School sport: Link made between fitness and showering

[Northerner]

More than half of secondary school boys and two-thirds of girls never shower after PE, a study suggests.

The paper, in the European Journal of Sports Sciences, concludes pupils who do not shower are less active.

The researchers, from the University of Essex, say children may be holding back in PE lessons because of anxiety about showering.

But the study did not establish whether those who did not shower were unwilling to exert themselves during PE.

Public Health England says schools have an important role to play in shifting attitudes to encourage physical activity.

This study says showering routinely after PE is extremely rare.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30796304

We had no choice when I was a kid! 😱

 

[Copepod]

Interesting research. The next stage must be investigating if pupils are holding back / being less active during PE lessons to avoid getting sweaty and needing to shower. I wonder what types of showers? While the report mentioned showers being hot and functioning, I wonder if pupils are choosing to avoid shared showers and might be more willing to use cubicles? Admittedly these would take much more space, but they are provided at gyms etc. In the meantime removing the element of choice about showers might work? If you know you must shower, you might as well work up a sweat? There's also been a lot of coverage of "This girl can" campaign by Sport England recently - would be interesting to hear people's views of that, too.

I can't remember being embarrassed about shared showers at school, which were compulsory anyway. I didn't particularly enjoy the main school sports of hockey, netball and tennis, hated dance, but did enjoy athletics, cross country running, and minor sports such as swimming, volleyball and trampolining. Out of school, I swam lots for life saving, plus did a lot of outdoor water and hill actvities with Sea Rangers, Guides & Rangers / Ventures, so that corresponds with pupils who are active outside school being more willing to shower. These days, my favourite actvities don't usually have showers near to multi-day mountain running / orienteering events, so a stream is used for a cold wash, with perhaps a folding dog bowl of hot water for face, body, feet etc.

 

[Sally71]

We had to have shared showers after PE when I was at secondary school and most of us hated it. Nobody checked whether you actually washed properly though so we used to run along quickly under the shower heads avoiding most of the water! I think it was more about not wanting to be naked in front of everyone else rather than not wanting to be clean, although not having to spend ages drying yourself afterwards was a bit of a bonus!

The trouble is, kids of that age are VERY self conscious and can be quite cruel to each other, especially girls when their bodies are developing. The main topics of conversation used to be "do you wear a bra yet" and "have you started yet" and if you were too much in front or behind everyone else you felt like an outcast. The fact that you can't do anything about it anyway, but will all get there in the end, doesn't really register with teens!

Individual showers sounds like it might help with this problem, if you could get round the space constraints; I certainly would have been less against it if nobody else could see me. I'm sure there are some people who are just lazy or soap-dodgers though 😛

Oh and they always called a register in our PE class. If you were present you had to shout "Yes, Here" when your name was called. If it was the wrong time of the month you were excused from showering but had to shout "Yes Period" when your name was called 😱

 

[Redkite]

I absolutely HATED school showers! They were communal of course, and since you only had about 3 minutes before the next lesson, there was only time to run through and just get your feet and shoulders wet, so not proper washing - and no soap or shower gels. No teenager wants to show their body to all and sundry, and it's totally embarrassing for the girls for everyone to know when they're having their period. A teacher used to stand at one end with the register, making sure nobody kept their towel round them as they went through the showers! I would do anything to avoid P.E., not because I didn't like the sports, but because I loathed the showers.

When my son started middle school aged 9, I knew there were showers in the changing rooms, and at a meeting with the Head about his diabetes, I asked about them with regard to detaching pump etc. She said they were not used, and that schools were no longer allowed to send pupils through communal showers due to child protection regulations, ie can't have a teacher supervising naked pupils. So I assumed school showers were now (thankfully) a thing of the past everywhere. I've no problem with individual cubicles and adequate time for pupils to use them, but totally against communal ones.

 

[HOBIE]

You were lucky ! Used to live in cardboard box in middle of road ! Get up 2hrs before we went to bed. Showers "Luxury"

 

[Copepod]

Surely it can't be beyond the abilities of schools and teachers to timetable PE in lessons long enough to allow showering? Alongside some empathy / guidance by teachers about body embarrassment [perhaps in PHSE, rather than PE lessons], and replacing communal showers with cubicles. At least in new build schools, and eventually in all locations.

