To be glad schools are finally hitting back

As a parent of an autistic PDA child, I would be happy for schools to preemptively exclude him if they provide access to a suitable education at an alternative place. Ideally with a high staff to pupil ratio and more flexibility to allow him to actually learn rather than be stressed out and anxious all the time.
Then the teacher in the normal school can get on with the curriculum unencumbered and my child can get (enjoy) a suitable education at his level.

I could be either describing a pupil referral unit or a private school, which are some of the places that ND children end up when they are unable to manage school.

Thank you! I'd love to be able to wear a GoPro in school to record the behaviour. Some parents would be mortified. Some wouldn't because it's how they behave themselves.

I am not a teacher, but work in a school. Sounds like you are one of those nightmare parents, always knows best. Never a good word to say. Go spend a day in your local comprehensive and see the daily abuse against teachers. Wonder what job you do…

I’d be perfectly happy with no uniform but I do wish the threshold for exclusion for poor behaviour was reduced. Both of my kids have suffered due to poor behaviour of other children in their classes at various times in their school careers. There needs to be far more PRU type settings to support these children as it isn’t fair to disrupt the education and emotional well being of the well behaved children.

I really feel for teachers. They are there to educate, and of course that has some crossover with social issues but they're not bloody social workers! What about parental responsibility? What about the children who are having their valuable learning time hijacked by badly behaved children?

Great, I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's vastly more common to hear people say they hated school.

Respect between adults and children in schools. They were belting children until relatively recently.

I really hope this is a troll thread. There’s so much wrong in the education system today and a teacher thinking the solution is for schools to “hit back” at the students makes me want to cry for humanity.

we survived didn't we. I have great memories of my school, and it was a lot stricter than it is today.

But because there were more respect between kids and adults, the relationships were better, and it made 0 difference to our life to button our shirts and it's my mum who bought the right colour socks, I just wore what was in the pile 😂

Having parents making no drama about the uniform meant we didn't give a 2 seconds of thoughts getting ready and within the school walls.

Sadly some parents are too bored nowadays, and try to make themselves more interesting by pretending the rules shouldn't apply to their little darlings, when most kids don't care anyway. They wouldn't chose to wear a uniform, but it's there, so they just wear it.

My kids' school sanctioned for broken lanyards FFS !
AMongst other trivial stuff too !

I wish people would stop pedalling the "if you don't like the uniform rules pick another school" nonsense. The next nearest secondary school to us is 12 miles away in the next town.

And we've seen in the media that parents complaining about stupid uniform rules doesn't work either. Schools just put out statements effectively saying "tough shit".

I'm not against uniform. But ridiculous rules about having to wear blazers in 30 degree heat or having to remove a coat before you enter even if there's a blizzard outside are utterly pointless and only serve to be power trips.

Sure. We study at university level for 4 years, gather £40,000 student debt, work 60 hour weeks and tolerate truly abysmal behaviour, not to mention the BS from management and Ofsted JUST to feel that we can boss kids around.

Totally logical equation you've got going on there.

Just home school and be done with it if that is the respect you have for teachers.

I think secondary school leaders should try to create an environment that kids want to be in and are brought into. The current way many secondary schools are run is far too punitive.

If they were smaller like primaries then it would be much easier to establish relationships and not have to rely on draconian rules for order.

The kids who will be sent home / excluded are much more likely to come from poorer, unsupportive backgrounds and/or have SEN. And now there are basically no youth services, school is probably the only place they will encounter responsible adults and wider members of their local community. Who steps in when the school isn't there for them? There is no one else until they get in trouble with the law. Then it's too late.

It's a real shame we are so quick to get rid of them from schools, rather than invest in them and teach them in ways that are more appropriate. It really is moving the problem around and setting them up to fail.

Some of the schools on here sound awful. Then adults insist these are the best days of anyone's life. Just wept. Imagine the best days of your life getting shit from adults for wearing the wrong colour jumper.

Our DD forgot her phone twice last year, didn't have her pencil case one time and got a detention despite her friend offering a spare pen.

Pretty much this.

