Uniform is supposed to equal the DC out......but of course it doesn't

[JoceHark]

At DC's school everyone knows who has money and who doesn't. First it was the designer coats, the school then cracked down and said no brand names on coats.

Then the bags.

Now it's the belts. Kids wearing designer logo'd belts to school (no current ban in place).

Also a bizarre rule which says girls can wear one single ring (plain) and boys can wear a signet ring. Firstly I know plenty of women who still wear a signet ring (seems sexist that only boys can at school), but the signet rings they are wearing are bling'd to all hell and back.

Should we just accept that school uniform is actually a load of bollocks.

It doesn't prepare them for work, how many office staff do you know who wear a tie and blazer to work everyday? And how many of them are women?

It's a huge bill for parents

It creates a wall between parents and the school and kids and the school

It's just an unnecessary cause of stress all round and hasn't been proven to have any benefit on education. We seem to just cling on to it as a British thing which has always been done

I agree there’s far too much energy spent on the supposed “solution” of policing appearance and not nearly enough time spent on teaching families to be tolerant and kind!!!

I agree with this. I will buy my children good make shoes/trainers/bags but they would never be horrible to others or judge others who don't have these things. They know better than that because I have taught them that being kind is the most important thing. Some adults are very unkind though so they're unlikely to be teaching kindness to their kids.

We’re in non uniform US and the kids end up wearing a uniform of sorts anyway as they all dress the same.

We're in France and they all wear jeans or trackpants with a T-shirt. You'd be hard pushed to tell who are the wealthy kids.

Pressure to wear brands doesn't seem to be a big factor. Most of them buy stuff at the cheap high street shops like Primark, H&M and Bershka.

My spending on school clothes for DS so far this year = 0.

Allthingsred, wait till they are in sixth form and you need to buy 3 suits, smart coat, designer shirts and matching ties, belts and cuff links

I have no idea what world you inhabit, but it's nothing like my world, or the world of anywhere I've taught.

Allthingsred, wait till they are in sixth form and you need to buy 3 suits, smart coat, designer shirts and matching ties, belts and cuff links

Gosh UK sixth form has changed since I was there. I think our only rule was no jeans. I'm even more glad we don't live there now. My sixth form age child wore cut off denim shorts and a black T-shirt to school yesterday, and her slightly younger brother wore ripped jeans and a hoody.

Kids are sheep, they want to be the same as the crowd

Some kids are sheep. Not all. Mine and their peers definitely aren't. And it's up to parents to raise kids who aren't sheep.

drsausage not all 6th forms in the UK are full second rate estate agent uniform - ours is non-uniform and both of the very well regarded 6th forms in the city where I work are fully non-uniform. There is hope.

@drsausage sixth form in the UK is not like that at all. I can only assume that the poster who wrote that has a child at a private school. The idea of three suits, designer shirts and cufflinks at a state school would be madness!

@EdtheBear, are you taking in all the posts from people whose kids attend non-uniform schools and are talking about the lack of obsession with brands?

You are missing the point. The kids want the same shoes. Ok it's £££ shoes.
How would you feel without the uniform and kids wanting designer jeans & t-shirts, as well as the Doc Martin's? Supermarket & next aren't anywhere near good enough.

Kids are sheep, they want to be the same as the crowd. But if the crowd has different budgets and priorities it become a tough life.

Nothing could be further from reality of non-uniform school life, in my experience.

My 6th form decided not to have uniform. It was a pain and most of us wished we still had uniform. The charity non-uniform days were a nightmare, so much pressure on what to choose.

I'd love to have a uniform for work now. I kind of do by having just a handful of tops I wear in rotation and one pair of black trousers.

I am listening to the posts but they are in other countries with different cultures. Where premium brands are often cheaper than the UK.

The UK seems to have an obsession with brands, esp amongst young people (Who don't actually earn the cash). It would take a massive shift in values and culture to change it.
It started when I was in primary early 80s the trend was Addis Kick trainers. And some how it seemed to be the poorer kids who had them.

My HS never enforced the uniform. By my 5th year everyone was in jeans and trainers (LA Gear remember them? Mine came from a relation in Canada). I can't remember the make of jumpers everybody seemed to have, I thought they were cheap because everyone had them. Then I went to buy one, they were £50 this would have been around 1990.

