Primary School PE Changng Room Arrangements

*Louise*

Let us know how you get on with chatting to the teacher

Darren_G

Mine are all now at high school, but when they were at primary school, the girls either got changed first or the boys got changed in a different classroom - depending on who was teaching them PE

choccybikkie_2

fluffnutter wrote: »

We've come a long way from doing PE in our knickers. Imagine doing that now

Haha, when i tell my kids we used to do PE in our vests and knickers they don't believe me!

Well, they'd be half right..........most PE days I'd start to undress, only to find i'd forgotten to put knickers on under my tights!!!! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
Oh the shame of borrowing spare school knickers

dizziblonde

choccybikkie wrote: »

Haha, when i tell my kids we used to do PE in our vests and knickers they don't believe me!

Kid I tutor didn't believe me that when I was a little girl there were only three channels on telly and it stopped overnight (I remember watching the Channel 4 launch)... then the cheeky so and so asked me if it was still in black and white then!

The PE thing is often either limits to the layout of the school - while lots of nice new builds have changing rooms, many schools are still struggling with things like having roofs that don't leak or windows with entire panes of glass in them, and most don't have dedicated PE halls either - you go one milisecond over your allocated PE time and there are a line of very antsy dinnerladies trying to put up dining tables around you... or its supervision issues - PE's generally one of those slots that you're definitely NOT going to have a TA for (Maths and English - yep... Science - if yer lucky... PE - no way!) so if you split the class into two - you can't split yourself into two with them (would make life a heck of a lot easier). So you either end up with one group changing in the toilets - with the ensuring supervision issues there, and potential for bullying when you're at the age of changing bodies etc (cos girls on their own can be blooming nasty)... rolling screens or arrangements with curtains or whatever which have to be stored the rest of the week... or systems whereby one half gets to stand in the corridor while the other half gets changed and swaps over - meaning it takes twice as long, and the lot waiting in the corridor have made such a din that they've disturbed five other classes... or the great teacher weight-loss solution of running up and down between two changing rooms or classrooms trying to be in two places at once.

They're the usual work-arounds I've seen in operation - none of them work fully - and no schools have spare staff to chuck around helping supervise two lots of kids getting changed for PE to an extent I'm personally comfortable with (like I mentioned - I get really uncomfortable when it's a group of girls vanishing into the girls' toilets as the potential for body comments and upset has to be running pretty high there. Perhaps we need new build schools to be built with those retractable dividers down the middle of classrooms or something - to half-separate the classes up to the teacher's desk... but considering most of the new builds I've been in have had absolutely bog-all thought into actually making them useable buildings as schools and not just pretty looking things to impress visiting council and education bods - I'd doubt that's ever going to happen.

Always particularly love it when the changing rooms have been fitted two corridors apart - making it impossible for you to even stand halfway between and monitor both lots!

Lunar_Eclipse

Mupette wrote: »

It's now we have issues, which was never there when we were all kids,

These things still happened back then. My sister started her periods when she was 9, in Y4, decades ago. Medically it shouldn't have happened, she was small and slim, but it did and still does.

rachel90

When I was that age, we used to get changed in our classrooms. Boys and girls mixed together. I had started my monthlys and was very embarrassed about changing etc so my mum spoke to the school and they agreed to allow me to change in the girls toilets.

Ames

I started my periods when I was 10, the third in my class to do so (in 1991). I hated having to change for PE, the three of us that were well developed used to get changed in a circle facing each other, and hold up our blouses to try and stop anyone from seeing us.

The year before that was ok, we had a male teacher and we'd just say that we'd forgotten to wear a vest and could we change in the loos. In year 6 though it was a female teacher, and to get to the loos we had to go through another classroom, so it wasn't an option.

I was really angry a couple of years later when I found out that even primary schools are supposed to have separate changing areas and that my parents knew that and hadn't bothered to even mention it to the school.

Gingham_R

It's not appropriate for them to have to get changed infront of each other any more. That's fine when they're little. They're too old now. At my sons' school, the older classes get changed in shifts - the boys have to wait outside the classroom for the girls, then vice versa. Not ideal, but FAR better than expecting girls to deal with the boys seeing that they're wearing a sanitary towel or bra.

kazmc

An update....
Been in to speak with my DDs teacher and she was lovely. She said that she even feels a little awkward with the boys getting changed in front of her and she doesnt know where to look! She is a nan bless her.
The other year 5 teacher is a man and she is going to have a word with him to see if all the boys can go in his classroom next door to change and she has all the girls. Makes sense.
She said if that doesnt happen then she has given my DD permission to go and change in the toilets, although that really does single my DD out so I really hope the first option is reached.
So a positive meeting :T

onlyroz

When I was at school we all changed in the classroom and we used to do PE in our vest and pants. I don't remember it being a problem.