Does anyone else remember doing PE in the snow?

[ShrinkingIngrate]

I'm 52 and we definitely did PE with snow on the ground.

I'm our aertex tops granny pants (brown 😭) abd gym skirt!

DS's rugby yes rugby tournament has been cancelled this afternoon because of the severe weather predicted. We're West Midlands;there's nary a flake.

Absolutely. I’m 68 now but I can still feel how cold I felt playing hockey in the snow, as PPs have said we had to wear the ‘uniform’ of short wraparound skirt and alerted to. I was a goalkeeper and we were allowed to wear goalies gloves and the communal thin nylon tracksuit tops as we didn’t get to run around as much … really helped a lot 🙄

They spent the school hours yelling at us to unroll our skirts and cover up...except for PE where we were made to wear thin, flimsy, short stuff and actually wanted to be in tracksuits. Teachers were always in full tracksuits, of course.

We used to invent flooding periods that couldn't be contained with normal protection and required tracksuit trousers. Every week.

I'm 38.

AERTEX not ALERTED!

I definitely played hockey in the snow. In really thick snow we got the school sledges out. That was the seventies though.

Rosula · Today 10:49

But then the school itself was bloody cold, it had a prehistoric heating system that was totally inadequate.

You've reminded me of the very cold winter of 1981/82. The heating broke down completely in some of the buildings. Our awful English teacher sat in a long, padded coat, mittens and woolly hat, with a cup of tea and made us all take our coats and blazers off.

The bloody windows had ice on the insides and we were all shivering, teeth chattering. Apparently, it was all so that we would feel the benefit of our coats, when we went out.

Yes, remember this, using red coloured hockey balls instead of the standard white balls, so they could be seen in the snow. Aertex short sleeved shirt and ‘divided skirt’ (skort?), only the goal keeper allowed to wear a jumper and gloves.

Yes, definitely hockey in the snow, and cross country. I think there was a difference between Games (outdoors) and PE (indoors). I do remember occasionally if the weather was really bad, or perhaps the gyms were being used by other groups, we’d do something completely unusual, like country dancing or yoga-type stuff - late ‘70s/early’80s - northern comprehensive school.

Ah yes, rugby in the snow, a fond memory.

At the start of the match the PE teacher made each of us roll in a muddy slushy puddle....we were blue lipped and soaked through within minutes.

That was his last term teaching at our school....

I'm 54 and East Midlands - can't remember ever playing hockey in actual snow as I don't remember having that much in the 1980s! But we did do outdoor PE in all weathers - I loved hockey but wasn't much good at it. Got picked for the team due to enthusiasm and shortage of players rather than for my ability x We only had 'indoor break' if it was hammering down with rain. Mind you, in high school we each had actual cubby holes for our books and dedicated coat hanging spaces! Numbered pegs and lockers where we could leave wellies and change into indoor shoes and it was so disciplined there was very rarely any theft! None of this having to lug your coat and books and folders around with you all day like todays kids have to!

Yes and we had to wear tiny skirts and Aertex blouses and generally stand around shivering on a frozen hockey pitch watching the PE teacher, who was fully tracksuited up, and her pet showing us how to bully off again and again. Then we'd run about a bit but were so cold that if we got whacked, which happens a lot in hockey, it hurt like hell.

It wouldn't have been bad if we were allowed to wear sensible clothes and run about like learning how to dribble the ball up and down the pitch. Then we'd have been getting fit, learning an enjoyable skill and keeping warm. You'd think that was the point of PE but apparently not at my school and so many others.

And they wonder why so many women don't do any sport. BTW I've been for a run this morning. It was very cold but I was warm because I was running tights, a lightweight jacket with sleeves. gloves and a headband to cover my ears. I tied the jacket round my waist after 10 minutes because I was warm. I knew that but I also knew it would take 10 minutes.

No, we always went inside into the gym if we had rain or snow. We only had tarmac netball/tennis courts which were dangerous if snowy or rainy and we didn't do cross country as we were in the middle of a city. Nobody even considered bussing us anywhere for playing fields as it would take too much time away from classroom lessons. We didn't even have showers. 1970s grammar school.

@purpledalmation I'm wondering if you went to the same school as me as we had an outdoor unheated pool that was only off limits if you actually had to clear surface ice! Also hockey in the snow was not out of the ordinary.

Depended how much snow of course but rugby would be cancelled if the ground was frozen. Our school had an astroturf so football and hockey would be on there and I think it would just be swept clear of snow.

Definitely hockey and lacrosse in the snow (in a games skirt). The school had a set of orange hockey balls for this express purpose, as the white balls were practically invisible once the snow was disturbed.

Yep, hailstone, snow, gail force winds. It's made me hardy and I'm thankful to be honest.

Yes, there seems to be a pattern here, I'm 50 - "I can assure you girls, I'm much colder than you are" whilst dressed in full ski suit, hat, and with a thermos of coffee, whilst we shivered in the snow in aertex t shirts and gym skirts..

One of my PE teachers got sacked for slapping a pupil who replied to that exact “I’m much colder than you” spiel with “Why don’t you run around the track as well then Miss”

In primary (so early 80's) it snowed and the teacher took us for a hike in it. I'm pretty sure we didn't have wellies. I remember it being epic though as we found this slope that was super icy that we could slide down and try to scramble up with our mates trying to push us down again.

Yep. Chucked outside by PE teacher and expected to run a route 'cross country' which was actually around the local residential streets. A group of us would half-heartedly jog the 150 or so yards to the home of one for us for tea, toast and telly before returning with the same half-hearted jog to school 45 minutes later. They must've known but did nothing about it.

Well DS has just text to say he feels really unwell as his P.E teacher made them go out in the snow today for P.E. His hands are red and sore. Is this acceptable or am I being precious to be annoyed about this, it's 1 degrees here ffs.

Good on that pupil!

Yes, that old bollocks!

I’m 51 so should recall if we did this. Probably did.

I think doing PE outside like that is OK, but rugby isn’t because of the frozen ground. If they are running around, that’s ok.

yep, lacrosse in the snow, shivering in aertex and games skirt, turning blue.

my youngest is getting ‘mixed sports in the sports hall/assembled hall’ this afternoon, as it’s too cold to be outside, apparently (despite it actually being warmer than when they had hockey outside all afternoon on Monday)

lots has changed in schools, and I’m not sorry that children aren’t put off sport and exercise by shivering and hating the time spent out in the snow. The problem is that most schools don’t have adequate other facilities to ensure that sport/games/exercise can still happen in inclement weather.

I expect this afternoon, ds’ school (all years have at least one period of sport/games each day) will have:

mixed team multisports games with the younger years,

some climbing on the indoor climbing wall at one end of the sports hall,

table tennis on the mezzanine,

older years rotating on the fitness/gym equipment

this, as a basic, probably with more going on too.

dd2’s school will do similar for those years with games/pe today (secondary school, so not all years have sport every day).