Did you have to shower after PE?

[Quanon]

Question due to a conversation about when this became unacceptable. Was it ever OK? Really? I didn’t ever experience it but DH did, with a teacher enforcing that everyone showered properly. It’s surely not expected now in secondary schools for safeguarding reasons? Our kids certainly don’t.

Were you required to shower after PE at school?

If you could give me an idea of when (decade) and yes or no, it will help our discussion. I wonder if it was more boys than girl?

For us
90s, female, no
90s, male, yes after rugby (teacher watching)

80's they tried to force us. A lot of us refused as it was last lesson and lesbian pe teacher. Makes me shudder just thinking about it.

Yes, girls school in the 90s. Communal showers, no curtains, PE teacher made you take your towel off and had a list of period dates. Just awful. I'd loved PE at primary but secondary lessons put me off sport until well in to my 30s

70s yes. Communal showers with teacher watching.

We were supervised by the lesbian PE teacher and a nun. All sorts of wrong.

1980s Scotland nobody used the showers (well, we did the first week the exciting new and modern PE block was built but never again, and the old PE block didn't have showers). TBF I have no memory of doing any activity in PE that got me sweaty either, the PE halls were freezing.

90s here, no-one showered - I remember some girls getting changed in the showers. Not sure they even worked. No-one teacher wise checked or cared.

Yes 70s
Communal showers and we had to be naked. Exception was during periods when we could dip in wrapped in a towel. Anyone who did this more than once a month was cross examined.

Like another poster we were told how important hygiene was and how we'd stink if we didn't shower. It gave me paranoia about being smelly/sweaty for years.

Our PE teacher was probably mid 40s. She had a short back and sides and wore lace-up brogues outside school. Usually with a mannish tweed skirt suit. She stood at the start of the showers watching us all go in and when the last had, stayed in the changing room watching.

I look back in horror and believe there would have been an absolute outcry nowadays. We had to shower once a week after PE (45 minutes) and once a week after games (all afternoon). There were two changing rooms at Games. She seemed ever present though.

She put me off PE and Games for life.

The older I get, the angrier I get.

My dd 2010s did not experience this at High School. And I would have gone ballistic if she had.

70s - yes, but the quickest showers ever. The foot showers got used the most.

We had individual shower cubicles, but no one ever used them properly!

80s. They tried to make us but the most I did was keep my towel around me and drizzle a few drops of water over my shoulders so at least it looked like I'd been in the shower. No way was I going to drop my towel! 🤣

60s, girls school. There were no showers in the school.

End of 70s, start of 80s. F Yes!

We had to walk through a rank of showers naked and then queue up to get our name ticked off with a towel with obvious wet hair/shoulders. So... we got our friends to bring the towel for us to the other end of the showers and splashed a bit of water on our shoulders/hair! Hated it. It felt creepy even back then.

I bought a towel for my DS for secondary in the 2010s and was surprised he never needed it.

early/mid 2000s, never had a shower after PE. I don't even know if they had them.

Doesn't mean the lesbian teacher fancied any of the kids!

80s/90s one teacher at the start of the run through with a register including a period list, towel on peg, run through shower past second teacher who checked you'd run through the shower not bypassed it and then back to start to grab towel 😡 absolutely awful as a year 7

Yup. Communal showers and teacher watching. Early 90s.

Yes. The (bitch of a) PE teacher sat in there with a clipboard, ticking us all off. She would put a red dot next to our name if we made our period excuses (same for being excused from swimming). Woe betide anyone who had the red dot more or less often than every 4 weeks.

High school 1995-2000

late 80's-mid 90's and no, we didn't even have working showers!

Early 90's. I have never had a shower at school. Dd14 occasionally does as they have a brand new swanky PE facility so they like using it

Yes. Late 1980s. Teacher would stand there and watch, just to make sure we had properly washed. Horrible.

1980s. Yes and strictly enforced. Queue for communal showers (no towels); arms up and walk through the length of the showers (about 5 shower heads in a row); the water was always cold; then return to changing area to towel off. Teacher watched the whole time. I was a late developer and it was awful.

Yes. Late 90s secondary school, England.

Showers were in a sort of tiled corridor across the end of the changing room - PE teacher would make us all line up and walk through and come out the other end. We used to try to walk on the raised tiles on the shower head side to avoid getting wet. After maybe 3 years they said we could wear swimming costumes to shower in, no one did, it was completely missing that the problem wasn't showering it was getting naked in a big communal changing room!

I suspect I may have gone to the same school as @Blankname22 actually.

The female PE teachers office was actually inside the changing room.

One one memorable occasion the (quite lovely, no hint of ill intent, I've no idea wtf he was thinking!) male PE teacher came in to go in her office while we were all half naked!

60s female. Communal showers. Compulsory. Watched by teacher who had a 'period register'.
If she didn't believe you were on your period, she looked down your knickers to check. No tampons in those days, just a sanitary belt and a towel.

Hard to believe this happened. A group of us are still in touch and we all remember it well.

Went to secondary in 1976, compulsory communal showers supervised by the teacher, moved to another part of the country in 1979 and there were showers but never saw them used.

80s female yes, communal shower with teacher supervising, unthinkable now.