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?

@FrancescaContini

Yes we did but I am wondering why you want to know about this? Is this your first post on MN, OP?

Haha

There was no such thing as showers in my school 🤣

I wonder if they would have been used if they had a solid door? Seems like an epic waste of resource to me. In my school the popular girls used them to change in and ours definitely worked as one day one of the girls tripped backwards falling into the push button and soaked her clothes and bag.

At the school I teach at the students barely have time to get changed and grab a drink so definitely no time to shower.

We had to, no excuses. The only time we didn't have to shower was when we were on our period and even then only with a note from home.

Gym knickers! How could I forget them.

Year 7, all the girls had to wear these stupid kilt like skirts and wear gym knickers underneath.

We all wised up by year 8, and we wore shorts. Except for some reason, in sports like netball, hockey, we still had to wear the bloody skirts but we wear allowed to wear shorts under the skirts instead of the knickers.

why?!. Boys ( the boys school was directly next to the girls) were allowed to wear shorts and trousers for football and all their activities but we had to wear poxy skirts!!

We had the most horrendous navy blue pe knickers!

Ours were grey

Grey knickers, grey skirts

Nope! I remember I used them once after lunch time atletics club because there was cat poop in the long jump pit. I had to borrow some shower gel from one of the PE teachers.

I went to several schools in the US, and never went to a school where girls used the showers.

In one school - there weren't any showers in the girls' locker room. The boys' locker room was far larger and had several shower cubicles with waist high walls but it was only used for extracurricular sports, not PE so after wrestling, the boys showered, but I had to go straight home to shower. Not sure who came out worse in that one.

Yea we did but I didnt grow up in the UK so it was an expectation. If you had forgotten a towel you got this weird paper towel thing to use. (Yuck)

However I also shower before entering a swimming pool and was frankly shocked when I first realised that was not the norm here.

Most did, yes. The PE teacher was a total cow about it. She'd stand right there and God help you if you didn't shower properly. I hated it because I hated my body and so I started skipping pe. Which is a shame because it was fun. I just couldn't stand going through the communal showers with the rest of the girls in the class and the PE teacher watching you and having a go at you and sending you through again if she decided you hadn't washed enough. 🙄

What is it with these teachers gawking to make sure you showered properly?!

No way this can still be happening.

Yes in the school I went to for one year and left after being bullied.

1985 and we all had to strip off and walk through the shower. I looked like a 9 year old and everyone else seemed to look about 25. Then we all had to get dressed really fast as the teacher counted down from ten (or we'd get detention). We were always still wet and thus fucking freezing as we walked across the field back to school and the next lesson.

Worst was after cross country when we had to wear a gym vest and gym knickers in December.

I will never forgive them. Still feel angry now.
And sometimes I wonder why I dislike exercise

Yes, communal one in the early 70s, girls school and the only way you could get out of it was to have a period letter. It was horrible and put me off PE lesson

@Soubriquet

What is it with these teachers gawking to make sure you showered properly?!

No way this can still be happening.

My dc are at secondary and tell me there is a row of private individual shower cubicles in the changing rooms. They can use them if they want to but nobody ever does.

Yup, we had to and a PE teacher watched to make sure. I was at high school 89-95 and remember in my first 2 years, boys had to go topless for indoor PE. We had polo shirt and gym knickers. Total disrespect of dignity of and not so long ago really.

No way. I only remember one person using them once and it was because she has fallen down a hill in the rain and was absolutely covered in mud so the teacher made her shower. We were all mortified on her behalf. Everyone could see the showers, they weren’t private in any way.

@tiredanddangerous

Yup. Queued up and walked through them while the pe teacher watched. It was absolute torture.

Same here. We were ticked off a register as we came through. If you pleaded time of the month it was checked against how long ago you'd made the same excuse. The good old 60s! And Miss Parr I hated you, you fucking pervert looking us up and down. Ugh!

It was enforced by the teachers. If you were really lucky and got to the changing rooms before the teacher did, you could get away with just sticking your head in and wetting your hair so that it looked as though you'd already showered.

The boys used to complain about a particular member of staff who always used to watch them in the showers. It was no surprise to any of us when, years later, he was convicted of various offences against children and put on the sex offenders register.

All girls grammar and nobody ever used the showers, which had no doors or curtains so why on earth would you, except after swimming when we had costumes on.
I don't really recall exerting myself enough to ever require a shower after PE, I was a lazy little sod. But we made up for the lack of showering with copious amounts of Impulse.

Yes we had to, mid to late 1990s. We had to line up and the PE teacher would inspect you to check you had used soap. I absolutely hated it. I refused to do PE for the last 3 years because of this.

Yes. North East comprehensive in the 1980s

Same as other posters above, communal showers, lined up with towels. Absolutely hated it.

We had 2 different PE teachers. One would sit & watch at the end of the shower to make sure you were wet so towels were dropped before going in.

The other one would just check once you were back in the changing room so we would just leave our towels on & make sure our arms & legs got wet.

You were only excused if you had a period which the teacher would mark on the register so you couldn't use it every week.

Apparently the PE teacher's would also be the first to know if a girl was pregnant because of this which there were a few in my school & at least 2 in my final year.

Eugh cross country

I hated PE anyway but cross country was the worst

I actually spent so long one time I was told to use the “asthma bridge” next time which was half the run instead.

Yes we were forced to shower naked in communal showers in the late 80's it was an awful experience.

Yes, you ran through whilst a friend held your towel at other end. Absolutely pointless. Also had to wear brown pe knickers for gym