why can't they take their blazers off

Not all schools! I'm a teacher sitting in my room now (after the bell) in a short sleeves top and it is roasting. I've told kids they were mad for sitting in here with their jumpers on! The blazers rule is nuts; petty, pointless and actively mean to children. I wouldn't enforce it in my room.

BECAUSE SCHOOLS ARE MENTAL

My sons school got a new head two years ago and the man is obsessive to the point of madness about uniform, every week we get the school news letter and every week there is a massive write up about the importance of uniform and a uniform list, when we had a very hot spell last year ours was the only school that were still wearing blazers, and again this week no one was allowed to take them off.

I support uniform but I am fed up with the madness this new head has brought to it, the school has lost staff, gone down in their ofsted and still he witters on and on about uniform

I am a great believer in uniform but it pisses me off how the point of a uniform can be so blatantly misused if not actually abused by a school.

Surely the points are:

-To level the DC, no competition about who has the trendiest clothes
-To forge a sense of group identity and pride within the school
-If it is a highly regarded school, to make DC feel proud that they can claim allegiance to it whilst out in the community (e.g.Walking to and from school)
-To discourage antisocial behaviour as DC are easier to identify
-If it's a private, to demonstrate how rich the parents are that they can afford the fees .

Within school, within certain guidelines, surely it's just about having clothes on your back?!

Though I don't like the DSs school uniform, black trousers, white badged polo, black badged sweatshirt (they did away with blazers'n'ties in 2002) they look OK, are worn fairly reasonably (apart from the deputy's on going battle with girls and skirt lengths!) and fit with the school's ethos of a relaxed yet focus approach to education.

They also nail the county's best GCSE results for a comp. every year. It is in a very leafy MC area with few social ills so maybe they don't even have to consider the 'discipline effect' or 'belonging to something effect' (other than a street gang) of a strict uniform as endorsed by some of the sponsored inner city academies that replaced badly failing comps.

There's no good reason to keep a jacket on in class - I have never worked in an office, no matter how formal, where people couldn't take their jackets off to do desk-work.
It just smacks of discipline for discipline's sake to me... treating children like army recruits

DS2 thought one of his teachers was hilarious yesterday... He said to the students...

"first thing's first, take your sweaters off as it is mafting in here as we are unable to open the windows".

He loved the word mafting

DD has to wear her blazer to and from school and around school grounds between classes/ at breaks. She can take it off during lessons though.

At DCs very strict school, they have to wear their blazer to and from lessons. They are always removed in certain lessons eg. Science and practical subjects, and in others at the discretion of the teacher, so the first lesson they learn in a new language is "please may I remove my Blazer". Jumpers are optional, but today is the first day DD has gone in without hers, in most of 2years. When it gets really hot they have "shirt sleeve order" but this still involves them wearing their ties. At the end of the summer term they wear house shirts (polo shirts) instead

A school can 'request' that a child wears uniform - that's it. Fine wear them, no discrimination but for God's sake use common sense!! My DD was once ordered to do up her top button on her shirt (on a baking hot day!) and straighten her tie - the sweat was pouring off her, her shirt was sticking to her so she simply ripped off her top button and said 'problem solved!!'. She is now an amazing adult with a good job and independent with it!! And yes she did get very good grades even without the top button!!

Go complain about it!! Parent power goes a long way....you are the parent not the school!! IT IS NOT WRITTEN IN ANY LAW ANYWHERE that a child has to wear a school uniform - if a parent took it all the way then they would win!! No child should be made to overheat - it is dangerous - wish people would use their common sense over this - people in the real world dress appropriately for the weather - they should do it in school simple!!

It doesn't help that yr8 and yr9 girls absolutely point blank refuse to not wear their jumpers, even though they're not compulsory. It appears to be a mixture of fashion and boys seeing their bra-straps, or lack of.

but why, they are in the classroom.
parents need to complain. Go to governors etc. please don't just moan and accept it

How ridiculous, feel grateful that my 11 year old DS has started a school where there is no blazer, just a uniform guideline, which includes smart grey trouser, black shoes (not trainers) and any shirt with a collar. He went off today wearing a green shirt, no jumper and no blazer!

Same here, very odd.

Utterly ridiculous.

DS started at a new school in year 6 last year and there was an afternoon thing for all new students and they had to wear uniform. So I got DS to wear shirt tie and blazer and I was totally amazed at all the kids who were wearing the jumper as well on a hot day. I remember commenting to DH that it was odd. Then I discover that they have to wear the jumper!! So DS was the odd one out.

They have to wear the blazer to and from school but they then hang them up. They are allowed take jumpers off too if they wish. Ties only off if head gives permission.

We had an issue last year where I walked to school to school to pick DS up on a hot day. I suggested he left the blazer at school to save carrying it.he wouldn't. Wouldn't even take it off. So melted all the way home. Then I realized it was the wear to and from school rule - a bit slow on the uptake me! Now DS refuses to walk to or from school as just remembers that day when he was so hot.

Same at my dd's school, also started yesterday.

My face looked like this when she told me

I am pro-uniform, but I really cannot see anything to be gained by forcing pupils to wear a blazer when it makes them feel hot & uncomfortable.

It's hardly going to help their learning.

Incidentally, you might want to ask the Head if (s)he is familiar with the research showing that - in conclusion:

"The overwhelming weight of the evidence from the research reviewed in this summary supports the hypothesis that the thermal environment affects academic achievement at various grade levels within the school."

sdpl.coe.uga.edu/researchabstracts/thermal.html

i.e. performance suffers if kids are too hot or too cold. Shocker!

Ask the head if they have seen the research, and how they see their policies fitting with it :)

I used to let kids do what they liked with regard to blazers and jumpers.

Strangely they are quite good at choosing what to wear so they are neither hot nor cold. Who would've thought.

The school I worked in used to let them take their ties off on really hot days, but that had to come from the head.

I totally understand the 'establishing discipline' from the start idea, but I don't see how making them be uncomfortable / distracted is going to help.

Oooh -- I think I'll add 'can they take their blazers off when hot?' to my list of Questions for Open Days over the next couple of weeks!

We have some extremely warm rooms in our school - although air conditioning will soon be fitted - yippee! Rules Blazer on walking around school and, in class, Blazer either on or on back of chair.

My son said he was hot yesterday, it was a beautiful day weather-wise, and wore it only when out of lessons. Otherwise it was on the back of the chair.

I never understand this type of pointless idiotic rule. My DC's went to a school in South Africa that had this rule, some of the classroom had unshaded windows and it can be really hot in SA. It's stupid, stupid, stupid.

Some of the female teachers wore tops with spaghetti straps so it is not as though they were suffering too.

I don't understand it. In all my time at school a blazer was your summer coat, iyswim.

Now my school has brought in a fitted jacket type thing (all girls) that they have to wear all the time, which is a shame as it's actually a very nice blouse, soft collared and patterned that was designed to be seen!

Surely it's harder/less comfortable to write in a blazer as well? I would have hated getting so hot too.

DD1's blazer stank of BO after the first day back. Yes she bathes every day and yes she uses deo - but to have to bake in a bloody classroom all day is bloody inhuman