If young people never get into the habit of being physically active enough to work up a sweat and need a shower, then perhaps they never will. Plus, playing fields usually mean mud, although perhaps less for hockey than football and rugby, although there seems to be a trend towards all weather pitches.

 

[trophywench]

Well at PE lessons in the gym, we were allowed a 'good wash' by choice rather than a shower by our head of girls PE and her employees. So I always opted for that - plus of course internal san pro wasn't widely used in those days, so that was always the instruction - so you could just strip your sweaty T-shirt off and have a wash, apply some more deodorant and get dressed.

On the playing field though it wasn't a choice as no hot water to the basins in the pavilion, unless you had your period. And you didn't have to yell - teacher would stand by the door as you went into the changing room at both locations and you just had a quiet word - 'Period, Mrs A' and they would nod.

Mind we were an extremely civilised school - said Mrs A decided once we were about 13 instead of gym - we could all do aerobics - or 'Keep Fit' as it was known in those days. And we loved it, all done to music and although the pianist did indeed thump out tap-dancing favourites like 'When the Red Red Robin' etc, she wasn't there every week, so we got a really good selection. of records She'd often ask 'Has anyone got so and so's new single? - it would be great for this exercise, wouldn't it, girls?' and someone would usually oblige next week.

I mean - people didn't have showers then - you either had a wash or a bath - we didn't even have running hot water at home till after I'd left school anyway. And nobody ever told me I smelled or had a ring round my neck !

My mother would have made mincemeat of me if I ever did so it was never an option frankly.

 

[Bloden]

School showers...what's that?!!

 

[Abi]

Much hated communal showers at my school. Some teachers were more laid back if pupils elected not to shower
I suspect that not showering is an effect of not having a vigorous workout and sweating rather the other way round
I really believe though that there is little point in making pupils who are poorly co ordinated and frankly awkward and clumsy (such as myself) partake in ball games and competitive sports when they find them humiliating or at best are totally disinterested. However, I agree that most people need to be more physically active and perhaps partaking in some type of physically strenuous activity with others ( to encourage the so called "team spirit" which may or may not be overrated as many sports people seem to have extremely big egos and possess little sensitivity to those who are less able or interested in sport) would be a good compromise. I'm thinking of something practical and with a result at the end rather than aimlessly kicking or batting a ball around- maybe gardening- and later enjoying the produce- as digging is pretty strenuous - could be considered a team activity as the school as a whole would benefit-

 

[Northerner]

Sport at my school was rubbish for people like me - chiefly rugby and cricket. I hated rugby and cricket was just boring because you never got to do anything other than field or sit on the bench, never getting to bat. We had to shower after rugby as it was always so muddy. There was half an hour in the gym each week also. When we got into the sixth form we could pick our own sport and me and two friends picked swimming - although we actually just went home early! 😱 They really should be more flexible with what they offer - if you are foced into games that you have no aptitude for then of course you are going to learn to hate sport.

They did try something called 'community work' where you went out and helped old people with their gardens, or just a chat, which was interesting.

 

[Copepod]

The topic of what sports we did at school and what we do these days often crops up when marshalling - at a dirt run [muddy trail run, with 5km, 10km and 15k, options] today.

Nearly all marshals [some of whom are children who come along with theit parents, and are valued members of the team] actively compete in sports, often some form of running, whether track, trail, road, orienteering, mountain etc; cycling, whether road, MTB etc; swimming; triathlon; plus others, including various martial arts, team ball games, tennis, badminton, gymnastics etc. Several of us have observed that we did not leave school with an adequate level of skill and / or knowledge of rules / tactics of major sports [generally hockey or netball for females, football or rugby for males, with some femal football and some male hockey], unless we played for school teams, so that we do not consider ourselves able to play any of these games as adults. Surely it would have been worth investing one or two lessons per year about the rules of the games we played. Personally, I was happy to run up and down the wing of the hockey pitch, but very rarely had any idea where I was supposed to be. Volleyball, which was taught from scratch as an option in 3rd year comprehensive school, was the only game of which I have a working knowledge, so that I have been able to play vaguely competently whenever a net and an even number of people are around.

Swimming, I feel has a special value, because of its role in water safety, and as an essential prerequesite for kayaking, canoeing, sailing, rowing, life saving, SCUBA diving etc. Although most of the time I swim because I like it, plus when recovering from a knee injury, deep water running with a float strapped round my trunk was very helpful.