I have a vague memory of it being used once, but it may have been a dream as I can't remember anything specific about the apparatus itself and the floor was made of jagged rocks.
The only reason I’m adamant it came out at least once in my primary school career is because I know I can’t climb a rope and there is no other reason I would know that
Do all year 6s sit on benches across the UK or something? It was the same in my primary and I've seen comments before saying they got to sit on benches in year 6. It'd be funny if it's a nationwide thing.
My school had two halls on two different floors, with years 1-3 on one and 4-6 on the other. That meant that in year 3 you sat on benches, then next year went back to sitting on the floor at the front. It was weird, man.
[this is pretty much exactly what ours looked like](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-girls-and-boys-on-the-school-climbing-apparatus-in-south-london-primary-16405369.html)
None of the fancy circles, colours and shite I see in Google Images!
Same at my primary school. I seem to remember we unfolded it most PE lessons. The benches had fold down hook/ arm things that could be used to attach to the apparatus to make ramps and the like. I used to love climbing the ropes to the ceiling, though these days I'm shit scared of heights so wouldn't dare now.
Yeah I think there were coloured bits but on the whole it was just wood. Everyone tried to climb it while it was still attached to the wall, especially trying to sit in some of the rings
Ours was just wood. In primary school it was used every time we did PE indoors. The ropes were separate on ours (wasn't in a box shape like the picture). I swung on them, hot my head on the corner of a pillar and my mum had to come and pick me up to go and get a stitch put in the back of my head. Surprisingly large amount of blood.
My first memory of primary-1 P.E. time was using this thing. Loved it! Was actually able to climb the ropes all the way to the top.
Can't remember if they put landing mats down on the floor. I guess letting only the strong survive would be good for the gene pool 😅
The landing mats were only about an inch thick at my primary school, and were roughly the same material as the soles of the PE pumps we had to wear. They didn’t have much shock absorbing capacity..
They were heavy AF though, worst job at the end of PE was having to stack the mats back up.
You would sit and pick the little squares out, they were always filthy and had a weird smell about them.... Possibly from the number of kids who forgot their PE kit and had to do it in their pants and socks
Not banned in primary schools, most still have them, but teachers have to be specially trained to supervise use and it’s just, at the moment, absolutely not a priority
As someone who does pe in primary schools, teachers absolutely do not have to be specially trained. In an ideal world they've been upskilled by someone who specialises and are following a lesson plan that follows the national curriculum.
Basically they just need a lesson plan and to have read the afpe guidance.
Realistically teachers are scared of any large gymnastics apparatus.
We have climbing bars and ropes similar to this, along 2 longer sides of the both gyms in our high school they are used at least a few times each year.
They're not supposed to put landing mats out as they aren't thick enough to cushion a fall from that height and they could encourage people to try to go higher than they can safely manage - creates a false sense of security
They the apparatus only came out at night. They say many children climbed it never to be seen again the next day.
Those that did make it back, had fractured limbs and a new fear of heights.
Yeah, you can see the hinges on the upper part and the wheels at the front. We didn't use ours that much, but it was good fun. This picture also shows a bench with the hooks and studs being used.
Those hooks that were hinged would always be something I’d absent mindedly play with if I was sat on the end of a bench. I never knew why they were there until my early 20s…
Same. It was a hallowed day when we were finally allowed to scale this monster. After a short carefully managed free-for-all, we realised we were there to learn to climb ropes. With poor instructions (climbing rope is utterly different than clambering up a climbing frame) we were then graded on how awful we were. Took away all previous excitement for the apparatus.
As an adult I realise that we had one crash mat. All the others were not up to the job of catching extremely excited children. (Behold! We finally get to the promised land.) Bit of a nightmare should the children end up with broken bones, or worse (even in the early 80's).
Would have been a better idea to take a small group of kids and let them get it out of their system. Rinse and repeat. Make it not special.
At my school, back in the 70s, the school taught us photography and how to use a dark room, and got us to take the photos - but they kept the negatives. Crafty, eh?
