 17"


This is total nonsense and I don't know why the person has said it.

Hi John and Claire, my apologies! We attended middle schoo from 9-13 then high school 13-17 or 18 if you were doing A levels.
It was always referred as secondary education by the teachers though. Hope this helps.

Most open evenings at school were supposed to be just the parents without the pupils but I went to one at my secondary approximately late 1978 where I was invited along with both my parents, everyone was, and all our teachers were milling about waiting to speak to everyone around the hall and one of the things I noticed was that a couple of my teachers seemed to have undergone a complete personality transplant while talking with my parents and came across as nothing like they did in class. One was a geography teacher who seemed to laugh a lot, he barely smiled in class, and the other was one of our PE teachers. Indeed the PE teacher tried to make me seem like one of his favourite pupils in class to my parents who seemed pretty pleased with what he said to them, however I wasn't one of his favourites and far from it and he was probably pulling the same stunt with everyone. Completely dishonest and I soon set my parents straight even before we arrived back home. Most of the teachers were no different of course and one music teacher was so clueless my dad asked me if he even knew who I was because he was so vague and unknowing about me to the extent dad asked if I actually ever showed up at any of his classes. I did, all of them!

Absolutely John.

Me, started at my comprehensive on 6th September 1972 (midweek start date - a Wednesday from memory) and that same month just 20 days later it was my 13th birthday.

For those old enough at the time and in school they may well remember it was the year when during the summer holidays School's Out by rocker Alice Cooper was appropriately sitting at number one in the charts.

It's easy to have rose tinted glasses about school days and I'm no different but when I think a bit deeper with many of the things they kind of fade just a bit. I had some great teachers in the academic subjects but some bloody dreadful games ones who must have thought we were underage national service conscripts or something to be constantly insulted, chided or mocked and in a few cases actually assaulted openly. Like others here have stated already, shirts were always coming randomly off our backs in games and showers were compulsory, in my case we always got shepherded into the shower area like a herd of sheep.

My parents went to an open evening one night and came back talking of who they'd met, including that very lovely mister so and so. They'd been speaking to one of my games teachers considered the biggest b*****d of the lot of them. I couldn't believe it, thought they must have made a mistake until back in school the next day someone else said his parents had said the very same thing. Our parents should have sat in on one of his lessons instead.

You cannot start secondary school at any age less than 11 in the UK, simple fact. Anyone reaching their 11th birthday on or before 31st August could start school the next day on September 1st, no sooner.

Infact many people in some parts of the country used to start at the age of 12, or could even have been 13 if they had a birthday in early September as the oldest.

I started secondary at age 12 and a half. The August borns I knew had just had their 12th birthdays when we began secondary, but a couple of the September borns, the oldest in class, had their 13th birthdays right at the start of the school year in the week they began at secondary, one before he even had his first day infact, being born on 2nd September and starting on 3rd.

Like Claire says, I'll ask too, please explain your curious comment. You did not start at secomdary school aged 9. Nobody does, or even close to that age. That's only half way through primary level.

Maybe something is getting lost in translation here but you seemed clear enough how you described it. I look forward to your explanation James.

James - even if you were 9 in September when the start of the new school year came round, you were still two years younger than normal for starting secondary school in the UK. Or did you mean middle school, or are you somewhere else in the world altogether.

In reply to Mick I do not think that was any to quote him" Whether there was any actual method to this way of doing things, maybe trying to foster a good body image about oneself and others is difficult to tell." any ulterior motive it was just as it was those days. In our junior school for pe boys removed their shirts and all boys wore singlets and normal grey uniform shorts and we did pe in those whilst the girls who of course those days wore either dresses or skirts ( girls did not wear trousers) removed their blouses and skirts and did pe in their underwear and these were mixed lessons. As I say it was just as it was. I suppose because the boys already had shorts on there was no need to remove them. again in that era 1958 to 1961 boys did not wear long trousers. It was shorts all year round.

