I love a good illogical school rule!

[TheNightingalesStarling]

The email has come out. They don't need to wear blazers today due to weather.. on buses, in corridors, in lessons etc

However... they must carry it at all times. No leaving it home or in their lockers!

I know it doubles as a pencil case for many of them but would the world implode if they safely left them at home?

How does holding a navy blazer help identify that the children attend X school, instead of the next nearest school Y, which also has navy blazers...

The kilts and ties ate a lot bigger give away... plus the fact that all the children in the area go to the village school!

We have this.

We're in a really wet part of the country and there is no shelter in front of the school at all- but coats have to be in bags before trying to enter school - and detentions if they don't.

So most have macks at most and wear thermal underware in winter.

They also insist all coats have to be black - though that's very intermittently applied - so one year Navy blue as balck one stolen DD1 was threaten with dentention - had to rush and buy a black on mid week. Months later see kids wearing bright red wouside school with no consequences.

They've also started this last year sending out e-mails that kids must have coats with them - but they still can't ware them in school - including breaks.

My 90s seocndary was bat shit with blazer every year someone had to faint and ambulance get called before we'd be allowed to take them off. It would be announced in school if we could take them off that day or not - so we always had them.

Fashion parade, behave.
My kids go to a uniform free primary and its lovely. Kids are comfortable and happy and there is no bullying. It becomes a non-issue and no one cares what people are wearing. We can invest more money in 'home clothes' as not spending on uniform so they have better quality clothes.
I hate uniforms with a pashion. no adult woman wears a blazer and tie so why would a 14 year old girl? Ludicrous.

I hate school uniform anyway. Shirt, tie, blazer, stiff skirts or trousers. They should be in comfortablr stretchy clothes. I am for a pe kit style uniform. I think they would get more out of thevkids if they were actually comfortable all day. Uniform was the worst part about school.

Well tbf Primary is very different to secondary, my son was bullied for wearing non branded trainers at PE it’s not comparable to primary.

Hundreds of children will lose them, the school will scoop then up and sell them back to the parents at a "discount" bridging the funding gap that used to be filled by PTAs and so on. It's got to be their plan.

It's amazing the way whole countries manage to avoid uniforms and not teach unthinking conformity and that doing something that's physically bad for your health like (jumpers and blazers on summer) is worth doing because someone in charge told you to do it

i support uniforms but really dislike the horrible polyester blazers and shiny ties. A local secondary (that has very good results) just has polo tops and jumpers, similar to a primary school. I think that makes so much more sense- comfortable but also smart and equal.

I hate silly and illogical rules because I always teach my DC to respect rules and get on with it, but when they come out with this rubbish it makes it hard!

Yes, my mum was a secondary school teacher and was always annoyed about the latest new strict uniform nonsense she was expected to pretend to care about and implement in her classroom.

Uniform rules are absolutely bat shit.
Our local secondary rules include
Girls can wear skirts to the knee but must wear at least 40denier tights all year round with them.
(I'm assuming that's so bare legs don't tempt noncey teachers) I can get behind the length of a skirt hitting a certain number but thick tights for the two weeks of scorching hot temps is ridiculous especially when the school has no air con and they have glass walls in some rooms.

Also blazers can only be removed with staff permission.
Also we live quite rural but the kids can't wear any sort of boots must be a shoe only. Kids walk to school in all weathers as there aren't buses provided for my area and service bus doesn't go near it so surely practical footwear would be better.

My school insisted on knee-high socks for girls, which a) freezing in winter b) didn't really work once you hit the average height and shoe size of an adult man by year nine, because schoolwear manufacturers assume all schoolgirls are under 5ft 6 and dainty. Five years of being constantly stopped to pull the bastard things up, despite them staying where they were meant to for about 75 seconds.

Having to wear men's shoes to school was great as well.

Nobody's ever been sent home from my actual real grown-up job for wearing trainers, or suspended for having an undercut that's slightly too short. Nobody would ever expect adults to have to carry an entirely redundant jacket around everywhere with them in fucking June. I've been to conferences where the in-house counsel for a huge company came in a plain grey tracksuit, and I'm pretty sure it didn't stop him learning anything.

I hate silly and illogical rules because I always teach my DC to respect rules and get on with it, but when they come out with this rubbish it makes it hard!

I was taught very very early on that (a) lifes not fair, and (b) regardless of anything what you do is what you do and not what someone else says you should do. Maybe "obeying orders" had lost it's shine after the war ?

The mental gymnastics required to believe that you are teaching kids to be individual, inquiring, discerning, analytical and sceptical whilst simultaneously laying down almost biblical rules are quite phenomenal.

Thankfully my DC are passed school age now but I also found school uniform rules baffling. In sixth form they had 'smart casual' dress so boys wore chino type trousers, and a smart shirt and jumper in winter with proper shoes (ie DMs). Basically a whole new wardrobe for DS. They only changed the rule a few years before DS started in the sixth form and before then it was jeans. t-shirts etc.

We also had the same shite re summer - school would deem when students could take off their blazers and jumpers and go to school in just shirt (and tie I think). The girls didn't like their bras being visible so often would keep jumpers on.