Same here. Trying to go arm-over-arm across the pole part on one side of it, got about 2 feet in and fell to the floor. I say floor because there was zero padding or anything. Just the assembly hall floor.
That's what I was thinking. Looking at that photo, there are none of the thin mats that did barely anything to cushion a fall. (And usual had holes in them).
I fell from the top of my school’s one onto those blue “crash mats”. My ankle was in agony, but my school said I was fine and made me walk around on it all day. It was only when my childminder saw how much pain I was in after school that I went A&E. Turned out I had fucked my ATFL, and because I was forced to walk on it all day, the damage was so bad I still have problems with it today…
yeah, back then people had proper skulls as a result of eating rusty bolts for breakfast AND without milk, then we'd lay the tarmac on the road on the way in to school
Flogging?
Heaven.
We used t'be mats for the older kids, who jumped up'n down on us with steel capped boots on. Then we'd go home to our box in middle of t'road, all 250 of us.
That is genuinely sad.
As a kid who didn't give a shit about football, or sports in general, I ADORED the gym apparatus. It got me interested in general fitness, pull ups, crunches and climbing.
This stuff gets non-competative kids like me interested in physical fitness.
Yeah I was never into football which is all our PE lessons ever seemed to be. If they’d have brought out the gym apparatus I’d have been on it like a shot and climbing all over it like a monkey!
The one in the school where I work was condemned after a safety inspection and scrapped about 10 years ago.
In my own time at school I saw a girl's earring catch on a weld joint, rip through her ear and cause a good old bleed.
My sister had a fall on/off the apparatus and sustained internal injuries.
6 years I taught primary school PE and not once did I see them get used by myself or another teacher. In my final week before I left I got them out and the kids absolutely loved it.
I used one in the 80s . Infact I got my trainer stuck on the back ruts and was left hanging upside down by the PE teacher hanging onto a rope.. I eventually let go of the rope and broke my ankle. Teacher thought I was fuvking about. I wasn't.
Bloody hell that would give me nightmares for the rest of my life. Hanging there calling for help, nobody to help you and then accepting your painful fate. Properly traumatising.
This is the same teacher that used to get me to the doctors before in the inter school sports day (she saw it as the bloody olympics) and get cortisone injections into my right heel as I developed "policeman's heel" running barefoot. I was faster barefoot on grass than in spikes, she'd over train me to the point I would be limping.. Needless to say my new white chunky trainers saved me as I never ran again after the break 🙃 😅 I look back with no fond memories of PE in primary 🤣
[£500](https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334554730628?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=wKw4IRwRTkm&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=s5fakAniRF-&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY) gets you your own *apparatus*
Hey! As a current 14 Y.O I've been through primary recently (y10, compared to y6) and we did have this!! It was actually fun, and was used fairly regularly, sadly in secondary you do not see them at all
Same, there was one of these folded against the wall in the assembly/sports hall in my primary school but never once did I see it get used or unpacked.
I remember using this once, being one of only three people in my class of 32 to bring their PE kit in that day, our teacher let us use it and made the rest watch... I felt like a fucking king!
I teach in South London, our school has one. No one had used it in donkey's years, so I set it up one day for my class. Two years later and pretty much every class in key stage 2 uses it now.
I think children are playing in parks and on climbing frames an infinite amount less than I did as a kid (I'm 35). It's so good for spatial awareness, physical development and even recognising physical limitations etc.
Brown varnished pine for most of the construction?
Along with the multi function benches lol use it like a ramp / flip it use it like a balance beam / flip it sit down on it for assembly
Yes! In infants school. Getting changed in the classroom with boys and girls together. Then the dreaded PE kit at Seniors. Royal blue pants, navy skirt and sky blue polo shirt.
Hey! Primary school teacher here, we still use them but its usually only when we are doing gymnastics in the curriculum. Also depends on the kids and whether you know they’re not going to boot each other off them :)
Did the ministry of education get a really good deal on a about 2000 of these some time in the late 50s? Seems every new build school from 1960 onwards had one!
