Primary 5 boys & girls have to change for gym together??

[Yogagirl17]

DD (10) just been telling me that her teacher makes them all get changed for gym together in the classroom and also that her male teacher stays in the room while they change. Now I just want to say straight out I like and trust this teach and absolutely do not suspect him of anything untoward, other than possibly being a little naive.

Anyway, DD says she is beginning to feel uncomfortable with this and doesn't understand why the boys (and the teacher) can't go to another room while they change. I can't say I blame her and frankly I'm a little surprised this is even happening - surely 10 is old enough that they should be given privacy? I definitely want to say something to the school but trying to gauge how strongly to react. I mean, should I just ask the head teacher if they can change teh current arrangement or do I make a bigger deal of it?

I've had that, they ate my bloody beanbags and my rainbow puppet I used in circletime.

Our mice moved happily into our autumn nature table, really added a certain something!

Re kids on paperwork etc - my last yr6 class, in a very "normal" area had 33 pupils, 13 on paperwork. Actually means LESS chance of a TA at gym time as they are timetabled for support with maths and Lang.

I am not allowed to even hang displays from my ceiling, can't imagine being allowed a curtain pole!

You know i did actually try to come up with what I thought was a helpful suggestion as well (freestanding screen) although it wasn't received that way (met with hollow laughter if I recall). I realise now there is obviously no one-size-fits all solution and each school has to address the issue as best they can. I was never trying to accuse teachers of being lazy or indifferent to the problem, although I still feel it is the school's responsibility to try and find some solution if there are children who are uncomfortable with the situation.

I've got a special bit of pink paper from my first school.

We hung things from the ceiling, hammered into walls and had hot air blower heating. Then they found asbestos in everything. The pink bit of paper gives me or my family the right to sue if I develop asbestosis.
I think they get 14 -/- 6d if I keel over.

Yogagirl although you may feel you've had a negative response on here, please remember that were your dd in any of our classes we would absolutely have her best interests at heart. I find all the restrictions one of the hardest parts of the job, you are permanently thinking of all the things you could do better with more time/space/money. Is she allowed to wear pe kit to school under her uniform? My yr6s weren't officially but I just turned a blind eye

At our primary (1980s) there was a "swimming pool" (actually glorified paddling pool, but we loved it in the summer)From age 6 upwards we were separated in the changing rooms into boys and girls. No problems that I remember, ever.

But back to the original subject.....
I'm not sure why they have to get changed at all.
Where we live all kids just go to school in sports kit on PE day, and stay in it all day.
I doubt they get any more sweaty during PE than they do running about at lunchtime, and even if they did, changing without showering isnt really going to address the problem anyway.

Goblinchild yes I can't hammer or drill into walls or ceilings and I STILL have hot air heating

You are right, yoga. And screens may well be a possible solution in your school.

CG,

As all children are entitled to 2 hours of PE per week, there isn't just 1 PE day. Ours have 2 (1 indoor, 1 outdoor) for half of the year and 3 (1 indoor, 1 outdoor, 1 swimming) for the other half in order to meet this entitlement.

But if changing takes up 10 mins both before and after each PE lesson, then each hour is really more like 40 mins. in that case a single 90 min session on one day a week with no changing would actually give them more exercise, etc, than 2x 1hr with changing.

I think the whole "changing" thing is a relic of the days when school uniforms were ties / starched shirts / tailored pants or skirt and so unsuitable for PE.
Contemporary uniforms are usually more like polo shirt / sweatshirt / tracksuit pants and so quite compatible with PE.

Hopefully what this brings home to people are some of the ridiculous conditions teachers are expected to work in in terms of "classrooms" (room part optional since my last classroom was essentially the corridor - which meant I collected every single runner with behavioural difficulties who'd stormed out of class when we were doing something more interesting than their class)... asbestos, mice (I remember a kid in my final TP proudly finding a mousetrap the caretaker had shoved under some furniture - eek - least that school's finally been rebuilt), leaky roofs, ridiculous open plan "areas" or walk-through classrooms (very common round here when people un-open planned the fad of the 70s), classrooms that were essentially converted cupboads, prefabs, classrooms under 5 inches of dust (we had cleaners allergic to cleaning who'd clock on - chat for 2 hours and go home again), not to mention some of the fun with brand new builds - windows that open 2 centimetres and face the sun (not a pleasant experience to teach in that) or a friend who teaches in a brand new built school where the ICT suite gets so hot in the summer that they have to decamp to the corridor to cool down and be able to breathe.