Picking up what Ralph has said, at my first school in infants at the very beginning of the 1970s the whole class changed together and left our clothes at our tables and walked to the school hall together with our teacher and at the age of 6 for a long period of time, at least one whole school year, possibly longer, both the boys and the girls did our PE lesson fully topless alongside each other with completely bare chests. Not that there was much difference between the boys and girls at that age anyway, we seemed much the same I'm sure. Our dress was just some shorts although much of the time we seemed to go out to the hall for PE in our underwear only and I did PE in my pants, flimsy y-front types like every boy wore back then and that's how class did so many lessons, boys in y-fronts, girls in their knickers and nothing else at all. No fuss that I remember, we just got out there and began junping about to music or climbing up on frames pulled from the walls. Far too young to think too much about it or care I suppose. Whether there was any actual method to this way of doing things, maybe trying to foster a good body image about oneself and others is difficult to tell. I'm now married to one of the girls I used to do PE with like that at the time.

Hi Jim, no not special at all. My birthday is in May so I was absolutely 9 when September came around and the start of the school year.

Hi Carol, I am surprised that some of you girls wanted to do PE bare chested like boys in secondary school.
The reason is obvious why teenage girls did not do PE bare chested because girls that age have to wear a bra or sports bra to do PE bare chested, not just for modesty but more so for the support it offers.
If you were talking about primary or middle schools before teen age I could understand. In fact there were many primary schools that had both boys and girls do PE bare chested.
At our primary school till age 11 both boys and girls wore the same PE kit, white t-shirt and white shorts.

Secondary school at age 9. What, were you so bright you got fast tracked through the system by at least two years or something?

Hello Carol, interesting perspective!
I attended a mixed secondary school from 9 through to 17 and girls would see boys from all year groups barechested either in the gym which had reinforced glass running the length of the gym and was one of the main corridors or outdoors onto the yard and field.

My elder sisters told me what to expect before I started but my parents had made me start boxing lessons a few months before turning 9 (in case I was bullied) and by the time I started secondary school I'd already fought twice without a wearing a vest in front of a small audience.

At school, gym always performed barechested. We were pushed hard to to sweat as quickly as possible and most of us did. Basketball and fitness were the norm and we were always reminded "if we weren't sweating up we weren't working properly"

Outdoors we either did cross country, or football. A coin toss determined which team would strip to the waist while the others kept their vests. In the case of football we played with one team wearing rugby tops while the other team were expected to run to the nearest sideline and quickly go barechested.

I was lucky to be good at PE and with a couple of other lads in the class was picked to strip off pretty much the vast majority of the time.
I do remember some of my friends having reservations about being stripped off outside particularly during winter which was fair enough and had a good moan but fully accepted if you were told to bare your chest you did so quickly and without fuss regardless of the conditions. There was banter with the girls and I remember a girl I was keen to impress telling me she hoped I'd be picked to strip off for PE that morning, I can't remember what I said but hoped she'd see me go bare for the umpteenth time. It wasn't nasty, back then it was quite normal.

Hello boys, I went to an all girls private school in Bedfordshire back in the 1970's so reading about experiences from other types of places is fascinating. Looking in on here I would never have guessed at some of the issues that crop up. Why is it such a major deal for some about this no tops rule that many of you had in your PE lessons and what did it actually feel like doing things like that. From my point of view I would say you should value that extra freedom you've had that the other half of us were and are denied. I've heard it said many times that teenage boys are generally more sensitive than teenage girls during that age period so perhaps this is just one obvious manifestation of that rule. I would have loved to have shared my school alongside boys as well as just girls, not a fan of deliberate segregation and I will admit I would have loved to have shared a PE lesson with some boys not wearing top with the fully bared chest, it would have been an education in itself and a nice thing to experience, but many of you on here seem to have only done so amongst other boys anyway which makes me wonder why so many have the problem. I was always under the impression that boys amongst themselves loved taking their clothes off with each other and mucking about like that given half a chance like in the old days of secret skinny dipping in a secluded river bank or something.