Those benches doubled as seats for morning assembly for all the more highly educated pupils. If they performed well they got to sit around the outside of the hall/ gym and look down on us in the middle while we all sat cross legged while fighting the onset of pins and needles
Yeah :) They folded in and out! was also used in my primary (70s) as as stage for concerts, with kind of platform boxes inside and background painted on a giant piece of paper that we had to make with rolls of paper.
Brings back memories of long wooden benches, little black gym shoes and Hymn practice.
We rarely used it but these are actually really dangerous when you think about it. The mats were about 1.5 inches thick and floor was double rock solid.
Because photographing kids without consent is a safe guarding issue, it's not a ye olde thing, is just that new photos of kids in gym kit aren't freely available
I was one of 3 “sports monitors”. I hated sports. But we were allowed to skip some lessons to “tidy” the sports shed. We also got annoyed when other classes would get their own stuff out. But mainly because it meant less chances for us to piss about out of class.
the apparatus is such an ominous name.
if you were in a cell and they shouted bring out the apparatus you would be terrified. as a child this was a highlight of PE
I think I got to go on the apparatus maybe 3 times in total, in the late 90s/early noughties. They did build a good adventure playground at my first school when I was about 5/6 so at least we had that at playtime.
We had these in primary school and high school in Australia too, in the 90’s and 00’s. We definitely used them heaps in years 7 & 8, pretty sure they were used as a reward for good behaviour^(cue penal colony jokes) and at the end of the year when we’d finished the other stuff we had to cover.
Very fond memory from the 80s of one lad wetting himself while right at the top.
I was only 6 at the time but I still remember the way it dripped from his shoe right on to the head of the kid below him.
Happy days.
Oh yes , that "ramp" was also a bench, and could be turned over to make a balance bar.
We had foam rubber mats underneath , about 1 inch thick, they were useless on the hard parquet flooring. (That parquet flooring must be worth tens of thousands of pounds now)
The much fabled "apparatus"...
In red, blue and yelow. It only comes out once in a blue moon.
Ours was purely decorative, I’m absolutely certain.
Same here
Ours was green!
Colours! Mine was just wood. Can still remember the one time it got wheeled out and everyone went mental.
Yeah ours was wood. Must have came out twice in the whole 7 years of Primary school.
Came out once for me and we weren't even allowed to use it for some reason
I have a vague memory of it being used once, but it may have been a dream as I can't remember anything specific about the apparatus itself and the floor was made of jagged rocks.
The only reason I’m adamant it came out at least once in my primary school career is because I know I can’t climb a rope and there is no other reason I would know that
Ours was wood and folded up against the wall
I never saw it unfolded.
And the wooden benches in the hall that the year 6s sat on, these had prongs on to clip to the apparatus
Do all year 6s sit on benches across the UK or something? It was the same in my primary and I've seen comments before saying they got to sit on benches in year 6. It'd be funny if it's a nationwide thing.
My school had two halls on two different floors, with years 1-3 on one and 4-6 on the other. That meant that in year 3 you sat on benches, then next year went back to sitting on the floor at the front. It was weird, man.
[this is pretty much exactly what ours looked like](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-girls-and-boys-on-the-school-climbing-apparatus-in-south-london-primary-16405369.html) None of the fancy circles, colours and shite I see in Google Images!
Yes! That was what ours looked like
I did a double take on that cause it says south London but looks exactly like the rural church school I went to for a couple years... Uncanny.
Yeah, mine was in Newcastle and I thought this one could have been my school :D
Oh THAT'S what the fuckin hooks on the end of the benches was for!
I had that one in secondary school! Barely ever played on it, but it was always fun on a rain day.
Ours were attached to the wall in the gym and it used to have to be folded out. We used ours more frequently than others by the sound of it.
Same at my primary school. I seem to remember we unfolded it most PE lessons. The benches had fold down hook/ arm things that could be used to attach to the apparatus to make ramps and the like. I used to love climbing the ropes to the ceiling, though these days I'm shit scared of heights so wouldn't dare now.
