To tell the school my child will NOT go to detention..

Do the detention, and complain about the uniform policy not having a contingency for hot weather. Although I've never heard of a school BANNING skirts for girls, that is ridiculous. Around here there was a protest by boys at school, as girls were allowed trousers or skirts, but boys had to wear trousers and were NOT allowed choose shorts in a heatwave. So a lot of boys went to school in borrowed skirts. the school did agree to "review" their uniform policy.

I don't think she was answering back. She was advocating for herself and explaining why her shirt was untucked. I would definitely not agree to her detention and tell her to come home after school.

The irony is, very few office workers have to wear ties nowadays anyway. And it’s only men that have to, not women. The majority of city offices have air conditioning. The majority of schools don’t. And office workers can often have the choice to work from home under certain circumstances.

All in all, school uniform is an absolute joke. It has no relevance at all to today’s society. And as a teacher I completely and utterly refuse to pick a battle with any student over uniform especially when it’s 32 degrees.

Totally agree with this. I think basically there is a large swathe of the population that seems to think teenager = criminal so best treat them as such. Look at all the nonsense about how if they don't tuck in their shirts they'll be running around assaulting each other.

I know. It's easy to see why resilience and critical thinking skills are on the decline in young people.

It seems a great shame to me to lash out spitefully at people who care about children’s health and welfare .
Not only can people obviously not learn effectively when uncomfortably hot , a normally polite child speaking irritably to a teacher should raise concerns in said teacher’s mind ( if properly educated themselves ) of the likelihood of heat exhaustion , which can easily progress to heat stroke .

Surely this is not safeguarding the children! We have strict rules re uniform, a children’s organisation, but in this weather I would be reporting a safeguarding issue if the usual uniform was insisted upon by our leaders!

Honestly I’m truely horrified by some of the people on this thread

Ask any teacher how rich they would be if they received a £ for every parent that believed that said behaviour is out of character for their teen/tween. It's not just the money that is forcing good teachers out of education.

Aweecupofteaandabiscuit

Does your 5 year old have a bunch of pissy management types that can turn up out of the blue and scold them and possibly push this further up the management improvement/support plan route?

The teacher has wasted their own time (and everyone elses) by throwing a hissy fit over something so inconsequential.
My 5 year old sometimes behaves in a way which escalates conflict with my 2 year old over such tiny things. Amazing that so many people are defending an adult behaving no better than a five year old.

Children are working too. All that says is that children aren’t considered humans in the same way as adults are in terms of their comfort and, yes, safety.

I honestly think that anyone who thinks like this shouldn’t be working with children. Total control freakery at its worst.

is there anything in the rulz that says clothes have to be dry. Because to keep cool in my sauna of a flat ive been wearing wet tops If i was a pupil and the school did this to me id soak my blouse in freezing cold water squeeze it out and put it on, needs must when you are facing such stupidity

I think it's fine to say that adults are adults, they get to decide what they do, wear and eat in a way that children don't. Teachers are not the same as students, they are adults in their working environment and so not bound by the same rules as students. For example, the staff at my children's schools can clearly eat what they want on their lunch breaks rather than having the same healthy lunch as the children.

The other side of that is that the school and teachers should be doing everything they can to ensure the children's comfort and wellbeing. If you had a 3yo who was grumpy and overheating in a nursery environment, they'd have layers taken off, they'd be given water and they'd be kept as cool as possible. The same would be done for a primary age child clearly struggling in the heat. And most adults at work could speak up, excuse themselves, take off layers if uncomfortable.

But we seem to have this huge collective blindness when it comes to secondary age children. Their health, comfort and wellbeing appear to be low priorities for schools, but neither are they given the freedom to take sensible steps to protect themselves.

But you are missing the point. The pupil clearly isn’t a child who normally would answer back or challenge a teacher. She was feeling really hot and the teacher was asking her to ignore how she was feeling and tuck her shirt in and potentially make herself ill. Who, in that circumstance, wouldn’t challenge? I know I would and yes I would expect my children to also. I wouldn’t normally encourage them to argue but in a situation where they felt they were very uncomfortable (and this was an extreme situation) then yes I don’t see a problem with them voicing that discontent.

imagine if she had started vomiting from heatstroke and hadn’t voiced she was very hot, the teacher would have simply said- ‘she never said anything, how would I have known she was overheating’

if there was a fire in the building and the teacher said don’t evacuate but stay but they could smell the smoke in the room, are you really saying that in that circumstance you would expect your child to blindly follow the teacher’s instruction rather than ignore and get out the building?

Exactly! There are two separate issues being conflated here.
Firstly, whether the daughter should attend the detention
Secondly, whether the school uniform is appropriate for the climate.
I think the OP shouldn’t be undermining the authority of the teacher re. the detention. It is a total waste of the teacher and schools time to be dealing with parents interfering in this way and sends the wrong message to the child about consequences for their behaviour.
If the OP wants to lobby for the uniform policy to change then that could be done via the PTA rather than involving that particular teacher.

The irony that uniform and ties prepare them for “working life@ and yet the paid professionals (teachers) float around in light dresses is totally ironic

I would write a formal complaint and ask that staff also wear trousers, shirts and ties in all weathers

In school you learn to follow a million rules. Adding one about very specific clothing doesn't really add helpfully to that.

Schools consider ties smart - they think they look good and signal discipline to parents. There's no real benefit to the children. Although I guess it means they learn the skill of tying one!

The 'preparing for working life' means generally learning how to follow the rules and standards of an organisation, not that school uniform is what they are expected to wear in their chosen career!!

And of course, they don't want to go to the filthy toilets, or can't, because they are locked and/or they cannot get permission from the teacher, to do so, so they restrict their water intake.

Sorry, I am very supportive of schools and teachers, but the uniform and toilet issues are bonkers, and can be hazardous to a kid's health.

To me, it smacks of authoritarianism for authoritarianism's sake, aping what is perceived to be one's betters (the private schools known for their archaic uniforms and rules and rituals) and a degree of fear that if students aren't micro-controlled, they will run amok. Which is a vicious cycle, because it leads to rules and behaviours by schools that do not engender trust and respect for those rules and behaviours, so they flout them . . . and so the wheel turns.

Add to that, constant fuelling of the fires of mistrust and resentment of schools and teachers by politicians and media, and it's a fine old mess.

I think this poster probably thinks she threw up to make a point as she's such a "snowflake". Just your typical child hater.

Many children will be overheating in this weather.
I'm not surprised that a child vomited because of the heat.
Why? because children (and teenagers) will be running about like, well children, playing football, and other games, they won't just be sitting down in the shade.
And whilst they are playing these games they won't be drinking etc.
Most of them won't have any water in their bottles when they go back to class (another issue).
So they will be overheated, dehydrated and tired, so some will become ill and throw up.

How? Are you implying that heatstroke isn’t a thing and that people who suffer from it are faking?

How so? DD told me that they keep having room changes as so many of the classrooms in her school are deemed unfit to use in 33 degree heat. Little air con, not even many fans.