The only time I saw the top half of other girls was when we showered. Girls showering was always thought of as worse than for boys. My perception of that was it was not a comfortable thing for a large group of girls to be made to do with each other and very few of us enjoyed having to do so, whereas with boys I've always perceived it as the most natural thing in the world and that they would always feel at ease doing so even in large groups naked together, to the point of actually enjoying doing so and wanting to do it given half a chance.

Reading some of the content on here this weekend has challenged some of my previous thoughts. I'd welcome any input to my comments here.

Our PE teachers always made at least half the class to take their PE vests off and exercise barechested outside so doing it for detention wasn't too big a deal. Most were only bothered about how cold it was.

Our detentions (called punishment pe or punishment training at my school) were based on the extra (remedial) pe sessions that my pe teacher used to dole out for underperformance - usually three repetitions of two circuits in the gym (40 reps of various exercises - 5 minutes max allowed) followed by a mile run around the school (10 minutes max) but with six of the belt and a cold shower (taken at the side of the swimming pool in view of any boys in pool).
Depending on how good you were at pe (I wasn't!) you'd be lucky to get through a term without doing at least one remedial session, and a year without getting at least one detention.

Continuing the story.

From our first week at the school, we knew what a gym detention involved - it was threatened in PE/games, classmates had them, and on the way home, you saw boys our running as part of the punishment. Kit was only shorts inside, shorts/plimsolls outside - always bare to the waist.

Around 6 weeks in, I got a detention. My Mum packed my normal PE/cross country kit - "plus a nice warm rugby shirt as it's cold" "Everyone had to strip to the waist Mum" was my response. "It's your first time, you'll be allowed to wear a top" Wrong Mum !!

My school (1973-78) did PE Gym detentions, Stuart you brought it all back to me. Mine wasn't a grammar, just a modern comprehensive but a good one at that I'll admit to that. I wonder though, did your school give them out for non gym related things, mine did so. For example, I went through a phase of not completing my maths homework for my elderly teacher on time, or simply not doing it time and again. So finally havinng enough of my excuses he gave me a detention for after school the following day from 4pm to 5pm. I expected it to be classroom based at a desk but instead was told I had to report to the head PE office when school ended, which I did. It had already been a PE day that morning so I had kit on me. Basically what happened was a couple of teachers took an after school football practice and used that as cover for detentions as well, so me and a couple of others ended up on the playing fields having to jog, quite slowly, the perimeter for much of the hour while this football practice was going on. The boys football was in their team colours but those in the detention ran in only our footwear and shorts, no top and that was definitely considered part of the detention punishment. I remember a few shouts of 'get going' as we slacked and slowed. We were allowed back in when the hour ended but had to shower like a normal lesson, one of the teachers came along and made sure of that, despite protests and just wanting to slip off straight home. Meanwhile the football practice continued as they didn't come in with us. As I'd already had a PE lesson that day I got two showers in one school day. If I hadn't had my kit with me I'd have been decked out in shorts from lost property and probably some ill fitting footwear too, like one or two others did with me.

For some reason after this I began doing my maths homework on time and handing it in finished. Can't think why that might have been!

Stuart, our PE detentions were essentially an extension of an ordinary lesson with no vest, just shorts and footwear. Our "remedial PE" were always done outside and followed by laps of the field.

@ Stuart, we were at school at about the same time, 1960s boys grammar school. At my school the cane was in every day use and there weren't many other punishments other than a severe and very public dressing down. Compared to your PE detentions, I would take the cane every time not that it was pleasant in any way but you are right, it was more or less over and done with straight away although it would continue to sting and for a couple of days afterwards your bottom would ache a bit.

The stripes in the showers though were a badge of honour and they usually lasted about a week.

I sometimes think the punishments meted out today are designed to be soul destroying so again, I would opt for the cane as opposed to them, the point was made and it was over, you moved on.