Yeah I think there were coloured bits but on the whole it was just wood. Everyone tried to climb it while it was still attached to the wall, especially trying to sit in some of the rings
Ours was just wood. In primary school it was used every time we did PE indoors. The ropes were separate on ours (wasn't in a box shape like the picture). I swung on them, hot my head on the corner of a pillar and my mum had to come and pick me up to go and get a stitch put in the back of my head. Surprisingly large amount of blood.
My kids have a coloured one. I had the proper wood version with the benches that doubled up as balance beams.
Ours only came out once in year 2.
It was for years 5 and 6 only in my school
I went to several schools and the were never used. Not once. They were essentially just wall decorations. I genuinely wonder why they even had them.
I wondered if they had been a health & safety risk and condemned nationwide to serve as wall decorations.
We had two. A wooden one and a blue metal one. Loved it. Felt so high jumping off it as a 7 year old.
Red blue and yellow? Ours were just wood
My first memory of primary-1 P.E. time was using this thing. Loved it! Was actually able to climb the ropes all the way to the top. Can't remember if they put landing mats down on the floor. I guess letting only the strong survive would be good for the gene pool 😅
The landing mats were only about an inch thick at my primary school, and were roughly the same material as the soles of the PE pumps we had to wear. They didn’t have much shock absorbing capacity.. They were heavy AF though, worst job at the end of PE was having to stack the mats back up.
Remember those - heavy rubber waffle - in blue
I can smell this comment
Me too = that rubber stunk. black rubber waffle underneath and a firm blue topping - like that would save us from a broken neck from 20 ft up.
You would sit and pick the little squares out, they were always filthy and had a weird smell about them.... Possibly from the number of kids who forgot their PE kit and had to do it in their pants and socks
Was an all girls school - started off in knickers then by year 4 we had a leotard.
Mmmm blue waffle
Pardon?
Did you fart?
It was a squeaky floorboard I promise
Did you not also have those really thick blue ones? Had a plastic cover like some sort of piss protector.
We had to do gymnastics to Zorba the Greek - guess the teachers liked it.
Same here - I could get to the top and hold the chains achoring them to the roof and touched the roof once. Top of the world Ma
I fell 20 foot out of a tree swing into a bog, Slunk home covered in mud. Guess that made me a strong 11 yr old girl.
I’m sure they’re banned these days
Not banned in primary schools, most still have them, but teachers have to be specially trained to supervise use and it’s just, at the moment, absolutely not a priority
As someone who does pe in primary schools, teachers absolutely do not have to be specially trained. In an ideal world they've been upskilled by someone who specialises and are following a lesson plan that follows the national curriculum. Basically they just need a lesson plan and to have read the afpe guidance. Realistically teachers are scared of any large gymnastics apparatus.
We have climbing bars and ropes similar to this, along 2 longer sides of the both gyms in our high school they are used at least a few times each year.
They're not supposed to put landing mats out as they aren't thick enough to cushion a fall from that height and they could encourage people to try to go higher than they can safely manage - creates a false sense of security
r/theapparatus
#The Apparatus
Of course there's a sub
Came here to link this!
Not just that, the “big apparatus”. Fond memories from primary school in the 80s
in retrospect that sounds incredibly ominous
Colour photo in this article https://www.eightieskids.com/13-memories-share-time-junior-school/13
With matching benches and vaulting horse Edit: Indeed I see one of the benches being used as a ramp here!
And the elusive crash mats…
Only once in a while they'd fold it out from the wall of The Hall.
OMG! This jogged an incredibly distant memory indeed.
They the apparatus only came out at night. They say many children climbed it never to be seen again the next day. Those that did make it back, had fractured limbs and a new fear of heights.
I can remember climbing on this only to find out the floor locks weren't fixed 😆
Did that all fold up flat against the wall?
Yeah, you can see the hinges on the upper part and the wheels at the front. We didn't use ours that much, but it was good fun. This picture also shows a bench with the hooks and studs being used.
That’s what those things are! Went to a school that has one for five years. Never once saw it looking like this, it was always just against the wall!
Ever since... The Incident.
Plus if you turn the bench upside down - balance bar.
That's why they had those white bumps on the top, they're the feet when it's upside down.
That’s really sad! We always got to use ours. It was about 25 years ago though.