Oh and classroom walls... not meant to be magnetic - that's just wronger than wrong!

My mum worked for the local paper for years - actually won journalism awards for her campaign on crumbling schools (including one poor head who showed up for their first day at school, promptly fell down a hole caused by a rotten floorboard and ended up in plaster for months) - things haven't moved on all that far really - we're still quite often working in buildings ranging in age from the Victorian (although they really knew how to knock up a school those guys) through the 1950s (lots round here), into the legacy of the open plan years (and subsequent completely drunk idiot with a ruler putting walls in in stupid places - my theory explaining several odd classroom arrangements) and into some of the current idiocy by architects with no clue about what the school actually needed (cupboards.... more cupboards and when you think you're done... double the cupboard space) - I went for an interview at a school getting a wonderful new early years unit built... the design team had ordered - 10 coat pegs, beautifully designed and artistically arranged on the wall - but utterly impractical for a class of 30!

We do what we can - no one goes into teaching trying (despite what people seem to think) to actively make kids' lives a misery, but we have to work within the constraints of the available resources in terms of space, money and staff available - life would be much easier if we could split ourselves in half but that's not part of the teacher training standards as of yet.

And not all schools have halls by the way. I used to work in quite a rural area and was at a cluster training session and it was quite a common theme among us that we often didn't have a proper hall space at all - just the largest available classroom that had been freed up for use for things like assemblies and the like. I also go into one school where the feat of them getting the entire key stage into their tiny hall for an assembly always makes me marvel - it's like military precision where each class goes and as the kids keep filing in you think they're never all going to fit in - but they do... I swear they should video it and YouTube it as it's utterly fantastic to watch.

Good post Emptyshell. One of the teacher's at DD's school was so badly electrocuted when plugging in a computer in the classroom that she was raced to hospital in an ambulance, kept in a week and then had months off school. If it had been a child I've no doubt they'd have been killed. School swept it under the carpet and said it was a freak accident. But someone I know who's an electrician said there must have been some sort of technical fault as there's meant to be some sort of safety switch that should have tripped.

Yes schools are falling down and not getting enough funding, but the government can afford to fund free schools for people who would otherwise educate their children privately.

Great post emptyshell.

At DC's school someone mounted a campaign to allow girls and boys of that age to change in different locations and they now do. The boys get changed in the classroom and the girls go off to the room that doubles as a sick bay.

I do however think that this is part of the reason that there is so much shyness about bodies (and future probs with teenage pregnancies etc..) in this Country. It just all goes towards mystifying the opposite sex in teenage years. Whilst I totally understand that there are issues of self-consciousness I just can't believe that in countries like Holland, Sweden, Germany etc....they are so buttoned up at such a young age. .

sick bay? Now that's a whole different thread.

At my DDs' primary school they all get changed separately from reception onwards (which i think is probably unnecessary,but still).In the infants one group is supervised by a TA, the other the teacher.The junior aged girls get changed in the toilets .It is a small school and very boy heavy so only 4 of them.I don't think at this age they need supervising getting changed-kind of defeats the object.I definitely don't think the Y5 and 6 boys should be changing in the same room as a female teacher.

"I definitely don't think the Y5 and 6 boys should be changing in the same room as a female teacher." Why not fairydoll?
It's a while since I taught that age group, but we certainly don't sit around watching them in their underwear! And it's certainly better than the option of leaving them unsupervised; far too many risks of silly and inappropriate or dangerous behaviour.

I used to teach yr6, in one class we had a small number of well behaved girls and a load of rowdy boys, so girls changed in the loo, I stayed in with the boys. They couldn't have given two hoots that I was there! In the sense of them getting changed that is. I sat at my desk (god I miss having a desk! But that is another thread!) and got on with stuff so that they didn't feel like I was "watching", but quite often one or more would strike up a conversation with me as they changed! I am a relatively young teacher, early 30s when I had them, but even still I think they view teaching staff as asexual, or mummy figures. I don't think they would be embarrassed having eg their friend's mum see them half dressed, teachers seem to fall into the same category!

And it can't be dealt with if the children have been sent off elsewhere to change! They really are more "exposed" if they are all off getting changed unsupervised, some children who wouldn't say boo to a goose with a teacher present can really surprise you when interacting with their peer group.

When I was that age I had already started my periods and was a bloody 28B in a bra! I would have been mortified if I had to change with the boys.

Abigail-because it defeats the object of separating boys and girls if then an opposite sex adult is in the room!!!

So what do you propose happens? Children left unsupervised?