I went to a grammar school in the late 1960's.

We had the normal range of punishments, although caning was reasonably rare.

We also had gym detentions - after school, workout in the gym for 45 mins, then a run. Very hard non stop workout, followed by a 3 mile run (in the freezing cold, minimal kit of course) - not that we had a choice, but I would much rather have taken 6 strokes of the cane !!

Good post there Duncan, liked the way you wrote it, you drew me right in and I felt myself there with you.

Of course he liked doing it, because if he didn't he would have made use of that punishment option far less and it would have had more effect when he did.

We all had teachers with nicknames, many teachers infact. I had a teacher (not PE) who came up to me one day and quietly asked me what our class nickname for him was as he'd heard something being said and obviously thought I could be trusted to tell him and be discreet. When I told him his reaction was amusement, not a wish to smack the culprit who gave him the name. If he'd asked me for that I'd never have told him anyway.

1965-1969. Dundee. My teachers of P.E regularly beat lads in the changing room for a litany of things. There was a permanent grey/white dirty looking and very large plimsoll permanently perched in one corner of our changing room at that time. Just one grubby old sports shoe by itself, yet it perched against a wall and was put there to look intimidating to us and remind us we could be on the end of it any moment. That plimsoll had strange powers to intimidate boys in the changing room too. With good reason, because they used it often.

I swear that at least two thirds of the wee boys in class must have felt this plimsoll hit them over time. Some of them quite a few times. I felt it three or four times. Mum used to pack my school bag and place the kit in it. I used to check it was all okay but sometimes time was short and I just legged it out the door for the mile and a half walk to school. One day she missed my P.E socks and I got a wallop from the plimsoll for providing a feeble excuse for not coming with the right attire. That was a common reason for a belt of the plimsoll. And it was a belt too, a very hard one across the bottom, just once. It was only ever given just once but with a real hard launched swipe, and not always while we had our shorts on. It happened to boys wearing nothing straight against the skin. Mr "Gormless" Gormley was the one for this, he had a taste for swiping bare arsed lads preparing to shower while completely undressed not a stitch on oursleves. He did three or four lads like that just for noise issues, along the wall, one heavy swipe each, each in their birthday suits, how he probably liked it the best. He heard me use his nickname once and that earned me my only swipe direct to the skin of my behind. I was naked when he did so. The stinging was intense, far worse than through shorts. The hot shower water made it feel worse immediately after that. The mark lasted 10 days at least. I showed my mum that one that night back home. Her reaction was to tell me to try to stop annoying old "Gormless". I reminded her she had forgotten my socks and caused it. But it was my fault and I deserved it, it seemed. The days when teachers were untouchable pillars of society who could do no wrong even while thrashing half the lads. He was one of those teachers always on the look out for being annoyed and managing to succesfully find something every time. He didn't want to waste that plimsoll's potential. He must have swiped literally hundreds, maybe thousands of boys with that same grubby old plimsoll. It did well. The sole of that shoe felt more backsides than a foot inside it for its actual purpose. Sometimes that plimsoll would come along to our lesson and end up across a bottom but mostly it was a wait until back in the changing room if you'd upset them out at the lesson itself. There is a modern name for teachers like old gormless Gormley. It's hard to think of how many he swiped with that plimsoll. Getting it was easy, often it was no more than "I've had enough of you today", and beckoned over you'd be, that thing picked up and swipe. One of the perks of his job, he undoubtedly enjoyed.

Oh yes. The cane certainly 'changed the tune' of a lot of lads who were in any way defiant. Few came back for a second dose either.