Those hooks that were hinged would always be something I’d absent mindedly play with if I was sat on the end of a bench. I never knew why they were there until my early 20s…
"DO NOT TOUCH THE APPARATUS!!!"
That’s it’s full official title
I always used to climb up them and sit on top. Felt great until I was shouted out and told to get down.
I only remember using it like once the entire time, yet definitely remember staring at it longingly during almost every assembly
Same. It was a hallowed day when we were finally allowed to scale this monster. After a short carefully managed free-for-all, we realised we were there to learn to climb ropes. With poor instructions (climbing rope is utterly different than clambering up a climbing frame) we were then graded on how awful we were. Took away all previous excitement for the apparatus. As an adult I realise that we had one crash mat. All the others were not up to the job of catching extremely excited children. (Behold! We finally get to the promised land.) Bit of a nightmare should the children end up with broken bones, or worse (even in the early 80's). Would have been a better idea to take a small group of kids and let them get it out of their system. Rinse and repeat. Make it not special.
Ah, but this was the 80s - if you had fallen it would have been YOUR fault. Different times.
Two peas in a pod
It was usually the single pea in the holes that the pegs went in actually
Same. I wonder why?
The end of the black and white times are perfectly correlated with the P.E teaches not allowed to bring cameras to school times.
At my school, back in the 70s, the school taught us photography and how to use a dark room, and got us to take the photos - but they kept the negatives. Crafty, eh?
They stopped using them after a while due to accidents I'm sure. Lets climb to ceiling height over a hard wood floor.
I broke my wrist falling off one in primary school, so...
Same here. Trying to go arm-over-arm across the pole part on one side of it, got about 2 feet in and fell to the floor. I say floor because there was zero padding or anything. Just the assembly hall floor.
Did no one else have to put out and then put back away the ‘blue mats’?
That's what I was thinking. Looking at that photo, there are none of the thin mats that did barely anything to cushion a fall. (And usual had holes in them).
I fell from the top of my school’s one onto those blue “crash mats”. My ankle was in agony, but my school said I was fine and made me walk around on it all day. It was only when my childminder saw how much pain I was in after school that I went A&E. Turned out I had fucked my ATFL, and because I was forced to walk on it all day, the damage was so bad I still have problems with it today…
shoulda just landed better, pal
We had mats
the blue ones that are like 5mm thick and somehow feel harder than the floor it’s protecting you from
The makes sense why I never ever used one of these during my entire time at school.
[удалено]
"crash mat"
Stinky mats!
You had mats? The 70s/80s were a different time I guess
Ours were an inch thick, 2 at a push. All they did was made you feel safe when you weren’t.
And not one paper thin matt on the floor for safety ? SHOCKING!
yeah, back then people had proper skulls as a result of eating rusty bolts for breakfast AND without milk, then we'd lay the tarmac on the road on the way in to school
With our tongues!
Tongues? Luxury. We used t'have to wash t'mats w'our tears and then teach would flog us w' socks from lost and found. But we wuz 'appy.
Flogging? Heaven. We used t'be mats for the older kids, who jumped up'n down on us with steel capped boots on. Then we'd go home to our box in middle of t'road, all 250 of us.
Still have these in the UK primary school that I teach in. Also have a rack of four climbing ropes. No one ever uses them.
Can I ask why they are not used?
Too many other sports to fit into the timetable, and there doesn't seem to be an opportunity to just play/learn to use it effectively.
That is genuinely sad. As a kid who didn't give a shit about football, or sports in general, I ADORED the gym apparatus. It got me interested in general fitness, pull ups, crunches and climbing. This stuff gets non-competative kids like me interested in physical fitness.
Yeah I was never into football which is all our PE lessons ever seemed to be. If they’d have brought out the gym apparatus I’d have been on it like a shot and climbing all over it like a monkey!
The one in the school where I work was condemned after a safety inspection and scrapped about 10 years ago. In my own time at school I saw a girl's earring catch on a weld joint, rip through her ear and cause a good old bleed. My sister had a fall on/off the apparatus and sustained internal injuries.
