To think that red hair on a 14yo isn't a discipline issue?

[GilbGeekette]

14 yo DD (just starting Year 10) has just been sent home from school on her first day for having "too bright" hair. Her hair is dyed auburn/red (having had it neon pink all summer) in accordance with, I thought, school policy of dyed hair having to fall into the spectrum of 'natural' hair colour. Her HoY rang me (apologetically, it must be said) and I accepted (even though I disagree) that they weren't happy with the colour, and said I would re-dye it tonight. This wasn't good enough, and I was given a choice between her spending the day in the 'isolation room' (with no set work) or her coming home and me re-dying it now. I've taken the latter option, as I'm a SAHM - if I was working this wouldn't have been an option.

I'm accepting (ish) of the school thinking that her hair isn't a reasonable colour, but AIBU in thinking that verbal assurances from me that it would be rectified by tomorrow morning should be enough? Fwiw, there are no discipline/behavioural issues with DD and school, (quite the contrary - they've always been extremely positive about her) and until now I thought that we'd all had a good relationship...

IMO if a school is going to impose a strict policy on the students then they should impose it on the staff as well. I see far too many staff members who would be in detention if they sat in the form room not the staff room.

I can't believe they sent her home for having her hair dyed a natural hair colour, I'd be very pissed off about that. Of course all these rules about conforming to a certain appearance seem to me to be preparing our children for jobs in McDonalds rather than interesting and challenging jobs where clients care more about what is in your head than on it. And honestly, even if you worked in a job where you had to obey certain rules about how you had to look, do you really think the hair colour the OP linked to would raise any eyebrows in a work environment? It's not like her daughter literally had rainbow hair, she was dark auburn rather than her natural light brown.

I'm a secondary teacher.

Firstly, I have a perfectly nice student who has missed two of my lessons today, sitting in Isolation, because she has hair in a shade of red that was perfectly acceptable 7 weeks ago.

She's the sort of girl who will shrug, & dye it back to boring tonight, but I suspect as a school we're on dodgy grounds. Saying 'You must go out & buy chemicals & put them on your head & you can't have an education until you do' does seem unreasonable when we haven't forewarned them.

I also agree that it's an awfully silly rule (funny coloured hair doesn't affect your ability to learn) & liable to bring school rules generally into contempt.

OTOH I do get mildly irritable when crap like 'if a school is going to impose a strict policy on the students then they should impose it on the staff' starts creeping in. Since I'm not actually 14, there are quite a few differences between the expectations I have to comply with as part of my role as a teacher, & those my students have to comply with.

it is the fact that the colour as deemed unacceptable... unless it appears to be richer in real life as it is very like the colour of my hair between the white ones.

I also have a spectacular streak of watermelon red in a different texture to the rest for some random reason of genetics... mutant hair follicles

are the school short of challenging behaviours or summat?

i left school at 16 because I hated this kind of policy/treatment/attitude towards the kids/rules...I have since returned to education because I love it and have 2 higher degrees

I think pointless rules are potentially a big problem

I was told yesterday about a girl just starting year 8 that she was excluded from the local academy (they are strict on uniform etc but their results are dire) because of her dyed hair. She is darkish brown normally but she dyed it black so is classed as extreme. I saw her in Sainsburys and it looks awful but i wouldn't say extreme. Another girl i know attends and she was blonde and is now black but she is still at school? Now her hair has gone from one extreme to the other.

Many parents start looking at schools when their child is 10 years old, the majority of those parents want their children to to have role models within the school.

They look for pupils that are nicely turned out, neat, tidy and not scruffy. At this point most parents want the thier childrens peers to be "normal" looking and not stand out. (If you see want I mean)

A parent of a 10 year old would in most cases frown upon a classroom full of scruffy looking, rainbow haired pupils.

They would not send their child to that school.
If a school cannot get a full cohort of pupils they loose money, and that will affect the schools ability to teach children in subsequent years.

your one shade of red today if twenty shades of blue tomorrow and a logistical nightmare for the school in a year or two.

EdMcDunnough

Flatpackhamster, I'm prepared to admit that I don't understand you.

The quote I was responding to was this:

'If you want 'society', you have to suck up the fact that lots of rules are ridiculous. Queuing is ridiculous. '

Now you're trying to say that you think queueing is useful.

I am really mixed up.

Queueing has a social value because it reduces confrontation. The only way we, as primates, can function in a situation where we are surrounded by thousands of other primates who could be a threat to us (and remember we're still, mentally, apes who live in a small social grouping) is to have order imposed on us which reduces the risk of confrontation or violence. Queueing is part of that.

Most of the rules of 'society' are there to stop people wailing on each other, but they are also faintly ridiculous to look at. How many other species line up neatly behind each other and take their turn? None that I can think of.

So what I'm saying is that queueing is ridiculous because it is 'unnatural' but the modern world we live in is also unnatural so you need rules to govern behaviour to make sure we don't start wailing on each other. And children need to learn about those rules and learn to conform in order to slot in to that system because if they don't you get anarchy.

bloody hell - some of you have really strict schools! Not saying that's a bad thing but you should see the way the kids round here go to school (central Scotland) - it seems as if absolutely anything goes. Even bright pink hair wouldn't generate a comment in most of the schools round here.

The rule for boys in my school was that their hair wasn't allowed to touch their collar.

LtEve - that's a brilliant piece of advice. I'll try it!