A uniform policy can be strict or flexible, though, @randomlemonsheep - as I said in my previous post, our dses went to a school with a more flexible policy, after going to ones with very strict policies, and I don't think the more flexible uniform policy had any negative effect on their behaviour or achievement at the school.

If a uniform policy is too strict, for a start, it can be very expensive for parents, plus it has no flexibility in it to cope with sensory needs from pupils with SEN - and then it demands that teachers spend far too long nitpicking details like whether a black shoe is a shoe or a trainer, or whether a particular style of trouser is acceptable, rather than focussing on issues which impact the children's learning - completing homework, listening in class, controlling disruptive behaviour etc.

how did they manage that? Ofsted always turned up with less than 24h warning in my local primary schools - cue urgent email that advising all afternoon clubs cancelled with 1 or 2 hour warning , so teachers could prepare 😂

How would the school just exclude the kids with no warning?

Exactly seems ridiculous agree with this. Dress code is becoming less and less important even in city jobs hardly anyone comes in suits anymore so there is a mismatch … as some others have mentioned uniform is not worn in many other countries it’s just a cultural thing here. Academic results are much higher in other countries where the focus is on teaching and values not imposing stupid uniform related rules.

I hate the strict uniform rules. What about the kids whose parents either cant afford the full uniform or don't give a stuff about washing it/supplying it.

These kids often get themselves (and often younger siblings) up, dressed in what is available and off to school only to be punished for not having the correct shoes, etc. So they are being disciplined for either their parents not having enough money or their parents simply not giving a toss.

I don't understand why the UK is so obsessed with strict school uniforms. My kids both attended a primary school with no uniform and when they went to secondary school one went to one with a strict uniform code and the other went to one with no uniform. There were far more issues with the school with uniform than the non-uniform school. Teachers at the non-uniform school didn't have to waste their time checking that someone had got the correct style of trousers or shoes and could concentrate on the things that really mattered like behaviour and learning.

either you have a uniform or you don't. If it's something you disagree with, pick another school.

I am happy with the best performing school in the area which funnily enough has a very strict uniform policy. I don't know or care if it's linked, but it's clearly working. Teens are not wild about their uniform, but being a uniform, they're all in the same boat so they just get on with it during school hours.

I am lucky enough to have only experienced workplace with a conservative dress code, and where people don't confuse the office with a beach club. Works well too!

There are so many work places where appearance does matter, as it should.

In my child’s primary, kids were excluded during ofsted inspections to keep marks high…

I wonder whether we will see a return to more child-centred education, as there is more space and schools unpopular with parents and children close. We live in interesting times.

Certainly, in the city we live in, we were granted our third choice on the waiting list for primary school and then were unexpectedly offered places at the first and second choice days before term began. These are schools that are traditionally very oversubscribed and we'd put as a bit of a punt as they were some distance from us. We stuck with the first school since DC had done all the induction by then, we'd meet the teachers and it had the best wraparound care, but certainly it brought home to us that none of the primary schools around us are presently at capacity and there will be closures in coming years.

What rules are the teachers happy about?

Im glad my DC are not in school anymore as some of the rules are utterly ridiculous.

Children to be lined up in blazers, no rain jackets or umbrella allowed, so children then have to be in wet blazers all day…. Some kids refused to wear their wet blazers and have been suspended!

Kid left their diary in there last lesson as teacher needed it for some reason…. Kid was suspended for not having their diary.

Child not allowed to go to the toilet with a kidney infection… has a doctors note but the school refuse the child as they “need” a consultant note… child wets themself and then they are bullied by their peers.

There is so many ridiculous “rules” that I don’t believe any teacher thinks these rules are reasonable, the trusts are to blame.

Insisting on strict uniform is just an unimaginative control thing, there's no better way to make teenagers think that school rules are ridicoulas.

My DSs school had a uniform, but didn't care what colour or length of hair the kids had, or whether their shirts were buttoned up, or whether their black shoes were actually black trainers.

Like in the workplace, it has no impact on performance.

And if I had gone to one of these schools as a mild mannered, polite, bright girl wanting to learn I think I'd have eventually turned to violence out of frustration and anger at the draconian environment. The pettiness would have driven me insane.