Ties, Year 1 & School uniform

[cleanedout]

Ties. What a joke. Outdated. Serve no purpose.

But wait - flippin ties are mandated at school - FOR YEAR 1 !!!! For goodness sake.

Rushing to get child out of house to school so can get to work. Child does not want to get ready. Manageable.

BUT WAIT. Do the flippin top button up with child struggling. Pinch the poor kids neck inadvertanly. Fat clumsy male father fingers. Screaming.

UH OH. Now to tie the flippin tie. Gees. Yet more unnecessary hassle.

Now I work in corporate environment, drive a desk. Dress smart. Do not own a tie. Never wear a tie for interview. Never wear a tie at work. Never wear a tie anywhere. They serve no purpose. Antiquated jewelry.

So why the do these damned schools punish the kids AND the parents by mandating a tie?

Maybe the school should teach the blighters to tie the tie themselves. But wait, when you pay £15K per year for this damned pre-prep school and I don't really want the kid's time being wasted on such dross.

Thanks Mr Headmaster for the unnecessary burden.

Thoughts?

[cleanedout]

Oh and one more thing. Once there was a branch of Tie Rack in every High Street, station and airport. But then Tie Rack went bust in 2013 !

[catkind]

Year 1? We had the darn things from Reception with DS. State school (trust-led academy). Completely inappropriate dress for the job in hand imo, and possible health and safety risk with the amount of crawling around and climbing things they do in reception.

I also work in an office and rarely see ties. When I do it's often work experience students! To be fair, people mostly do for interviews in my line of work, or meetings with customers.

Luckily now moved to a school with a more sensible uniform.

I think the private schools do it because they're old fashioned (sorry, "traditional"), and the academies do it to look like private schools.

[Wolfiefan]

Given your HW thread and now this one, it seems you may have chosen the wrong school for your child.

[Jhm9rhs]

Hahaha! I do sympathise, hated school ties. Luckily my kids have polo shirts and sweatshirts.

[Chrisinthemorning]

DS is 3.5 and starting at the kindergarten of a private school in Jan and has to wear a tie! And shorts, knee socks and a very expensive duffle coat. Fortunately the tie is on an elastic. I've bought M and S school shirts with easy close cuffs and collar. Poor little sausage

[Gileswithachainsaw]

shirts and ties from reception here.

we have an elastic one in infants at least but agree it's an unnecessary faff.

Dd 2 can't have the collar done up either so we have to arrange the tie so it hides the undone top button.

pain in the arse

[Gileswithachainsaw]

dd1 rather (juniors)

[GreenSand]

Ties optional at preschool, with a polo shirt, but proper shirt and elasticated tie from reception onwards. State school. 2 out of the 6 schools in town have ties.

[GreenSand]

Oh, and most don't have top buttons done up on PE days.

[WishIWasWonderwoman]

Our school had them on elastic years 1-3.

One good trick from the older years is to keep the tie tied and just slip it on and off over their head, works best with a full windsor knot.

[dementedpixie]

Ours used to have polo shirts but some eejits voted in shirts and ties a couple of years ago (I wasn't one of them!). P1-3 have elastic ones and P4-7 have ones you need to tie. They are a pain but mine never do up the top button and the tie hides that it is unfastened

[teeththief]

Why can't you teach your child to tie it themselves? We have ties from reception and they all manage to do them themselves by the end of the year (certain SN excluded). Surely you knew they had ties before choosing the school?

[MadameChauchat]

I hate those ties! And white shirts for kids. In our (state) school they wear a tie from reception, but only in winter, as they wear a polo shirt in summer. My son could do his tie long before he could do his shoe laces... He doesn't want to do the top button up because it's uncomfortable, but every day he leaves home with the button unfastened, he comes home with the button fastened, teacher does it for him.

[DownstairsMixUp]

I had ties from reception when i was a kid, this was 1992 though. I remember them being on elastic to for the first few years. Thankfully DS has no ties but most of the secondary schools here seem to have ties as part of the uniform. Joy!

[Gileswithachainsaw]

Why do people always trot out the "when you chose the school you knew. .." nonsense.

first up decent schools can be hard to find.
secondly, you don't choose you list a preferences and it's perfectly possible to end up with none of your three or four preferences (happened to us) and it's perfectly possible you end up miles away from home too.

[RiverTam]

Ties are utterly stupid for children. Primary uniform in general is a pointless waste of time. And yep, you don't get to 'choose' your child's school so you don't get to 'choose' whether or not your child attends a school with ludicrous policies like this.

I can't get over how sheeplike so many MNers are on this subject.

[3phase]

Our school have them from Reception. Our school are also always banging on about forest school. Kids are up trees on a daily basis (which I like). Seriously though, reception kids wearing ties up trees?? It's just plain dumb no?

[Youarenotthebossofme]

My son could tie his tie when he was 4. Marks and Spencers Velcro top button and elasticuffs. Spend 5 minutes every day for a week to teach him. He'll be able to do it by himself after that. Don't worry if the tie isn't perfect every day, I can guarantee the school won't be bothered either. Actually my son ties his tie better then his old dad. Dad doesn't need a tie for work but for high days and holidays the poor old man still has to get the wife, child, mother to tie it. Embarrassing.
Oh and ties are good for catching yoghurt, pasta sauce, porridge etc.

[Chrisinthemorning]

I used other criteria to choose the school, not uniform. Small class sizes, good facilities, friendly feel. Was I supposed to choose the local State school with large class in a tiny classroom because they wear polo shirts?

[AnnPerkins]

DS has worn one at his state lower school since reception. I was appalled at first, ties are such an anachronism these days. DH doesn't wear one at his fairly smart office and nobody even wears a shirt in my office. In fact, outside of school, I hardly ever see one.

However, it doesn't matter what I think really. During summer term pupils can wear polo shirts and DS refuses. He likes wearing his tie. He likes wearing a bow tie even more. I blame Matt Smith for that.

I do personally think that nothing looks scruffier than a washed-out white polo shirt with school trousers so I'm not keen on them either.

[TeddTess]

m&s have velcro fastener with a fake top button up to about age 8 on white school shirts. lifesaver

[Fairenuff]

Teach your child to do the tie themselves. Problem solved.

Don't say they are too young because they're not. Don't underestimate your child's ability.

[LIZS]

Even now in 6th form Ds will leave his tie tied and just slide the knot. He learnt to tie it at 7 even with dyspraxia.

[Iggly]

Ties are ridiculous. They just give DS something to fiddle with.

We've gone for bigger school shirts with a Velcro top button which help.

They're just a hark back to the idea of school kids being bored to death learning by rote.

[iMatter]

My DC had ties from reception and could tie them pretty quickly. It's not that hard.