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Original poster

Shocked regarding standards of attire

36 replies

bronze · 28/09/2010 20:28

I left secondary school 13 years ago so completely understand if times have changed.
Lately there have been a lot of programs on tv about education and following real schools and classes. One thing I have noticed in all of them are some things we would never have got away with. Skirts are knicker length; very obvious makeup (we were allowed none); shirts hanging out; high heeled shoes; ties so loose you could fit 6 necks through; ties so short the back end could be wrapped around the waist twice, the list goes on.

Now either they're focusing on very slack schools, things have changed a lot, my school was very strict or I'm a complete fuddy duddy.
Please tell me. I'm dreading my children moving up the secondary if this is what school is like now. Of course I know uniform is not anything but I do think it is a fairly good reflection on standards.
Or am I wrong again?

OP posts:
usualsuspect · 28/09/2010 21:22

I never really wanted my children to look smart ..wasn't really my priority

Algebra18MinusPiEquals16 · 28/09/2010 21:21

It is a world away from my old (grammar) school. I much prefer smart uniforms! The primary schools here seem to have pretty high standards.

usualsuspect · 28/09/2010 21:18

I'm glad my ds's school didn't focus all its energy's on uniform, at all those rows of clone like teenagers

Original poster
bronze · 28/09/2010 21:16

U.S.
I prefer no uniform to badly worn uniform.

I wonder how some schools manage to enforce it and others don't. As we filed into class the teacher would just say shirt Bob, hair back Jane, sort your tie out Nick and we would do it.
We did big tie etc but not to such extremes and it was stamped on.

Alicatte- Hertswood tonight was the most recent in a line of them. The school standards otherwise didn't look too bad. How difficult would it have been to make looking smart part of the secret student. Not very I wouldn't think.

I guess my school (also in Herts) was of the high achieving types too, it was just me who wasn't a [n academic] high achiever.

OP posts:
Mutt · 28/09/2010 21:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

usualsuspect · 28/09/2010 21:06

I see no problem with teenagers expressing themselves ..years of looking like an old fuddy duddy ahead of them Wink I hate school uniform

alicatte · 28/09/2010 20:55

This is really what they look like. I had some experience of Hertswood, on tonight, in a previous incarnation. They really do look like that.

I did that 'big tie' thing in a very nice school back in the 70's and no one ever said a thing to me - it was seen as 'personal expression'. I didn't behave like those children though. Well no-one did at my school but then as I said it was one of the high achieving variety.

Original poster
bronze · 28/09/2010 20:42

We were made to go and scrub faces if makeup was in evidence though people tried many a time. We were also made to tuck our shirts in and retie our ties, even if people then went around the corner and disassembled themselves again.
The school at least made the effort though whereas these ones I've been seeing the teachers haven't said a thing even when the makeup has been inch thick or the skirt indecent.
Persistent offenders got sides or detentions. Some were even sent home to change and then had to do detentions to make up the time they missed.

I had assumed it was normal as the other two schools in my town were similar. It seems not.

OP posts:
muggglewump · 28/09/2010 20:40

That sounds like the school I went to!

greenlotus · 28/09/2010 20:38

Sorry bronze, all the things you list were in evidence at my secondary school and I left it a lot longer than 13 years ago, possibly not to such an extreme but my sister definitely got into trouble for high heels, makeup and skirt length in 1985.

senua · 28/09/2010 20:35

A school near to us has changed their tie recently. You know those elasticated already-tied ties that they used to wear in infant/junior school? - well, the Secondary school specifies those. Hey presto: no ties "so loose you could fit 6 necks through", everyone has the regulation fit and they have not found a way to subvert it yet.