No, but at least the girls have a top or one piece when swimming, and guy’s swimming trunks are usually longer than their underwear at that age. I know “training bras” exist, but most girls I knew didn’t wear anything on top until they at least had little mosquito bites, and often not even then.
That said, it did now occur to me a reason not to allow them to just use their normal clothes: We’re talking UK here, where they probably have uniforms. They might not be durable enough. Did you guys have recess, and did you wear your uniforms then?
Recess is known as playtime or break. It is usually short, 15-30minutes. So no-one changes out of uniform.
Uniforms are still pretty standard. Poorer families get help with the cost of the uniform and there are free school meals for the kids.
It is a social class based culture and uniforms help cut down snobbery and class prejudice. Whenever a school starts failing, a new headmaster will invariably bring back school uniforms to try an rebuilt the image and reputation of the school.
I remember PE lessons in those pre-puberty years. The girls wore a vest and blue pants. The boys a vest and short pants. Everyone wore ‘plimsolls’ or ‘sandshoes’. Standard, cheap canvas shoes with no laces and rubber soles for PE. No Nike or Adidas trainers in those days,
When kids took off their shirts and you saw the state of their vest (under shirt). Some parents did not wash their kids clothes very often. At that age innocent age you are pretty blind to the social distinctions that bother parents, but some of it filtered down even in the poorest areas.
Playing British Bulldog was great fun in the playground and Pirate in the gym. I was also pretty good at ‘Ball Tig’. A game of tag played with a rubber or tennis ball. One person is ‘it’ and can handle the ball with a full hand, everyone else has to hold it between two fists. If you are touched by someone who is 'it when hold the ball with your fists, you are caught and join them in trying to capture the others. You can also get caught if someone throws the ball at you and it touches you. You are allowed to fist the ball away are pick it from the ground with your fists, the throw it away when someone approaches, before they can touch you. This game expended a lot of energy during the lunch break and was enormous fun.
Whether kids still play these games in the school playground, I do not know. Parents were far less uptight about childrens safety in the past. You had to have a very good excuse and a note from your parents to excuse you from PE lessons. Teachers were allowed to impose corporal punishment on a whim and some of them were far too fond of hitting kids, as indeed, where some of the parents. It was a far more rigid and institutionalised culture, I guess. Preparing kids for the disciplines of the industrial workplace.:dubious:
Sounds too complex. We played dodge-ball (aka murder ball). Start out two teams on two sides of a basketball court, sty inside the lines. throw one or more volleyballs at each other. If you were hit by the other team’s throw, you were “out” and had to stand behind the other side’s back line of the court. From there you could grab the ball if it came in reach and also try to hit the opposition.
By the middle of the game, there were opposition members front and back. If you were hit but did not catch the ball, you joined the out. If you just dodged, typically the ball went through and you then had to dodge from the other end. Make it a 2-ball game and it got interesting. When your team had only one or two people left inside the court, it was like a shooting gallery.
“Murder Ball” because some bigger kids could throw a volleyball hard enough to hurt.
But still haven’t seen an answer- were boxers typical underwear for boys before about 1950? When did jockey shorts become the norm?
‘Fashion briefs’ and boxers came much later, in the late 80s amongst teenagers. There was a famous ad for Levi jeans where a male model undresses in a laundromat to wash his jeans, much to the appreciation of women present.
Not sure what it did for selling Levis, but sales of boxers really took off. Probably bought by women for the men in their life.
Ditto for my primary school in the UK. Underwear was the norm, not many parents in our are could afford full PE kits for their kids, especially when they’d quickly grow out of them. Things changed when I started grammar school at the age of 11. PE kits were mandatory there and that and the whole school uniform was a big outlay for my parents.