Anyone else relieved they never had to wear PE kit all day?

[mixedpeel]

Omg I was at secondary school many moons ago but very glad we never had to go in wearing PE kit all day. I would’ve been mortified to sit in a classroom with my (in my head) horrible legs out on show.

We wore gym pants for PE!! Massive big bogey green pants. All the girls wore a shirt practically down to our knees to cover them and us. Would have been hideous to have had to wear them in a classroom!!

Same here. I loved my uniform. Black blazer and skirt, yellow shirt, school tie. We were allowed to go without blazers and it was enough. I was gutted in year ten when we went into white shirts and no tie!

But these days most sportswear, even school kit, is made from technical fabrics that are wicking and protect from UV so are actually more comfortable than natural fibres in hot weather.
I understand the embarrassment factor as I wouldn't have wanted my ghost white legs on display all day as a teen either but modern sportswear is made from fabrics that have been specifically designed to deal with sweaty bodies so it does make sense. Everything I exercise in is synthetic - I wouldn't dream of going cycling in a cotton t shirt for instance. Modern technical fabrics are very different from the polyester of my youth!

The gingham cotton frocks were lovely in Summer, we had them in our house colour, that was back when Adam w'er a lad, as my late Dad would have said, ie a long while ago.

I went to an all girls school, we had tiny people skirts and blue underwear to wear under them, was uncomfortable and would hate to be wearing it all day. Why csnt thry just let kids wear what they want when its hot?

Mine too! The thought of wearing gym knickers all day makes me queezy.

It's optional at my kid's school. He is choosing to wear PE kit, because the only alternative is a long-sleeved shirt and trousers and he'd probably expire if he had to wear that.

I find technical kit is great for exercising in but uncomfortable, sweaty and smelly for everyday wear.

We also had summer dresses in a very light cotton. Mine looked cute when I was measured up for it in upper third. I was still wearing it in lower fifth, my which point it was frankly a bit obscene (which was kind of the look I was going for.)

@MrsAvocet Those synthetic PE tops are theoretically sweat wicking but judging by the scent of my teenage son who had been active in his all day, clearly not sweat wicking enough. And he was covered in heat rash. The fabric just does not get the air to your skin, which is what you need in really hot weather.

We are generally a really active family and get hot a lot, and cotton T-shirts are definitely much more effective if you are in them all day. Our local secondary school still has aertex PE shirts and they look way more comfortable.

Item on the interwebb yesterday about an academy, it had Co-operative in it's name that sent a girl home because she did not wear tights. What makes this extra spiteful is that they excluded her from a mock exam.
Names and doxxing required I think.

Argh the tiny skirts.... and horrible memories of some PE teacher making girls line up in those skirts in a PE lesson and bend over to show the rest of the class who was was wearing PE knickers and who wasn't. Seriously. That would probably end in a report to the police these days.

Ohh! aertex!
God, I haven’t heard that word or seen it written for many many years!
Do they still make it, I wonder?

It was our PE top and it had absolutely no stretch or ‘give’ in it at all…
You started the school year with it brilliant white & fitting you properly, but by January, it was grey & clinging viciously to your belly and squashing your growing bosoms flat under your arms!
I did gymnastics with a different teacher during normal gym classes and it ripped under the arms, due to my contortions, and my poor bestie got stuck in hers once and ended up crying.

Its only saving grace was the fact it was cotton, and holey, so it would be slightly more comfortable in this heat.

I too would have hated to wear my PE kit all day, @mixedpeel - the shorts and t-shirt were thick polyester, so would have been far more uncomfortable on a hot day than my school skirt and shirt.

Plus, as I was a bit overweight as a kid, I would have been mortified and embarrassed at the way I looked.

Yes, they move sweat away from the skin into the shirt, which dries quickly, but is then full of dried sweat...and smells. They do the job they're intended to when you're exercising, but aren't nice to wear all day. See also grown men in football shirts on hot days - they smell! Technical kit makes my skin feel greasy, even when it's not particularly hot.

I would have loved to wear PE kit at my senior all girls school (state). I kid you not, our summer uniform was a black watch tartan shirt dress with long sleeves. It was boiling. We had a very elderly thin headmistress who always complained about it being cold. I remember one of my friends undid her top button on the dress and the headmistress saw her and told her off for baring her chest to the workmen.

Cross post with @Nangula

They do still make it!😱😱 Hope to goodness there’s a bit of stretch in it now!

My secondary school's summer uniform for girls was hideous - white shirt, long pleated white ankle length skirt with a navy leaf pattern, white ankle socks - but probably kept us cooler than our PE kit of Aertex top and polyester skirt with cycling shorts. In primary I'm not convinced there's much difference between a school summer dress and PE kit, but for the boys it's probably cooler not to have to wear school trousers.

Not if you never did PE. I had three or four periods a month at one point, and some back problem. Maybe asthma?

This just reminded me of one of the complete highlights in primary school of it being summer was being able to wear plimsolls outside at breaktime.

We had cotton dresses (late 70s). I was mortified that my mum insisted on making mine, which was allowed as long as they were in the correct material which was supplied by a London department store. I hated the fact that mine were different (although of course, with hindsight, much nicer!)

My PE knickers were bottle green. We were allowed to have a bottle green skirt for netball and hockey. Everything else was the knickers, on their own with an aertex. I am 5"0 fully grown and didn't get there until I was 16 so aertex was too long so it looked like I had no pants on.

I didn't really mind the PE kit as I was slim and a dancer but felt for the more developed girls because it was so undignified just having a pair of big knickers.

In my last year, they started to allow cycling shorts or leggings but these were bright bottle green lycra. I was roundly pilloried for looking like Peter Pan wearing the leggings.

DD is going to high school in September and the PE kit looks much more humane. Not sure how she'll manage a blazer and a tie. I didn't have either. It was a kilt and v neck sweater with the option of socks - a bright red kilt with ankle socks brought its own problems. From grown men out on the street, I might add. I remember no sexual comments about them from boys to any girls.

I was thinking exactly this when driving past them all today. PE kits optional this week here. It does seem as though there are 2 camps. The more self conscious ones still sweating in uniform. This includes my son. The body self consciousness is not only for girls.

DD14 has gone in wearing PE kit with a short sleeved top and a skort, pretty pleased that she tanned at the weekend. She looks fab but still spent far too long applying makeup that will inevitably melt before the end of the day. She doesn’t have a school skirt so it was either that or trousers, which were ridiculously hot earlier in the week.
My bottle green uniform from school made us all look horrendous at the best of times but hers is more tailored so looks good.

I spent all my time trying to get out of PE and wearing a PE kit so I would have been absolutely beside myself had the thought of wearing it all day. When I was at school we had a blazer but it was kind of optional and they didn't insist you wear it like they do now . The usual uniform was a grey kilt and a light green or white cotton shirt -We could wear short sleeved versions so that would have been much cooler than the 1000 percent nylon PE Kit and thick knicker shorts.
We had to wear our school tie at all times but they were fine about us regulating our own body temperature in terms of jumpers, cardigans and blazers in summer and winter.