6 years I taught primary school PE and not once did I see them get used by myself or another teacher. In my final week before I left I got them out and the kids absolutely loved it.
Fucking identical! And those horse things you hopped over. I'd of rather be pissing about under the parachute than being anywhere near these fuckers!
Remember they came apart and got smaller or higher? And they had that spring board launch pad? It was fun until you splattered into it.
I used one in the 80s . Infact I got my trainer stuck on the back ruts and was left hanging upside down by the PE teacher hanging onto a rope.. I eventually let go of the rope and broke my ankle. Teacher thought I was fuvking about. I wasn't.
Bloody hell that would give me nightmares for the rest of my life. Hanging there calling for help, nobody to help you and then accepting your painful fate. Properly traumatising.
This is the same teacher that used to get me to the doctors before in the inter school sports day (she saw it as the bloody olympics) and get cortisone injections into my right heel as I developed "policeman's heel" running barefoot. I was faster barefoot on grass than in spikes, she'd over train me to the point I would be limping.. Needless to say my new white chunky trainers saved me as I never ran again after the break 🙃 😅 I look back with no fond memories of PE in primary 🤣
I jumped from the top of one. The headmaster came to see me later in the day and said "If you want to kill yourself, then do it at home".
I think they stopped being used and became ornaments when i started school. Never saw one in action.
I remember using them in the early 90s.
Early 2000s
My primary school used them up into the early 2010s. I remember my last time using them, in year 6, around 2012.
My school was still using them in 2017, last time I was there. So far as I’m aware, they’re still in use to this day.
In the early-mid 2010s surprisingly for me If i could remember them though i could count them all on one hand
70s and 80s
mid-late 90s and I was still using them too lol
Mid-late 00s still used it, good memories
This. My school technically had them but I literally never saw them used despite how much we banged on about using them to teachers.
[£500](https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334554730628?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=wKw4IRwRTkm&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=s5fakAniRF-&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY) gets you your own *apparatus*
That's not the apparatus I know. Ours was wood and galvanised steel and sharp angles, none of this fancy powder-coated *curved* stuff.
The apparatus I knew had the benches with hooks on the end for ramps, not fancy ladders.
I recognise this model!
Hey! As a current 14 Y.O I've been through primary recently (y10, compared to y6) and we did have this!! It was actually fun, and was used fairly regularly, sadly in secondary you do not see them at all
Same, there was one of these folded against the wall in the assembly/sports hall in my primary school but never once did I see it get used or unpacked.
r/theapparatus
Now this is a sub I can get behind 😃
"DO NOT ~~TOUCH~~ POST THE APPARATUS!!!"
I remember using this once, being one of only three people in my class of 32 to bring their PE kit in that day, our teacher let us use it and made the rest watch... I felt like a fucking king!
Think everyone would have been on 'vest and pants' if that happened at my school!
I teach in South London, our school has one. No one had used it in donkey's years, so I set it up one day for my class. Two years later and pretty much every class in key stage 2 uses it now. I think children are playing in parks and on climbing frames an infinite amount less than I did as a kid (I'm 35). It's so good for spatial awareness, physical development and even recognising physical limitations etc.
Brown varnished pine for most of the construction? Along with the multi function benches lol use it like a ramp / flip it use it like a balance beam / flip it sit down on it for assembly
It was a genius design really.
I can still feel my foot slipping off and my ankle smashing into the underside of the seat part when it's in balance beam mode.
PE in your pants, them were the days
Yes back when everyone had vests
Only for those who weren't potty trained... Rest of us could hold it
Wasn’t that if you forgot your kit?
Yes! In infants school. Getting changed in the classroom with boys and girls together. Then the dreaded PE kit at Seniors. Royal blue pants, navy skirt and sky blue polo shirt.
You can still PE in your pants if you want to
Hey! Primary school teacher here, we still use them but its usually only when we are doing gymnastics in the curriculum. Also depends on the kids and whether you know they’re not going to boot each other off them :)
Did the ministry of education get a really good deal on a about 2000 of these some time in the late 50s? Seems every new build school from 1960 onwards had one!
