My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

AIBU?

Help me word an email to the school that isn't full of expletives please.

454 replies

ReanimatedSGB · 20/11/2018 22:04

I know I can do better that 'For fuck's sake, you petty-minded bunch of cunts', of course...

DS got a day in inclusion (ie isolation) because of his shoes. They are, admittedly, not quite regulation shoes, though they are plain black - but he was wearing them because his normal school shoes were discovered to have a fucking great hole in on Sunday evening. He wore the not-quite-right shoes yesterday and there was no problem - I got home from work too late to take him shoe-shopping as my shift overran - but I got a phone call at work this morning saying they were 'unacceptable' and he would either be sent home or have to spend the day in inclusion. I was halfway up the M4 at the time. I explained the reason and that we were going to buy a new pair tomorrow (because I wouldn't be home till 7pm), but they said if he didn't have proper shoes in the morning it would be the same thing again.
Mercifully our nearest Sainsburys is open till 10pm and is one of those big enough to have a clothing and footwear department, so we have actually got new shoes, but what the fuck is the point of taking a well-behaved kid out of class for the day when he's only wearing not-quite-right shoes for a perfectly good reason.

OP posts:
elephantoverthehill · 20/11/2018 22:06

Why didn't you notify the school to explain in advance? A much easier option all round.

Nanny0gg · 20/11/2018 22:07

Go with your first thought.

I am all for uniform rules, but common-sense needs to prevail. Not too many families have backup shoes in case one pair develop a problem.

Is it an academy by any chance?

Labradoodliedoodoo · 20/11/2018 22:07

I agree with you

OriginallyfromLA · 20/11/2018 22:07

Because uniform rules are there to be followed. If you allow small exceptions then clear lines get blurred. Don't complain.

iwantasofa · 20/11/2018 22:09

Yanbu.

Neolara · 20/11/2018 22:10

I agree with you. Absolutely ridiculous.

Nanny0gg · 20/11/2018 22:10

OriginallyfromLA

The OP has not been able to get to a shoe shop before he had to go back to school.

Should she have kept him at home?

Bluelonerose · 20/11/2018 22:11

I agree with warning the school in advance but ffs they don't give you time to sort anything out do they.
I've had similar with ds2 last week. Luckily he's in primary school so they're quite happy for him to wear his trainers until I can replace them.
Ide be pissed off to if I was you.

Almondio · 20/11/2018 22:12

I had a similar incident once with yr7 DS whose shoes had got soaked on the way home from school after it had closed due to snow. (I'd also taken in and fed 4 kids whose parents couldn't get to school to collect, due to the weather.)

Anyway, the shoes weren't dry by the next morning so I sent DS in his trainers, with a note and phoned school to explain. Next thing, school calls back to say if he wasn't in black shoes, he'd spend the day in isolation. I was FUMING, and he was distraught. I ended up taking his wet shoes back to school, and he wore them all day. Imagine if I sent him to school in soaking shoes? It's be a bloody safeguarding call home.
Schools are quite often so tied up in their own bureaucracy that they cannot see common sense.

Goldenbear · 20/11/2018 22:12

YANBU, isolation booths are draconion anyway, they're not in prison, they are in school to get an education, how can they do that when they're missing out over a pair of shoes!!

Shadow1986 · 20/11/2018 22:13

I also agree with you. They should give a couple of days grace when it comes to shoes as a hole can appear anytime and it’s not always possible to get to the shops and buy new shoes straight away.

Urbanbeetler · 20/11/2018 22:13

I’m a teacher. I couldn’t agree with you more. It makes a mockery out of fining parents for taking their children out of school for a funeral.

SetPhasersTaeMalkie · 20/11/2018 22:13

Your son was put in isolation because his shoes were not quite regulation?!! 😯

Is he in the army?!

How ridiculous.

sittingonacornflake · 20/11/2018 22:14

YANBU that is totally ridiculous. You literally can't do right for doing wrong.

Go with your first draft.

ReanimatedSGB · 20/11/2018 22:15

Yes, it's an academy. It annoys me even more that I quite deliberately picked a secondary school that appeared to be free of this bullshit, but they got a new head, a 'rebrand' and now they are going the same way as all the other obedience-factories.

Also, it's quite lucky that I have enough spare cash for shoes this week. If it was rent week, I might not have done, and he would have had to miss two or three days schooling, because there are times when i literally have no spare money at all, let alone the minimum of £15 for a pair of school shoes.

OP posts:
StarfishSandwich · 20/11/2018 22:16

YANBU surely they have more important things to be worrying about.

I’d also be annoyed that the situation has forced you into buying shoes from Sainsbury’s which might not have been your preference so is basically £20 down the drain.

BigSandyBalls2015 · 20/11/2018 22:16

Schools seem to spend an awful amount of time on these uniform issues.

Mine are thankfully in 6th form now so no uniform but their school used to do stuff like that. The bizarre uniform policy is if girls wear trousers then they must wear a collared shirt with a tie. If they wear the skirt then no tie is allowed and an open neck shirt must be worn. DD got sent home for having this wrong.

serialtester · 20/11/2018 22:18

Teacher here. Agree with your gut reaction!!

Yabbers · 20/11/2018 22:18

Absolute nonsense. The rules-are-rules culture is absolutely ridiculous. If schools are so poor at discipline that a child having the wrong shoes for a couple of days will lead to anarchy then they are failing our children.

If a child who generally wears uniform and is otherwise well behaved can't be trusted to be able to explain the issue and be believed, the school has gone very wrong indeed.

Greensleeves · 20/11/2018 22:18

Exactly the same in our school. It's a "Ready To Learn" school which means it's run like a prison camp. The isolation booths are full of SEN kids, kids with MH problems and minor uniform/equipment infractions, often because parents can't afford to replace a perfectly good, well-fitting, previously accepted pair of shoes because the school has moved the goalposts again.

Isolation is the Pindown scandal of this generation. Some kid are spending months in there. It's fucking disgraceful.

Jayfee · 20/11/2018 22:20

Can you raise the issue with the governors?

Romanmonkey · 20/11/2018 22:21

I’d be tempted to write and ask if this occurred again should your ds stay off school until you are able to buy the regulation pair of shoes!

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

ReanimatedSGB · 20/11/2018 22:22

I'm going to start with an email to the SMT, then escalate to the governors if I don't get a sensible reply. (my other job is admin for school governing bodies...)

OP posts:
ReanimatedSGB · 20/11/2018 22:24

And I am genuinely concerned for other parents with less money than us - as PP said, there are going to be families who won't be able to afford new shoes for quite some time. If you're already dependent on the food bank, you just don't have the money for extra uniform at zero notice.

And it's often the schools in poor areas that keep changing the uniform and 'cracking down'...

OP posts:
Goldenbear · 20/11/2018 22:24

My son is in year 7 and my husband and I are astounded by the pettiness and frequency with which we are informed of uniform marks against his name. It is the lack of time they give you to sort things. Equally, we are well aware of his lack of logoed p.e. tops as I have provided notes on it. My son has to get changed with year 9s and last week had a brand new top taken by them. The uniform shop is inefficient and the schools computer was down for a whole week last week so I couldn't sort it anyway. The new uniform is delivered to the class, you are not able to purchase things instantly at reception so it takes an age to sort things. We are quite busy in the day both working, it is highly irritating to be told about everything whilst you are trying to hold down a job.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.