RavenAK - DD whines that her teachers have dyed hair/tattoos/piercings and "it isn't fair". She gets told that they're adults and that at 18 she can do what she wants (and live with any social consequences, as discussed on this thread). However I have a sneaking suspicion that if the Head could stop his staff from dying/piercing etc, he would!

Head and Shoulders is meant to fade colour too.

I really can't believe some schools take issue with coloured hair. What's wrong with dying it? How does that affect any child's learning? Thank goodness our schools don't take this view. I also disagree that if one has coloured hair then loads are going to turn up with bright pink hair or whatever.

I'm genuinely baffled over this.

If there is a strict uniform code for students there should be a strict dress code for staff. Why not? Be the behaviour you want to see and all that. It is not 'crap' it is common sense.

Whatever you think about the rules, I'm gobsmacked by the extent of the response. Isolation? Being sent home? For a mild (and it is, she didn't go in wearing jeans!) infraction of the uniform code? When I was at school she'd have been told to sort it out that evening, but taking her out of lessons is purely ridiculous. A child with slightly unnaturally-toned red hair is not going to destroy discipline in one day. Call it a slippery slope if you want, but one day is not going to result in a rash of pink, blue and green heads. There's just no way.

I don't even know what you'd have had to do to get that kind of punishment when I was at school. The one and only time I recall it happening was when that one completely psycho kid tried to hit a teacher, though I'm sure it happened more than that. Doing it over a hair colour sounds pretty desperate to me - if you can't keep control without these measures, IMO you're dangerously close to not being in control at all. Plenty of kids came to my school with dyed red hair, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't the source of any shocking moral decline, you know?

Personally I am all for being v liberal over hairstyles. I am coming to terms with a very strict uniform policy at secondary after a no-uniform primary. I loved the no-uniform primary.

But we can't have it both ways. We want schools where they have a tight hold on discipline, we want schools where lessons are not disrupted and teachers have authority. Unfortinately this is one of the tools schools use to create the framework for that discipline. I think that whatever our own personal liberalisms are around uniforms and hair and jewellry and mobiles, the best thing we can do is support our kids not to be exposed, embarrassed or inconvenienced by detentions and other sanctions.

It does really annoy me that sort of thing. I had my whole face pierced and blue, pink, and purple hair. Did it mean i would fuck up my life? No, i have done really well with my 'Education'.

The 'Chavs' however, many of which in my school have ended up in prison.

True story.

'IMO if a school is going to impose a strict policy on the students then they should impose it on the staff as well. I see far too many staff members who would be in detention if they sat in the form room not the staff room. '

Couldn't agree more gnomedeplume.

Dd1 has her nose pierced. She has been told she must remove it for school, yet 3 of her teachers wear them. She questioned this and was told 'they are teachers, they can do what they like'.

One of dd's teachers has bright pink crocs, worn with disney style socks. Now that's offence imo

It's tricky isn't it - rules like this are stupid in the sense that they have nothing to do with education, but you can't choose the perfect school, you just try to get your kids into the best one going, and unfortunately you may find you have signed up for this sort of nonsense. Then I reluctantly think you just have to support it, in most cases, although I do believe in honesty (I think I would say something like "I agree it is a stupid rule but I am going to make you follow it because I sent you to that school and we have implicitly agreed to do as they ask")

I don't agree that the kids and the teachers should have the same rules. Children and adults are not the same. There is a continuum, 15 year olds have more quasi-adult "rights" than 3 year olds, but not all of them. That way madness lies.

IMO if a school is going to impose a strict policy on the students then they should impose it on the staff as well

The staff are adults. The pupils are not.

Thanks Hamster, I do see what you are saying now though it was quite obscure

However I maintain that queueing, and a lot of other potentially silly rules - silly in the sense you describe - are there for a useful reason, as you acknowledge, while having hair of a certain colour is something which it could be argued has no discernable impact on people's social behaviour.

Having plum coloured or auburn or whatever, even pink, hair, is not going to stop other kids from working or cause a riot or any sort of injury.

Yes there are rules as part of the social construst but these have often come about by experience and long term testing out - like the queue thing we do - and thus I wouldn't call them arbitrary. They just work better than the alternative.

I still fail to see how having dyed hair is likely to be hugely disruptive to the learning environment. If you carry your point further, teachers could make a rule about anything - you have to wear black socks, for example, rather than grey or navy blue - simply in order to enforce compliance, without any real benefit or purpose to anyone in its own right. and I think life is too short and there are plenty of proper, valid rules to worry about and enforce without worrying about the colour of socks or hair, just to make a point.

Hope that makes sense.

teachers could make a rule about anything - you have to wear black socks, for example, rather than grey or navy blue

Um... they do. It's called "school uniform"

Well yes, perhaps my feelings on that subject are rather stronger than I thought

It could be any silly rule though just to waste time with - like, you have to wear a doily on your head, or you have to say good morning in Swedish every day - pointless, but just so that they can enforce it.

I was trying to explain why just 'having rules to be obeyed' is not particularly helpful, when there are enough rules which are there for a reason and warrant the time spent enforcing them (like for example not fighting in the corridor, doing your homework on time, and, well, queueing)

Whisper it quietly but the rest of Europe thinks Britain is just a bit mad (and quite frankly a bit weird) for insisting on school uniform.

At DSs school, the restrictions are relaxed when they enter 6th form, at which point both staff and pupils have pretty much the same rules wrt appearance. This was the same when I was at school many years ago