When I was at school in the summer we just wore our skirts and shirt with no tie. Girls didn't have to wear a tie or blazer, but boys did, which was odd. Couldn't care less re bras - boys liked to 'ping' them for a joke which annoyed us (in the 80s).

The uniform rule that annoys me the most at our school is that from April they lose the shirt, tie and blazer. They wear a polo shirt in blue. For PE they wear a polo shirt in a lighter shade of blue. They are not allowed to leave the premises in the PE shirt if PE is the last lesson of the day. They could have a longer PE lesson if they didnt have to get changed to go home.

To add, much preferred DC's primary school uniform of polo shirt/sweatshirt and trousers/skirt.
I think there should be 'some' uniform, but comfortable and not restrictive in price.

Thank god my kids aren't in school anymore!
I can give you a shed load of reasons why schools and the education system are failing - and micromanaging pathetic ‘rules’ is one of them!

Schools are hypocrites!
Can you imagine in any other universe where school leaders and government say they want children to become intelligent, self starters and then tell them when and at what temperature they can decided whether to wear their own blazer or not?
It makes ZERO sense!

UK education needs a complete reform….by people who understand children as the first prerequisite!

SOME children will stand out for wearing tatty shoes or having a crappy school bag. The fact is some kids will always standout as poor. Shoving all kids into an impractical and uncomfortable uniform makes zero difference.

Our daughter’s school isn’t ultra strict about uniform, but if you don’t have a blazer and tie on, you aren’t allowed into the hub to buy lunch, which is insane because it is always absolutely roasting in there. There is a really good second hand uniform scheme, but it can’t serve everyone, and the costs new are extortionate. The local primary school has a uniform of black skirt/trousers and gold polo shirt. The kids still look smart, I can’t see why this isn’t good enough for high school.

I had to wear a very formal uniform at school.

The outcome is that for my entire adult life I have resisted any kind of mandated clothing. I'll just about do it for money - so, for a business meeting I might wear something 'businesslike'. And for a loved one I'll do it - so, for a wedding, for instance - but the moment the formal bit's over, I change.

This is a ridiculous and rather adolescent over-reaction to having been made to wear a uniform - I know that. But I rather like it about myself.

My kids never seemed to mind having to wear school uniform. They are a huge disappoint to me.

Some schools are ridiculous about uniform though. My daughters’ primary is quite chilled out. The smallest children have the automatic to remove a cardigan. I never understand why 5 year olds are allowed to determine if they’re a bit hot but 13 year olds have to ask permission to remove a blazer.

Eldest is moving to private prep and the uniform is expensive and a bit ridiculous tbh but I have to suck that up as they do seem to be a bit more chilled once you’re actually in school. You also notice that all the private schools near me have the kids in track suits and pe kit a lot of the time.

Our local state secondary is one of the schools that is anally retentive about uniform and seems to run like a prison camp re strict approach to rules as a means to turnaround the school.

Completely agree. I think it’s laughable to suggest a uniform is a leveller that means children won’t ever know who is poor.
There are still fashions for shoes and bags etc, and it’s clear when someone is in a dirty, too small, second hand fraying blazer. When I was in secondary school, I had the horrible stretchy supermarket or BHS black trousers while other people wore nice fashionable topshop ones. I had horrible clompy childish shoes, while other people wore fashionable ones. Other girls carried their PE kit in those Jane Norman bags while mine was in a plastic carrier bag.

But sure, thank goodness we were all in the same tie and blazer 🙄

Just imagine....if a parent decided to punish their child by isolating them for an entire day based on their clothing. The schools would probably make a safe guarding referral.

I have no problem with schools making kids wear a uniform but it's ridiculous that they expect them to dress in clothes that are so absurdly impractical. Blazers, ties, smart trousers, collared shirts etc - most people don't even wear clothes like that to sit in an office any more, and if they do, they still modify it as they wish for different weather and activities. Being too hot, too cold, uncomfortable and itchy in restrictive formal clothes really isn't conducive to learning well. I don't know why schools don't just have a uniform that consists of plain cargo pants and a school-branded t-shirt and hoodie.

What, in case they escape?

DP used to believe in the fashion parade myth. Then our DC went to school in France from 3 to 18, where there are no uniforms. We are cheapskates so they never had designer labels, it was all supermarket clothes. I asked them recently if they had ever experienced any form of hassle or bullying about what they were wearing, and they both said no, and they'd never seen it happen to anyone else either.

On the other hand I remember (at a UK grammar school in the 1970s) we would stretch the rules as far as they could go, specifically to get a rise out of the teachers. One rule was (verbatim) "Brightly coloured socks are not allowed". Cue endless discussions about the actual meaning of "Brightly coloured" (which actually led to us learning a lot from a sympathetic physics teacher). One of the ringleaders of that is now a High Court judge.

As the staff rep on the board of governors I was asked by some of the men on the staff to try and get the Head to relax the rule on male staff wearing ties when the weather was hot. He wouldn't budge, even though there was not an equivalent rule regarding female staff's dress and some looked like they were going to the beach, cropped tops and low cut shorts or trousers. He was, I think, afraid of upsetting some of the very militant women on the staff.