I commend you and your friends Graeme for seeming to be way ahead of your time and for your confidence at that age. One thing that did strike me contradictory is that you had that confidence and apparent self belief in yourselves but you didn't carry that self belief and confidence into your showers and just get on with it, even though you did say you showered at first. You didn't even sound like you were bashful showering with class, so it was just the teacher looking aspect that made you play up from what you say. Fair enough it's not great to let others in on such a situation I agree if they shouldn't really be there but most of us had our PE teachers checking over us to some extent like that. I don't think you can equate your PE teachers looking at you stepping out the school shower wet and naked in school as part of your class in a lesson at 12 with your mum or dad looking at you doing the same at that age in the family bathroom. At home you'd expect a lot more privacy by that age from you parents, we all would, but a PE schoolteacher isn't quite the same thing and circumstance in my opinion. Whether you liked it or not their job allowed them to see you like that and ask you to do those things and let's be honest, just think how many they used to see every week, far more than any family doctor, so yet another class full of naked 12 year olds showering away after PE probably barely registered even if they were gazing at you. That's my take anyway. But I do have a sneaking admiration for you at the same time and I wouldn't mind betting maybe even your teacher might have done on the quiet despite the detentions. What did your school report for PE say at the time do you know?

But Andy is correct. My teenage years were in the late 1960's and my deputy headmaster also doubled as the head of PE in my secondary modern at the time. Corporal punishment was available for him to use as deputy headmaster and he would use it in our school gymnasium. He caned for smoking, spitting, vandalism, swearing, lateness and so much more related to dress and uniform and homework persistent offences. It was always discretionary but he did cane two lads one day for showing up in our lesson with no PE kit and no note of explanation. Along to the gym they went with him so when we arrived after changing they looked rather sorry for themselves and pained, and of course all that happened was they ended up stripped down to their pants and still did PE so had that indignity on top as well. But I think it was a repeat offence, not a one off that led to that, it wasn't common, that's why I remember probably. If you'd bunked off having a shower and been seen doing that you'd have probably been taken straight to our gym and given a cane stroke if you were a repeat skiver. I seem to think that there was a lad in my year this happened to for that reason. But in the late 1960's boys in schools, well my school at least, didn't seem to make attempts to avoid PE lessons by forgetting their kits or bunk off the showers, it was heads down get through it and do it even if you didn't enjoy it much, and we all know of course not everyone is going to like these things, that's perfectly obvious.

I don't think there is anything wrong with Jenny talking to her son about such things. I had three sons and used to talk to them about so much at school and definitely had chats about what they did in PE. The two youngest sons were lucky that my eldest was able to tell them a lot about what he did in school before they joined later on. Certainly it's fine to ask questions and talk. When it comes to school showers I think almost eveybody that did it had a little element of anxiety about it at some point. The key point is to make it seem completely normal and unremarkable.

Graeme Searle

Had you been ten years older I think you would have found the cane 'changed your tune' for you on showers at school.

Jenny.

When I was 12 years old, this was in 1983, me and four others flatly refused to use the school showers like we were told to do. This of course had consequences for us and we got a number of lunchtime and after school detentions for this, but it did not stop us. We simply got dressed and walked out the changing room. Our gang of five was quite militant looking back. We were all surprisingly confident for our ages and intelligent. But what could our PE teachers do about it, not a lot other than huff and puff a lot and throw a few detentions at us which didn't work. Even in 1983 there was no chance they were actually going to get hold of us and physically remove our clothes from us and we knew it.

In the end they just gave up on us on the issue and that was that. By the age of 12 there was no way I was going to let my own family, either of my parents see me taking a bath or a shower with nothing on so I was not going to let a teacher do so either and neither were our small gang of friends.

We had showered in our first few weeks at school but found it increasingly objectionable that two of the teachers seemed to pay very close attention to us as we did so and also that they let others into our changing room while we did it. It seemed like our boys changing room became a place for other members of the male staff to be allowed to come in and look at boys changing and having showers. That was just wrong.

Kids of 12 probably don't think they hold much clout against adults but they do if they commit to a course of action and hold firm. 12 year olds back then seemed far more mature than nowadays to me. I must admit to surprising myself at my militancy over the issue in school because I was not a troublemaker and neither were any of the rest of our gang, except for this one thing. None of our parents were very pleased with us and my own thought I was being over sensitive.

