School uniform issues

[Badnewsoracle]

DS is nearly 7. He's NT (as far as were aware) but has some significant sensory challenges, mainly around clothes. At home he wears 'boy leggings' and t shirts and fleeces 99% of the time as these cause him least issue. He likes thin, soft, stretchy fabrics and hates anything restrictive, particularly around his joints.

For school he wears short sleeve shirts and shorts, with a vest underneath. Getting him to wear a jumper is a no-no, but he will wear his blazer and school let him wear a waistcoat/ sweater vest made of school jumper material (not sweatshirting).

However trousers are a huge issue and it disrupts his learning. Days I have made him wear trousers he's been so distracted and upset in school that they've let him change in to his P.E shorts.

So he's wearing school shorts. But it's freezing here now and getting colder..they play out in all weathers. Any suggestions? Either for super stretchy school trousers (that look like school trousers, no joggers or leggings allowed) or knee high socks (makes me think of the 1950s!).

Thanks

As an aside, my friend's son struggled with handwriting (amongst other things) and had a dyspraxia assessment. He is now allowed to use a laptop (yr 3) which has improved things no end. Friend did have to provide the laptop though.

State school.

Shorts year round are fine. He can run around to keep warm. It’s only in recent years that most boys have long trousers at all. Numerous prep schools still wear shorts all year.

So when he says he's cold I just ignore him? Or tell him to run around more?

My dd wore these H&M treggings all the way through primary school. They are much thicker than leggings but don't have any fastenings.

They have real pockets at the back and stitching at the front to look like pockets and a fly. They do look like trousers.

Another option along with things mentioned by PP is to wear black football or rugby socks with the shorts.

@Badnewsoracle yes.

Recent ? Recent ??

It's horrific how the system has let everyone live in their own very randomly different local bubbles, thinking they are what everywhere is like, and because this subject that features in the media, we are never confronted with the differences between regions.
Thus, shorts uniforms have never been much of a thing in South Wales, and I never knew they existed in my childhood there a half century ago ! I was able to start in private school infants class in 1973, yes you read right, private school 1973, with longs allowed and taken for granted for winter and no idea that it could be any other way.

My mother who had lived in the time of mid-century boys' costume and seen it go out, believed that any issue of shorts in winter had ceased to exist when that went out. She too never had any idea that shorts uniforms existed, and in a more modern form of shorts too. Outside her local bubble she had a schoolfriend in Weymouth and never learned of it from there either, it looks like it did not exist there either, so how can it have been so nationally widespread as online sources all say ??

Its heartbreak for me is made very live again by this sudden new outbreak of threads on several sites saying that many boys like to wear year round shorts. The web surely must be making a difference of awareness hence confidence to do it, compared to before the web when we had no sources to research its health safety. I never knew any such kid in my own schooldays, to learn from that it was safe to do, and I was very cruelly robbed of doing it as a child by my region's nasally irritating damp air from the Bristol Channel giving symptoms like a persistent cold. This climate may be why there was no other kid - though there was one classmate whose father seemed to be making him do it but my questions seemed to help him successfully assert to get longs after all - and absence of those uniforms there. This when as an adult I know I'm autistic with the sensory issue for this and have worn year round for over 30 years and got it recognised as a work need.

My ds wore shorts almost every day during primary. Even in snow. If he was feeling particularly cold he would wear knee length socks. we are in the north and it is cold.

There was one kid in my dc's year who did the same - saw it as a bit if a challenge - his dad who was a rather chunky rugby type always wore shorts too. It takes all sorts I suppose and it's nice to have a system that allows choice, even if it is a little unconventional...the problem is we no longer have choices for kids at school.

DS has worn shorts since day 1 of primary one. He’s in 4th year at high school now. We are in the north of Scotland. Shorts and joggers is all he wears. He doesn’t own a pair of trousers or jeans. He’s been absolutely fine.