Not long after I left school, the HT decided to relaunch the uniform (ballot on colours) and in force it!

My vote is keep the uniform. Change them certainly but keep it.

NAF-NAF jumpers they were all the rage!

The charity non-uniform days were a nightmare, so much pressure on what to choose.
But this is because it’s only once or twice a year. If it was everyday it genuinely wouldn’t be the same. Honestly the one no uniform secondary in my school turns out freshfaced teenagers in jeans and T-shirts, those with uniform but not fee paying turn out the kids with all the ott makeup and hair and stupidly short crotch-revealing skirts.

I was picked on at primary for having unfashionable clothes. Was such a relief to get to secondary where there was uniform.

All these parents saying they/their kids didn't have uniform and it was fine will be the ones who didn't get picked on and statistically some of them will have been the bullies.

I now have 2 in sixth form, with no uniform. For the first day they had carefully picked out outfits for the annual first day fashion parade. Today it was joggers and hoodies and probably will be for the rest of the year.

I'm amazed their sixth form is so relaxed, the rest of the school adheres to a very strict uniform code which I'm glad to be finished with. But it's a rural school and I think they'd lose sixth formers to the colleges in town if they didn't make it a bit appealing.

The other trendy trainers in HS were Nike Air Max and Reebok Pump!

So yes I do see the advantage of uniform and the leveller that it is.

Uniforms are a smokescreen for outsiders. Unless you regulate that every kid must have only a certain model of a smartphone, a particular games console at home, and that family holidays are permitted no further than Spain, even then you will never have full equality.

p.s. i hate uniforms with passion.

So what to you suggest? Do away with it completely and have children turn up in whatever their parents can afford? How would that equalise the situation? Schools just need to be aware and ban the worst displays but it's life, get used to it

Fish you are never going to have everybody equal.
Uniform at least helps a bit to make it less obvious who are the haves and the have nots.
School is a weird place, a complete melting pot of kids who otherwise would never mix. The rich kids from the posh end of town would probably never mix with the poor kids from the council estate if it wasn't for school.

So what to you suggest? Do away with it completely and have children turn up in whatever their parents can afford? How would that equalise the situation?
Exactly this. If you eliminate the expense of uniform, parents could actually afford more of regular stuff for kids.

The rich kids from the posh end of town would probably never mix with the poor kids from the council estate if it wasn't for school.
They won't mix anyway. School mostly take children from the catchment area, and rich kids from the posh end of town will be shipped off to a private school so they wouldn't have to mix with council estate kids.

They will always find a way to one up one another. Dd has no interest in designer labels or following the crowd. She took a pen from paperchase to school a few years ago (cheap pen but looked pretty and was rose gold) and it was stolen as someone thought it was a Parker pen as apparently those are the in thing. Crazy. The jealousy over money is clear at her school. We are well off but not ostentatious but dd gets given the silent treatment when her "friends" find out she has been somewhere on holiday or has tickets to a concert that they can't afford. She doesn't brag but now she feels she has to hide lots of her life so as not to upset others. Yet the kids with apparently less money have Gucci bags

Smaller towns very much have kids mixing.
I've lived it I was in school with a mix of kids from Docs and lawyers kids sat beside the trademens kids and the unemployed kids on FSM.

My DS primary school is the same, large catchment area, with 40% of kids in deprecation. Along with the kids from the middle class areas.

Titsywoo I can totally get that. It's a weird thing.

My DD’s teacher sent a class photo through on the app for parents yesterday and I could immediately spot the one child who I know is pretty poor. I feel sorry for her even though she bullied my DD horrendously last year. She has a pretty tough life I think, lives with her Grandparents and Grandad looks and smells like he hasn’t washed for five years.

Anyway, it was obvious because she was the one in last years uniform. The polo shirt was all faded, dress looked a bit tatty etc and she stood out compared to the other 29 children in brand new uniform. She also had messy hair despite the photo being taken an hour after they had started school.

It was obvious in my school who the poor kids were because they had supermarket trainers for P.E. and generally had wrecked school shoes, one coat they wore for years etc.