Did anyone in your secondary school ever use the showers?

[Soubriquet]

In American programs, teens are always shown using the showers after PE

I remember never seeing anyone using the showers at my school. At best, they were used for some groups of girls to change in semi privately. At worst, they were completely ignored.

So. Your school?

Mid to late 90s and we were made to use them! They had flimsy curtains with two individual changing areas attached on each side of every shower, so two changing areas shared one shower cubicle.. We had one creepy (female) PE teacher who would stand in the shower room making sure everyone had a proper shower. She even insisted on full showers (including hair washing) on the day we were getting our school photos taken so we ended up all looking ridiculous with wet hair.

@lljkk

I'm American -- yes in the 80s, dunno now. We considered a person highly disgusting if they didn't shower after PE. The peer pressure was intense, of course you showered as a teen, anyway. If you go to somewhere like American public swimming pools, single sex changing rooms, there is lots of nudity.

I find the prudishness of Brits about view of their naked bodies quite silly.

I find the way Americans chop up their food before eating it with a single utensil in the wrong hand "quite silly".

No only after swimming and we kept our costumes on. My husband said they were made to in his school though and the teacher would make sure they had one. How awful is that!
It would've been pointless having the lesson if we'd had to shower as well they were only an hour long lol

I did quite enjoy the novelty of being in a huge communal shower. The one at home was tiny and the water pressure was like a dripping tap at times. The ones at school were huge, hot and had high pressure water everywhere.

We had a new-ish PE block, the changing rooms had individual showers with proper sold lockable doors, so yes, we used them. There weren't very many though, so showers were like 30 secs each!

Late seventies and early eighties was when I was at secondary school.

Yes, we (the whole class) were made to strip of and march through them in a line. Barely enough time would have been allowed for getting changed anyway and the communal shower ate significantly into that. If you still hadn't managed to completely change by the time the lesson bell went you were thrown out of the changing rooms partially clothed, sometimes even in just knickers.

It was part of the ritual of public humiliation that made up school PE lessons back then. It was abuse, should never have been allowed and I was relieved to find that it seemed to be a thing of the past by the time my own three DDs were of secondary school age.

made to strip off

Stupid autocorrect!!

mid 2000s high school. We were told no one is allowed to use them ever. It looked like a really old, dark changing room with no lights, hooks and benches along the middle, and 5 shower cubicles with no curtains on each side. never used them. just before i left, they showed us the new upgraded school with proper gym equipment, proper showers and cubicles, and the showers worked and were encouraged! I just think they didn't work. I hated PE anyway, i got relentlessly bullied so the last thing i wanted to be was naked and more vulnerable.

No. They were cold communal drippy affairs avoided by all.
We didn’t really do any sport though. Rarely did PE seem to involve exertion.
Teachers always telling us to hurry up, def no time to shower

No. We weren't given time. Even if someone had wanted to shower it would have made them late for their next lesson.

Late 90s/early 00s - Nope we didn't use them, though it was rumoured that one of the history teachers used to use them when the boys were coming back from their PE lesson to get changed.

They don't even get changed for PE at DD's school (they did in 1st grade but the boys kept running into the girls changing room and then from 2nd grade onwards they just wore their normal clothes) so definitely no showering except after swimming.

We were forced to shower ,humiliating if you were well developed and others not ,also forced if you were on your period ,told to keep knickers on and run through ,wonder we wernt told to take them off and most girls used pads in those days ,so wet knickers and pad never thought of taking a note

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I had the same experience. Age 12 just started periods, wearing a bra . It made me ill with dread and I absolutely dreaded PE all through school as a result . I moved schools at 13 and spent the whole of the summer worrying myself sick that the same system would prevail at the new school. Thankfully it didn’t.

late 80’s. Individual cubicles with no curtain or screen. You HAD to have one. I developed a technique of getting my hair and shoulders wet by leaning in and keeping my towel around me. Awful experience. Combine this with the god awful gym knickers we had to wear, the picking of teams and the general humiliation of doing things you were shit at in front of your peers and it’s no wonder people got put off sport.