To think most schools don't care about this?

[AndHarry]

'Shock' news report from the BBC: Most UK pupils don't take a shower after PE

Too right and two reasons why that was so at my school (not very long ago...):

1. The showers were communal. No one was going to strip off and shower naked infront of their classmates.

2. There were 3 showers in a changing room for 30 girls. There was barely enough time to get changed and get to the next lesson, let alone shower.

If this is going to be an issue then schools need to be set up to actually give teenagers time and proper facilities to be able to take a shower after PE.

I don't recall anyone using a shower ever at school for any reason, we too had 2 showers in the boys changing room and 2 in the girls, they were open, grubby cubicles with no curtains or doors and there were 30 pupils of each sex needing to use them! We were given 10 minutes to change after PE and any time we took after than would eat into lunch or home time (and a missed bus for most!)

Our secondary has good facilities.

There is absolutely no reason, time of availability, why the DSes couldn't shower.

But they choose not to, and the school will not force them.

(realises teen boys are not the be-all and end-all, but they are a large slice of the secondary population, and mine are not untypical)

None pf my teenagers take, or are expected to take, a towel for a post PE lesson shower. The two still at secondary are very sporty. I don't think this holds them back.

Pointless report IMO.

The showers are good in our secondary.

There is no reason whatsoever (facilities or time) not to shower.

But DSes still don't. And the school isn't going to force them.

I think the PE dept is very good. So I don't buy the idea that non-showering is causally connected with lower levels of activity.

I do think it's a very typical teen phase.

(Gosh, sorry, MN crashed and I though it had eaten my post. That's why I rewrote and have made two such similar posts).

I can't remember showering after PE at school. I think the showers were horrible concrete type ones.
You are right with the problems you list.
Maybe having PE as a double subject at the end of the day might help - more time to get changed or can go home straight afterwards and shower at home.

Cold water in a filthy mould covered communal shower with the pe teacher standing there watching us all. Never mind no actual time to shower and dry. I hated showers and my children say nothing has changed. They shower when they get home. Ridiculous and pointless 'study'

Showering was compulsory back in the dark ages when I was at secondary - so we all perfected the art of wrapping up in our towel, running through the showers so we got our shoulders wet but nothing else, passing the pe teacher who was sat looking in the showers to check we all went in to get ticked off her list, and getting changed. I don't think much has changed...

When I was at school (late 80s) at times the teachers made showers compulsory with a register taken if we had or not! I didn't avoid getting sweaty but It put me off PE completely as I hated the humiliation as a girl going through puberty forced into a communal shower! I would often lie that my periods were irregular or I had a veruucca or run through with my towel on hoping I wasn't caught!
Sure I would have enjoyed PE more if I had been left to shower when I got home.
A quick baby wipe wash could do the job these days!!

Yes I had excrutiatingly embarrassing compulsory showers at school. The showers were two long pipes running horizontely along a wall and you had to walk through with your towel above your head, supposedly so that your pits got washed. It meant you were totally exposed and the teacher was wating at the end to tick you off and look you up and down

Thank fuck it sounds as though its changed

We had to shower. Ours were fine tbh, about 10 cubicles to 20 pupils so fairly quick. They were private showers also

[Oldraver] I think we went to the same school!! We were ticked in and out of said compulsory shower and I can testify that no shower ever made me increase my sporting efforts. Hated p.e. With a passion and was very scarred by these schoolgirl experiences...

Compulsory showers were definitely a thing of the past by the time I got to school.

The study didn't look into reasons why kids don't shower and the effect it has on effort levels but I hope a further study will. I would definitely have preferred to have had a shower.

Every class can't have double pe at the end of the day.
The last school I taught in let pupils shower in swimming costumes.

DD Says they don't have time to shower, but she probably wouldn't anyway, as it would cause hair issues. She's fit and showers at home.

We ha compulsory showers as well. No privacy either. What an awful thing to do to make prepubescent, painfully self conscious girls strip off in front of each other. It was worse for the early developers.

DD has PE last. They don't have time to shower as they have to run for the bus. The school has dedicated school buses and once they have gone there aren't any other buses. If they forced showers on the pupils PE would have to be a very short lesson.

we never used the showers
who wants to use a communal shower .

until they listen to what everyone is saying and modernise school pe, better kits / shower cubicles/ ability streaming, then teenagers aren't going to enjoy sport.

we had a communal shower. I don't remember ever using it, like many hear we just didn't have time to really. Or it would have been totally embarrassing as it was totally open even to the changing room.

Ds is about to start at a new school and this subject was discussed. The school feel that PE is best left to the end of the day as pupils are most alert for learning in the morning.
They have showers but understand that most of the pupils don't like them so there's no pressure. The majority get changed and have a shower at home instead.

At my first secondary (1985?) we had to shower. There were individual cubicles, but they only had half doors so although we had a bit of privacy, the PE teacher could peer over to make sure you were showering "properly".

My own daughter doesn't shower at school. It's never even been suggested to her. Time constraints I think.

I asked dd about this recently. She's 13 and in y8 and the type of child who does shower daily at home and showers after she goes swimming etc out of school.

However at school NONE of the girls shower after pe. Dd says there just isn't time. Pe lasts the whole session and then they have another lesson to get to. She says there only enough time to get dressed.
There are showers in the changing rooms - individual cubicles but no idea how many. Dd says some of the older girls use them after proper matches against other teams but none after normal pe.

When I was at school we had to shower - you weren't allowed not to. But I guess the timetables just have been done in such a way to allow time for that to happen. Or pe sessions shorter and shower time allocated within the lesson slot.