Do secondary school pupils usually shower after PE in state schools?

[AnnesPuffedSleeves]

Is it normal/common/unusual for Secondary school pupils to shower on school after PE? DH and I are discussing it and we have no real idea as our DC isn’t the age yet. He assumes they do, I assume they don’t. Who is right? I’m talking normal state schools, not private.

I remember the embarrassment of having to walk naked through the showers with all the other girls when we were going through puberty.... another very good reason to feign illness on PE days!

They do!
DD when she was younger had a dance class, after school, in a classroom, at a local secondary school. I dreaded "watching week" where they invited parents, because the classroom absolutely honked. God knows how the teachers bear it! 🤣
When I pick up DS (16) from sports club he strongly smells sweaty, although not necessarily BO-ey. I cant imagine that level of smell x 30 in a classroom!

We did in the 1990s (state school). I’m amazed at the number of people of a similar age who didn’t!

I didn’t in the 80s, but we had to fake it by wetting our hair. Mind you, we had a pervert teacher that used to watch us in the showers whenever they forced us to take one which wasn’t exactly encouraging

No never

They don’t in private either.

My eldest has a choice to shower or not, they are separate cubicles though not communal. He says nobody ever does as you have to carry a towel. It’s a rough school in a deprived area if that makes a difference.

We had shower checks like this in the 1990s but they would pick people out to open their towel to show that you were not wearing underwear underneath it to prove that you'd actually showered. Some teachers also used to draw back the curtains of the cubicles when pupils were in there to check they were naked. It was quite barbaric looking back!

OP - my eldest is at secondary, there are showers in the changing rooms which are never used. I can confirm it must be a bit stinky in the classrooms on PE days!

Blimey. I left secondary school in 1993 (Ireland) and we had showers once a week. Individual cubicles and we brought shower gel, deodorant etc

My school was like this in the early noughties!
We were 13yo and having supervised showers!! I moved schools so I’m not sure at what age it stopped

Nope.
and in DD’s secondary showers were converted into storage .

1995-2000, girls usually showered, boys didn't.

Had individual shower cubicles.

As a result, quite often the girls were often late for the next class.

I finished 5th year in 1992, and we had to shower after PE

I didn't realise it had stopped! Even though I have an adult child, and now I think of it I don't recall him having to take a towel for showers! I don't think I really registered this at the time

Kids dont have time, its 5min to change from pe kit into the uniform and then back for another lesson.

No and I went to a posh private school in the 90s and we didn’t shower after then either, though I suppose I must have after riding lessons, but that was in the early evening. Dd would be horrified at the suggestion of a shower and I imagine it now presents too many safeguarding risks (though they smell awful when they get home!).

I wondered this. Lynx isnt antiperspirant its just a body spray, no wonder these poor lads stink of BO if nobody has got them a decent anti perspirant! My son doesnt come stinking even when hes done PE, because he starts the day clean (he showers and washes properly) and applies proper anti perspirant. No need for lynx!

School in the 80s, showers existed but they were open and nobody ever used them. I'd have refused anyway. I don't do communal nudity and my periods were so heavy it would have been like the start of Carrie. We all probably ponged through, through the clouds of Impulse.

A token ten second shower after swimming. Otherwise no.

My son doesn’t

They do normally and confirmed by my teens; even without doing PE. Some teens are not very hygienic

No and we didn't late 90's/early 00's. Everything stunk of lynx africa.

No they don't at ours. TBF I finished school in '94 and no-one used the communal showers at school then.

We didn't in the early 80s. There were showers but no one used them and no one enforced it. PE was something of a token effort anyway.