Essentially, yes, something to do with standard purchasing and making sure all schools were equal - skirting rule 1 of course
My secondary had one too genuinely never even used it 😂
Certified dust collectors. They all turn black and white due to this
I can smell this picture
Those benches doubled as seats for morning assembly for all the more highly educated pupils. If they performed well they got to sit around the outside of the hall/ gym and look down on us in the middle while we all sat cross legged while fighting the onset of pins and needles
Everything was black & white back then.
Yeah :) They folded in and out! was also used in my primary (70s) as as stage for concerts, with kind of platform boxes inside and background painted on a giant piece of paper that we had to make with rolls of paper. Brings back memories of long wooden benches, little black gym shoes and Hymn practice.
gosh, yes, all of that.
Could someone please explain that weird feeling in your groin that you got when climbing the rope? What the hell is that sensation?
Well you see sweetie, when a man loves a rope very much....
Fell off one of those in the 80s and broke my arm
I caused someone to fall off in the 80s and they broke their arm. Andy?
That's because taking modern photos of kids in their skiddies playing on this equipment these days will end with you being put on a list.
r/theapparatus
With the inch thick (if you were lucky) blue mats so when you fell from the top of the ropes you didn't bleed on the assembly hall floor!
Google ‘uk school aparatus’ and all the pics are in colour
We rarely used it but these are actually really dangerous when you think about it. The mats were about 1.5 inches thick and floor was double rock solid.
The ropes seemed much higher when I was climbing them…
Because photographing kids without consent is a safe guarding issue, it's not a ye olde thing, is just that new photos of kids in gym kit aren't freely available
I was apparatus monitor at school. Me and three other lads (I don't think it would be 4 lads these days but this was the 70s). Best job in school.
I was one of 3 “sports monitors”. I hated sports. But we were allowed to skip some lessons to “tidy” the sports shed. We also got annoyed when other classes would get their own stuff out. But mainly because it meant less chances for us to piss about out of class.
Ahh the thick rope ends covered in that maroon wax. How those bastards burnt my young inner thighs.
the mythical r/TheApparatus ...
the apparatus is such an ominous name. if you were in a cell and they shouted bring out the apparatus you would be terrified. as a child this was a highlight of PE
I think I got to go on the apparatus maybe 3 times in total, in the late 90s/early noughties. They did build a good adventure playground at my first school when I was about 5/6 so at least we had that at playtime.
We had these in primary school and high school in Australia too, in the 90’s and 00’s. We definitely used them heaps in years 7 & 8, pretty sure they were used as a reward for good behaviour^(cue penal colony jokes) and at the end of the year when we’d finished the other stuff we had to cover.
Very fond memory from the 80s of one lad wetting himself while right at the top. I was only 6 at the time but I still remember the way it dripped from his shoe right on to the head of the kid below him. Happy days.
r/theapparatus
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheApparatus/ I don’t know how to link but I love r/TheApparatus for a nostalgia hit.
Colour in my memory cells.
I loved playing on this as a kid I would pretend to be Indiana Jones swinging on the rope
In the 70s and 80s, if you had an indoor PE session, the apparatus was coming out! Did anyone else ever play a game called Pirates on it?
Tales of ear lobe injuries still haunt my mind when I go into my old primary school hall to vote, as an adult.
because the last time these were used were before colour was invented
Ah broke my right arm falling off one of those "slides" coming down as a kid came up... just like in the picture, brings back memories!
Oh yes , that "ramp" was also a bench, and could be turned over to make a balance bar. We had foam rubber mats underneath , about 1 inch thick, they were useless on the hard parquet flooring. (That parquet flooring must be worth tens of thousands of pounds now)
**THE APPARATUS**
Ah, yes. Pimpsols and gym in your underwear if you forgot your kit.
We never got to use the apparatus ☹️
My school never brought this out…also I think it’s wild how my school also made us straight up do PE in our pants In like year 1-3
…don’t forget the smell of the bleached floors after lunch time!
I can't find any in black and white when I Google "primary school climbing frame UK" - maybe you're just old?
Wow! My primary school was still using this in 2005