Why is uniform for secondary school so formal and strict?

[Soubriquet]

I mean why do they HAVE to wear a blazer unless a teacher says it’s ok to take it off. Why do they HAVE to wear a tie when most primary schools don’t.

Why does it HAVE to be a particular brand, especially with the COL crisis that’s happening.

My dd is going into secondary school and she’s moving from a primary school who were fairly flexible for uniform to one who is strict. I mean one skirt is £20 on its own! Madness

People argue it’s to prepare for the working world, but even adults in the working world have more flexibility

That's why it's impossible to ride a bike in a pair of shoes and a skirt. Funny I can do it.

If girls didn't pull their skirts up so short you can actually see their ass, they might ne able to run or ride a bike.

Not if every school in your LA has a strict uniform policy, you can’t - which is increasingly the case, particularly with the rise in MATs.

That is true.

Op, at least all the pupils will be the same, there won't be competition about fashion, etc. Your daughter can be individual in the evening, at weekends and during holidays.

Not all schools have a such a strict uniform code but you chose one that did. I doubt they have to wear their blazers in the class room but school uniforms can look very nice, and smart. She will get used to it and so will you.

Lots of people don't get a choice where their kids go to school.

Lots of people (including myself) don't have a problem with uniform.
I do have a problem with a long list of uniform that has to come from a compulsory supplier.

My own school uniform (30 years ago) was black blazer, and skirt or trousers and a white shirt. School tie and badge bought from school. Everything else bought at a shop/place of parents choice and budget.

I know what you mean, Fizzbosshoes. When I was at school we always had to buy uniform from specific shops. It was the same for my child, even down to socks :-). PE kit and sports bag. I didn't mind too much because the school shops weren't far away, for some schools parents have to travel miles for the uniform. Things like grey trousers and white shirts you could buy anywhere, eg M&S, because they were the same as the school shop sold.

It's not forever.

DS can wear a plain, generic blazer, but (our) M&S no longer have them in store because every other secondary in the city makes people buy a logoed one from set suppliers.
Because he couldn't try one on, and he's at the rapid growth stage, I guessed based on trousers, sized up and if he doesn't keep sprouting is going to look more like a drowned y7 than his actual y7 sibling... unless I spunk another £60 on two more blazers in the in-between size for him to wear for a few months, then hope that DS2 doesn't rocket past that size...

2 blazers being essential for a dyspraxic food magnet with gravity issues.

Yeah, great cost saving.

Still he does look kind of cute in a miniture 1980s second hand car salesman kind of way. Meanwhile DH drives off with him in an open neck shirt of his choice and a soft, warm jumper. DH's job pays better than second hand car sales.

With DS's sensory processing problems, if he didn't have to constantly use energy to cope with the discomfort of wearing things like polyester trousers, and plastic wrapped round his neck, he'd have more energy to put into learning and its social demands. There is no non-uniform school in our LA and it's not practical to move to the catchment of the nearest one in the next LA. The polo/ sweatshirt school is on the other side of the city and over-subscribed. DS is at least at the least fussy school of the limited options avaliable.

The irony about schools being strict about uniform is that significant learning time is lost to quibbling about authorised shoes/ skirts/ ties etc. I once had the joy of working at a non-uniform school and they all wore tracksuits/ hoodies/ t-shirts/ vests/ leggings mainly from Primark. Not one minute of learning time was lost in my time there because there were no petty points to be prooved either way and everyone was comfortable. It wasn't like a non-uniform day where pupils have limited opportunity to assert their style.
I loved teaching in jeans and t-shirts too. And shorts in stiffling weather in rooms where windows barely opened.

Bullshit nonsense. Rules for the sake of it.

this was over 30 years ago. Things have changed. Benefits paid a pittance back then so believe me my mum wasn't better off than those on benefits now.