Isn't it a great shame that there were not far more confident senior school age youngsters who grouped together to tough it out against some of these demands they used to make of us. A couple of our little gang did actually hate PE but the others like me were far from PE phobic. You have more power than you realise even as a kid in school who feels they are just being pushed around into doing things.

Every one of our small gang at school who did this ended up doing highly professional jobs in the legal or medical professions. I remember looking through the sex offenders register at one point and being quite shocked at just how many people were on it who were marked down as former male PE teachers who took advantage of what that job allowed them to do.

Jenny - I really hope you will be able to stop bothering your son about his p.e. attire and showering especially in front of his friends. If you carry on you will transfer your own anxieties to him and make things very difficult for him if you haven't already. You won't do him any favours by making a fuss at a parent teacher evening.
It is clear that you embarrassed him by talking about showers in front of his friends - for his sake, take the hint!
Shirtless p.e. should not bother a boy if the whole class is treated the same unless, perhaps, he has some form of deformity or is particularly overweight. Parents can cause a lot of damage by expressing their anxieties however well meaning.

Just following up the couple of posts I placed on here a month ago for anyone taking notice after I wrote about my 12 year old starting at his Warwickshire academy school. When I wrote last month he had to my surprise had his first PE lesson without a top on and I mentioned how I'd keep an eye on it and that I'd be surprised if he carried on like that. Well just to report back that today he has had his 6th PE gym lesson and so far he hasn't worn any top in the gym for this lesson on all 6 lessons so far taken with the same teacher, yet I'm still sending him with the kit I've been told to, which includes a gym vest. I'm reliably informed that it applies to everyone in the whole class he is in and that they are all turning out for gym without wearing any tops completely bare chests all of them for general gym style PE.

Now he came in tonight with a couple of new friends from school who share his lessons and when I was talking about what they'd got up to at school the PE lesson was mentioned and one of these other youngsters with my own son said he thinks this teacher is making them do PE with no top because he is particularly strict. This comment made me think back to the couple of people I have read who have drawn parallels with not being allowed a top to discipline. Perhaps I'm just reading too much into it. I spoke to all three about how they were getting on and mentioned school showering and my son clearly embarrassed in front of his friends just said 'do we have to talk about that'. I asked why not. My mum spoke to me about all these things in the days after I started my new school.

There is going to be a parent teacher evening just after half term with many of their teachers there, I'm told the PE ones will be available and so I am looking forward to the opportunity of asking what the reason is for telling all the class to go mandatory bare chests when me and other parents have a kit list telling us to supply a top to wear for gym based PE. with no evidence they are even using them six weeks into term.

I do worry if this might be upsetting them in any way, especially after reading some of the comments on this forum from time to time because I'd never quite realised how sensitive boys could be to this kind of thing until reading what the now grown up boys had written on here. Obviously such things didn't apply to girls in school like me but we did still have to shower just the same as the boys and form a girls point of view I'll say now that we nearly all hated it with a passion. Whether the boys felt the same at my school only they know.

George asked about sharing of the genders in the lessons and it's all been boys only so far. I presume it will remain that way although as a mixed sex academy school perhaps I should not just presume it, but then I did presume he'd be wearing in PE the full kit I've provided and he's not doing so but turning out for PE in the same way his dad did at this same school thirty years ago.

I'll dip back in again.

Re Comment by: Caleb on 10th October 2022 at 10:51

"Some even spoke of trying to cross their arms to hide their nipples."

Was it their nipples or their man-boobs that they were trying to hide?

Greg, you mentioned some girls got touchy feely in tasks. How would they touch you if the teacher was around? What kind of tasks were these?

You said some girls were really not so nice. What did they do? Did it ever rise to harassment? Did you ever complain to your parents or would it have changed nothing?