How often did your school bring out… The Apparatus?

[AintNobodyHereButUsChickens]

My school very rarely opened it out. My primary school didn’t have a hall until I got to year 5 and in those last two years I spent at primary, they brought out the apparatus maybe once that I can recall. It was brand new, why didn’t they use it more?!

But my husband said they always used to have it out at his school!

Not often - and one time out friend broke her arm and wasn't allowed home or given any first aid and then it got a lot rare to be used at all.

Yes, we were expected to get the apparatus out ourselves and put it away once we reached juniors.

Every week. Every bloody week.

I hated PE and so it felt to me like we were being order onto it 24/7. Realistically it was probably once every two or three PE sessions. Still too often if you ask me.

Weekly

Loads. Weekly or every other week. I absolutely loved it.

I love this. Not only was it a health and safety nightmare, but set up by eight year olds fed spam fritters at lunch, quite possibly while the teacher was having a cigarette. It's a miracle we survived!

I seem to remember using it quite a lot. This was in the 90s. We used to do circuits with it too, which everyone used to love.

Never or hardly ever. I wondered why they bothered having it.

What sort of an animal is a spam?

I remember the end of the rope was coated in a heavy wax, or something like that.
I also remember the rope swinging, and smacking me in the mouth. Man alive, I had such a fat lip.
Imagine that happening these days!

…I’ve now just given myself an absolute headache thinking about the word apparatus.

it is a word, outwith the world of school gym halls….but I now can’t think of any other time I would use that word and it now doesn’t even seem like a real word…

”Get your horse riding / biking / hill walking apparatus” ? I think equipment would be more appropriate here.

My minds gone blank.

Very occasionally.

And when it did come out it was rubbish. Climb up, climb down and that's it!

We don't have a single PE unit of work that calls for the use of this wonderful, underused resource, so 'never' should be the answer in my school, but I try to get the odd session in on some spurious grounds such as "We're studying forces / animal migration / bridges / the circulatory system" etc, and have so much fun. We also put out every last bit of large apparatus we've got and build a kind of 'track' all around the hall, incorporating the large wall-mounted climbing frame: benches, horses, plinths, beams, blocks. I've trained my class (UKS2) to put it out and put a l l the mats out too under every piece of equipment as it's a bloody health and safety nightmare.

Ours came out so rarely I assumed they just came pre fitted at every school whether they wanted it or not!

Me too!

Regularly. Still makes me shudder.

I have zero recollection of there being safety mats at primary, although there must have been some?
I do recall spending the back end of each high school PE lesson piling up mats stored at the back of the hall though.
Edited for spelling.

Hardly ever! Including 3 full size trampolines that were maybe rolled out ONCE in my class in the 6 years I was there.

Meanies.

A pig that's fancy 🐷

Quite often through infants, juniors and into secondary school. It was the only good thing about PE.

I can remember pulling it out at juniors and secondary.

It's a pig. Which parts of the pig were probably much less identifiable in 1980s than food labelling requires these days!

Long story as to why, but once my cousin and I found ourselves in the hall of a large secondary school over the summer holidays - we were both about 10/11. We immediately tried to unlatch The Apparatus from the wall and succeeded but could not find a way to secure it to the floor or return it afterwards. Those swinging ropes and wobbling climbing bars gave us nightmares! We didn't tell anyone about it and I sometimes wonder about the teachers coming back and finding it that way.

All the time in primary, not really in secondary.

I think every PE lesson, particularly in the winter and I’m sure we used to do it and get all the mats and horses out, especially once in primary school - and I could get to the top of the ropes quicker than the boys 🤪