It's simple really you know the rules children know the rules so you wear what the rules say

Yeah but it's not fair does not change that there are rules in society that we follow and no, they don't always make sense

My DDs school allowed you to buy the badge for the blazer and sew it onto a generic one, skirts also generic, only other thing we had to buy was the tie - £4

At 14 one of mine transferred to a school without uniform which was a nightmare, bullying due to brands was rife

Uniforms are awful and totally out of touch with modern day life, not many professions now require people to wear suits to work so it does not prepare them for the workplace in anyway whatsoever. It stifles them. Bloody horrendous, I'd love a ban on school uniform all together. I'd rather kids look like kids, not mini adult robots. At the very least, the primary school supermarket polo shirts and school sweatshirts are fine but full on starchy crap blazers and ties, yuck! And shoes..... don't even get me started!

but having a uniform makes everyone equal and sets a standard

But does it? My children know who the rich kids were (Skiing anyone?) who the poor kids were - didn’t have the latest phone/backpack

If we scrapped uniform all kids would be in joggers and hoodies.

They’d all look the same.

What’s funny is most businesses now have dress down and staff wear what they like. As long as it’s clean and respectful.

I couldn’t tell you what most people wear!

30 nylon clad teens in a small room so t the most pleasant environment.

Why is 'leveling' such a priority?

Why try to give students the idea that society is equal or a level playing field, or whatever?

It is not, so why pretend? There are people here telling us society runs on rules so teenagers need to suck it up. Yet you are advocating a pretense here.

The shout louder theory of how society works...

Maybe things would improve if teenagers were trusted more to make their own decisions about clothing, which is what happens in the rest of the western world.

Are British teenagers a breed apart?

Yes to this.

having a uniform makes everyone equal and sets a standard...

What 'standard'?

And what exactly is a 'standard'?

It’s ridiculous. How many jobs do you have to dress like that? And how does sitting in a horrible polyester blazer help learning?

Just back from mainland Europe where I can confirm that all kids, even the rich ones, wear jeans, t-shirts and hoodies to school. There were the odd couple of kids in high school who looked like they were off to a nightclub but because this was not abnormal no one acted like boys couldn’t possibly concentrate with some cleavage on show. No one rolled up skirts because why would you bother? That’s a customisation/ defiance thing and they’d chosen their clothes in the first place.

This uniform policing is such a waste of time and energy, especially when it’s hot. Kids will learn better in t-shirt and shorts because they won’t be as uncomfortable.

It's about tradition and image. Some American schools have tried it for discipline reasons and it doesn't seem to have much of an effect. (Catholic schools have uniforms.)

It is more jarring now that fewer and fewer people dress formally for work but we still expect secondary school pupils to wear ties and blazers.

My experience with no uniforms is that pressure to wear the right things varies from place to place and child to child. Some groups of children are more competitive and conformist than others. I have had friends who have complained that their children are pestering them for specific items. My kids don't seem to care.

Uniform and this countries obsession with it is bullshit.

It isn't a leveller (you still know who the poor kids are), it doesn't improve behaviour, it doesn't mean better exam results etc....... and yet at 16 we send them off to college and 18 to uni and we don't expect a uniform then? How can these kids at uni possibly get a good education without a uniform?!?!?! (Note sarcasm).

We need changes to come in but sadly with the rise of the MATs over the past couple of decades it won't happen anytime soon. We are so entrenched in this uniform equals better and it is a leveller that we don't look outwards to other countries who have better outcomes for their kids. I have seen locally that a school which is in requires improvement, one of the first things they do is get a strict and expensive uniform and think that will cure everything. It doesn't!

When some kids threw a water bottle at me from the top of a bus the uniform was handy.

From what I have read on MN some of your school uniform rules seem ridiculous, and some of the uniforms are downright ugly. However the UK is not the only place where kids wear school uniform. Admittedly it's a very long time since I was at school, but I loved having a uniform to wear - I even liked having a uniform at my workplace, it was so much easier than trying to decide what to wear every day, and I prefer to keep the clothes I like separate from what I wear to work - two different worlds. Same with school wear.

My dcs like wearing uniform - no thought required. It is definitely cheaper than needing a variety of non-uniform clothes. They like blazers because of the pockets. Ties are daft though.