Most ridiculous, nonsensical rules at your DC’s school

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Mine is no baseball caps or sunglasses, despite the fact that the school field and playground have no shade.

Whats yours?

My sons former secondary school had these requirements at the time and afaik these are still in place:-

No boots
No trainers
No trainer style shoes allowed (Ds fell foul of that one and when I asked why this was not acceptable I did not get a straight answer.

No cardigans
no denim jackets
no nail varnish
no jewellery except for a watch
one earring in each ear only and no more than 5m

Outdoor garments should not be worn inside school buildings. Therefore when the heating system packed up in the winter which happened more than once they were all sent home.

Long hair must be tied back for safely ( a rule widely ignored today).

At my DD’s old primary school, the uniform code listed blue hair ties. Fine. But black ones for PE. I don’t think it was actually enforced but did no one read it through?

At a local secondary school where my DDs used to attend a nursery next door, I’d often see the head at the gate telling students to take their hats off when coming into school grounds. Even in minus temps and snow, and when he himself was wearing a hat while doing this, woolly hats had to be removed before stepping foot on the grounds.

At my school we could wear joggers for PE- but only if you wore a netball skirt over the top. I liked wearing joggers because it hid the eczema sores and rashes I always had down my legs, but it became an exercise in humiliation because I had to wear the bloody netball skirt!

It was @Offherrockingchair who you replied to. Not wrong, just a bit confusing!

That coats have to be plain black

Tights are required for girls

In the main,agree with most of ours except for some food ones:

1)No bringing in cake or sweets to share on birthdays (not in UK,very traditional to do so here) because of potential allergies.Fine...except on the teachers' birthdays/namedays they distribute helpings of both,pretty sure they don't go through medical records first.

2)'Healthy only' lunchboxes - but school canteen only offers pastries,pizza,crisps,juices,processed choc croissants etc.One teacher also had a kebab and chips delivered which he ate in the classroom on a rainy day so no playtime.

Lovely school tho,so not worth raising in my opinion.School hours are 8.30-2pm so my kids won't starve :)

DD went to an American school where the girls frequently got “dress coded” but the boys didn’t. DD got dress coded for wearing shorts and a tee shirt. The shorts were longish denim shorts but not quite as long as her finger tips when she stood with her arms by her side. Her tee shirt was also too fitted. I went to pick her up - it was fine for boys to wear short shorts and vest tops when it was hot, but not the girls. I’m not sure there even was a dress code for boys,

Also no coats indoors, which creates a huge bottleneck if it’s raining at home time as they all stop in the doorway to put their coats on. There are also no lockers, so wet coats have to be crammed into bags or carried. DD doesn’t bother anymore, she just gets cold and wet.

If you are suspected of having used fake tan, you get put in isolation 😂

Why are schools like this? When did it happen?

Our only rule was no smoking near the doors. And that was it.

I left school in 2002

This is one from my time at school: girls (not boys) who had pierced ears were allowed to wear one plain gold stud in each ear. Silver was absolutely prohibited.

That a £70 blazer is COMPULSORY so you MUST buy one, and then the staff will never ever enforce it so it gets worn on day one of S1 and then never seen again.

We wasn’t allowed to lean against a wall at break times but were allowed to do handstands against them… logic NONE!
DCs school is white or grey socks only and only shoes, I understand no trainers but the girls are not allowed to wear boots in the winter. They are also not allowed the gingham school jumpsuits in the summer has to be normal uniform or gingham school dress.

The problem can be when you 'do' choose the school with sensible uniform regulations, then the Head changes and the new one decides to bring in some random rules, like changing the school jumper for a sweatshirt, effective almost immediately.

Been there, done that.

My 6 year old got in trouble for doing 6 7 when the answer was 67 I’m sorry I wasn’t gunna tell her off for that

We had that one too!

Not allowed to open top button on shirt, or take jumper off if hot. They can only remove jumpers when an email has been sent out at some arbitrary time around June saying they can now remove jumpers at school if it's hot.
No coats indoors, even if it's freezing or if they are about to go outside. No bags on chairs even if nobody is using said chair. So many silly rules.

We only have one school, however we already had 3 at the school when the new head came in and brought his bonkers rules. Moving them would involve trying to get a place at an over subscribed religious school 35 mins away or another school 45 mins away with no direct bus.

Not everyone has a choice

FFS crisps are made to eat with sandwiches

At my work (secondary)
No nail polish
No trousers that dont have a button and zip i.e no flared leggings.
No jewellery
No lashes
No rolling skirts
Black socks only.
No fake eyelashes
No coloured hair bands/bows only black.
No heavy makeup.

Total shite it was for me who travelled about ten miles to school on foot plus public transport.

Like anyone would know if I was cramming in a mars bar on the tube several boroughs away?!

Not allowed to go into any shop or other business on your way to school or on the way home - your journey has to be direct. I am guessing the intention was to prevent large groups of teenagers shoplifting or otherwise being a nuisance, but the rule as written is absurd.

In my dcs’ infant school packed lunches sat on one side of the hall, hot dinners sat on the other side, and the same staff supported both sides. One part-time Lunchtime Supervisor took it upon herself to police the lunchboxes on the days that she was on duty in the dining hall. If children had any cakes or biscuits in their lunchboxes, she would not let them eat them. Meanwhile, on the other side of the hall, she was helping children eat the piece of iced cake/crumble-and-custard/ice-cream that came with their school hot dinner.

Parents complained to the HT:

Ps: “This is a Mrs X problem. There are never any problems when she is not on duty. Nobody else, not even the Deputy HT, polices what we feed our children.”
HT: “I have to support my staff. We have a Healthy Lunchboxes policy in this school.”
Ps: “But the school hot dinners include a sweet pudding.”
HT: “Our hot dinners are nutritionally balanced. We cannot guarantee that packed lunches will be.”

One parent used to bake the loveliest flapjacks and biscuits, packed with seeds and dried fruit. They got around the HT and LS by paying for a doctor’s letter which stated that their child had a medical need to consume a high fibre food with lunch.

@BillieWiper eating while walking around was seen as rude/uncouth at a lot of posh schools - my brother got a detention once because a teacher saw him on a Sunday eating a sausage roll walking along the high street with our dad. He wasn’t even in uniform, and obv it wasn’t a school day, but it was still not allowed!