to think stripping naked to shower after PE at school was horrific? **title edited by MNHQ**

[Flowersinyourhair]

Recent conversations with my daughter about PE at school (she loves it, I hated it) have got me thinking about why I disliked it so much.

I was reminded of the hideous shower experience. After PE, the girls would be obliged to have a naked shower, all in together. We would then have to go to the teacher, totally starkers and dripping wet, and bit ticked off on a register to say we'd had a shower.

I can't to this day understand why it mattered so much. It's a safeguarding nightmare really and I'm so glad it doesn't work like that anymore.

AIBU to think it's no reason I hated PE and to ask whether my school was particularly weird??

We had to do this too. I'd come from a different school where they didn't and literally couldn't believe I was being forced to be naked in front of a load of strangers. I actually couldn't sleep for dread the night before PE. Also had to go to be checked to show we'd been in. I remember telling my Mum how awful I found it and she told me just to get on with it, no sympathy at all. This was in the eighties.

"PE" in schools has got a lot to answer for in the putting off generations of women from exercise if you ask me.

We also had to do this for the first term of the first year I was there. I started secondary school in 1992.

I think it would have all but vanished by the mid 90s: when I started teacher training in 2002 it certainly wasn't there then.

We had to hand our towel to the teacher walk naked through the shower and get our towel back at the other side. Period diary here too. Everyone saw everyone naked. Hideous. Late 70s/ early 80s.

Oh the horror of PE in the 80s and 90s! We had communal showers with wholly ineffective see through plastic curtains on just a couple of cubicles. You could see everything. I went through puberty early, so was acutely self conscious and relentlessly teased about my 'bush' I loathed it. Unfortunately we had a hard core German ex-national winning gymnast as our PE teacher and menstruation was not accepted by her as a valid excuse for non-participation. She insisted it helped with the cramps! She used to walk through the showers and loiter in the changing rooms. Which would be now.

One of the worst aspects was the stupid pleated mini skirt we were forced to do PE in no matter how cold it was. Shorts were not allowed even underneath. If you had to wear sanitary towels (anyone remember how thick they were before the thin ones?) It showed everything. The school keepers (some were young and a bit fit) must have had a field day when we had to do handstands whilst they were patrolling the grounds! I feel resentful looking back

At secondary school showers in the PE changing rooms were never used, we all showered after swimming but that was with our togs on.

At primary we had to shower after afternoon games once a week, the worst was if you forgot your towel you had to dry yourself with the blue hand towels - horrible.

Oh, I'd forgotten about that! The communal showers, towels must be left outside, teachers (male teacher on hockey day) standing to make sure you'd had a proper shower, the period diary, regulation knicker checks to make sure you were wearing the correct underwear. Even a teacher standing underneath the stairs so they could look up your skirt as you went up.

same here, we used to go to a council run sports field for athletics and cross country ( running around a field close to a busy A road) the showers were in a block all in a row ( no cubicles or anything) and the teachers had to check you had showered. We tried to get back before they did and just stick our heads under the tap. it was horrible and I too hated pe and couldn't wait to leave school so I didn't have to do that or swimming any more! also freezing cold playgrounds in January playing netball in a short skirt and one sweat top was also awful, whilst the teachers had on a full tracksuit and long socks and trainers and even coats ( and probably hot water bottles under the coats!"!) sport was no joy for me.

Our PE teacher actually pulled up a stool to watch

I really really doubt your PE teacher got any kind of pleasure from that.

We had showers but no-one used them, and the smell in the next lesson was awful. Really horrid. (Co-ed school) I think one of the things that must be a trial as a teacher of early teens is the smell. But then even mild body odour makes me gag. Probably a flashback to school

God this brings back awful memories. Why were PE teachers so into humiliating people? In my middle school (early 80s) anyone who wasn't good at sport was picked on endlessly. I had more balls thrown at my head for daydreaming than I can count. Anyone who was the slightest bit overweight was singled out and told their uselessness at PE directly correlated to their size.

We had the communal shower too, but strangely I don't remember ever going in it. At the upper school, one sadistic PE mistress used to stalk the changing rooms while we were trying to get changed under towels, and pull them off people, loudly saying "don't be ridiculous girls, it's nothing we haven't seen before ".

Thankfully I was never forced to shower at school, although my older sisters were forced to. As someone who had big boobs that developed early, PE was torture to start with. I was painfully self conscious and I tried to run away from home aged 13 as it was, partly due to the horror of not being able to cope with the teasing at school. If I'd had to have a naked shower I would probably have slashed my wrists. I was self harming anyway, I would just have taken it further.

Yep vivid mempries of this at secondary school in the 90s. Year 7, had to stand naked in a line next to the showers and forced to go in one after another. Remember being pushed in by the teacher

My school did this in the 90s. Only way to avoid it was to declare your period, then a red P would be marked next to your name. If you had the same excuse the following week you would be dragged in front of the welfare mistress to explain yourself.

Also, we would never ever have been allowed to skip PE due to periods. In all my years at school I never heard one girl tell another, or a teacher, that she had her period. It just wasn't discussed, ever. Although I suspect we were a particularly prudish bunch.

I think children just weren't seen as people. Somewhere above animals but below adults in the 'rights.'

Elanrode - I agree. You look at Savile, and the football scandal and these aren't just a few bad apples. There was something massively wrong with the culture, and children in many areas were routinely abused - as were women of all ages. I see the milder forms (e.g. shower humiliation) as on a continuum with the sexual assaults. (I did, as I mentioned, go to a school where the PE teacher was eventually gaoled for grooming underage girls so this may be colouring my judgement).

Convent school in the 60's we had freezing cold showers, no cubicles or curtains, concrete floors and no heating in the basement of the building.
You all had to strip off, cold shower and dress in front of the PE teacher.
It was torture to me, I was a very shy, unconfident child and it put me off all sport for life.

Apparently, pre my year , they had showers after PE .

The showers WERE there but we never had to have one . That was 76 to 79 and luckily you could give up PE in the third year then . . It was dropped by me like a hot coal . Hated it .

I was forced to do a walk of shame through the open showers, stand and wash my parts. If I hadn't, everyone else would have missed breaktime

Did they make you have a shower but no one else?

Did not help the PE teacher aka Miss Trunchball didn't like me as I did't like PE . . How sad lol

I wish people would remember when they insist now teachers wouldn't do that, your child must be lying/stretching the truth, these times.

I didn't ever tell my parents as I felt no one would believe me. I felt like it was normal.

My DS is now at secondary-a boys' grammar and they still have communal showers. They are allowed to take a spare pair of pants and shower in those, then change. My DD is at the girls' school and they don't have to shower (their PE department stinks!!).

I often think of the dreaded PE\showers when I think about high school days .. Truly dreadful ..and what exactly did they achieve ? ( other than embarrassment, dread and shame) no one had a proper shower did they? The slow developers/overweight/fast developers/ everyone really hated it. So absolutely no point in the exercise at all ...

Oh, there was a point all right.

It was an exercise in subservience. It was a way of essentially saying 'you have no rights here, look at what we can force you to do'.

I also despise exercise thanks to school PE! Helpful

I wish people would remember when they insist now teachers wouldn't do that, your child must be lying/stretching the truth, these times.

Indeed Elanrode. I had a horrendous time at the hands of bullying teachers at school. I despise the MN default of "your child is fibbing because all children do". They don't.