Should I really have to explain our financial situ to a teacher?

[bottleofbeer]

Ok so my 14 year old son is very hard on his shoes. About a week and a half ago he managed to rip the entire sole off his school shoe. Being completely honest at this time of year I just didn't have the funds to replace them immediately so I wrote a note in his planner explaining the situation and promised they'd be replaced by the time term starts in Jan. In the meantime I told him to wear his black trainers, so not wildly different from school shoes.

Last week he came home and told me he'd spent the entire day in isolation, where they're removed from lessons and they basically copy useless text all day (absolutely nothing to do with the curriculum) I already knew this because I got a phonecall from the office explaining that he was in isolation because of his shoes. I told them I wanted him taken from isolation because it's unfair to punish him over something beyond his control, that they know he struggles academically as it is and he can't afford to miss entire days.

Anyway, they didn't remove him from isolation. So we wrote a letter to the head of year outlining why he shouldn't be there and pointing out we had already explained the situation. He's not getting to school and slipping his shoes off in favour of his trainers and short of going barefoot he had no option. No reply.

Today I get a letter saying he'll be back in isolation unless I replace the shoes, and to phone the HOY to discuss this. I'm fuming, it has been explained to him three times now and frankly I don't see why I should have to phone him and tell him about the financial situation - again. I don't see that it's any of his business and a note from parents apologising and promising to recitfy it asap really should be enough. AIBU?

If you sent him to a school that has a dress code that includes shoes then he should wear shoes.

They should not have put him in isolation, (how old is he?) but you cannot honestly expect us to believe you can't even afford a cheap pair from Asda to put him on?

YABU

If I was another parent at the school I'd be the one asking why YOUR ds gets special treatment and gets to wear trainers while the rest of us have to provide shoes.

Go buy some shoes for your son. NOW.

whathasthecatdonenow what a caring teacher you are.

Cant believe people are suggesting wonga type loans.

I would keep him off school and screw up the attendance stats. They clearly dont care about your problems and are punishing your son harshly

Kytti.

Its perfectly believable that she won't have enough to buy a cheap pair from Asda or perhaps even the bus fare to get there.

Have a bit of compassion before you start sounding like a total twat. Have you always been so silly about who gets to do what? It makes you sound like a 5 year old saying " but but but Helen's mum let's her"

Have you actually told the HOY why you can't get the shoes before January? If it had been this week, I can well understand your frustration, but you say it has already been a week and a half, so by the time of the holidays you are talking about over two weeks in trainers. The secretary probably just told the HOY that you had been complaining, not the verbatim minutes of your conversation. Just call him and have a chat, we aren't all monsters you know.

lagoonhaze I do no more than most teachers I know, but thanks for the compliment!

That's awful YANBU I'm in Northern Ireland Here so maybe like the Scots it's different but I never had anything like that.

I left school 6 years ago but when I was there I always wore a wee hoodie under my blazer as it was freezing in winter and you could wear trainers if they where back.

Maybe it's new but TBH we never even had isolation unless it was for bullying or help with learning disabilities.

Lots of people dont have a spare £20 to buy a pair of shoes at short notice This isnt bad parenting it is force of circumstance. What on earth is the point in putting the OP's son in a pair of cheap crap shoes when a perfectly good temporary alternative was available?

If you dont have the money then you dont have it. That is it. I have experienced that horrible sick feeling of simply having no money.

Not everyone has access to cheap credit.

In my case whilst I can afford to replace my DS's shoes (and have now), I can't get to a shop til weekends. I don't return home from work til after 7, and the shop where I buy his shoes closes at 5.

Hence my DS, as mentioned upthread, spent a week in falling apart shoes to avoid being stuck in his school's equivalent of isolation.

It sums up the state of education in the UK that children are denied the opportunity to learn because their parents are unable to send them in the 'correct' footwear/clothing.

YANBU- I work in a primary school, we often turn a blind eye to non-regulation shoes, ripped trousers etc because we know full well the reasons behind it. The most important thing is they are in school and they are learning.

The posts going on about "can you really not afford a pair of shoes" obviously come from people who have never had pounds to live off until pay day - and thats for food, and I find them rather patronising...as if they dont quite believe this. Well lucky old them eh! And as for the "just put it on your credit card" - not everyone has or is entitled to them.

For what it's worth, if I had to go and buy my DS some shoes this week, I wouldn't be able to either. I could probably get a payday loan, yes - but I seriously wouldn't want to. The interest those arseholes charge is disgraceful, and they never leave you alone afterwards.

Doesn't matter if it's ONLY £10 or £20 - that's an awful lot when you haven't got it.

Squeaky , "there are 24h supermarkets all over the place." No there are not. You clearly live in a small bubble (or a big city) I live 50 miles from a supermarket that does not sell shoes anyway. Nowhere else to get them outside normal shop hours. Two of the three shoe shops in nearest town are now shut. (50 miles away) I might have to wait 3-4 weeks to buy shoes unless I get them online - not always a very good idea and can take 1-2 weeks to arrive, especially at this time of year.

Lucky for me I live somewhere that understands this kind of thing, and would bend over backwards to help someone who was struggling. Space at my school OP.

It seems pretty crap to me that you should have to waste money on 'temporary' shoes (ie £10 from Asda or whatever) until you have the money to buy a proper replacement, just to please the school, when you already have alternative footwear that could be worn, but for the fact it doesn't satisfy the uniform police. So in fact you end up worse off, and spending more money...

I think you may have misunderstood the mechanisms by which one acquires a credit card Butterfingerz.. I never at any time said I wouldn't find one useful, just that the circumstances in which we found ourselves meant that we would never have been approved for one. They don't come in Christmas Crackers surrounded by fairy dust and unicorn poop.

The same circumstances that mean when I say I have no money, I literally mean I HAVE NO MONEY. NONE. NOT A PENNY. NADA.

I think maybe you don't realise that this is an increasingly common set of circumstances. When the OP says she has no money AT THIS MOMENT until her OH gets paid, that's what she means.

HTH

You should have rung the school and spoken to the SLT and come to some sort of arrngement.They probably have shoes in lost property or maybe donated to second hand uniform.
I don't live anywhere near a supermarket that sells shoes and certainly not a 24 hour one!
However if your DS is 14 y you might be able to get him a pair of mens shoes from a charity shop

I find it depressing that do many can't 'beleive' that someone doesn't have the money for shoes. Very sad indeed.

OP it must feel intrusive possibly even a but humiliating to feel forced to go on & on about not having the money - I think you should tell them that when you speak to them tomorrow. It's something that when shared privately, & seriously, that should be treated sensibly. Your son should not be excluded from learning as a punishment - that's awful & doesn't make sense. If they gave to make a point of it, why not keep him in at break times instead? Or even just be kind & humane & give you til the new year...

Hate all this slavish enforcing of rules, it's enforcing power without principles. Hope it works out ok for you

this thread makes me want to move to Scotland, or N Ireland - your schools seem so more sensible and kind

Anyone wanting to know what's wrong with this country just needs to read this thread.

Economy's in the toilet, unemployment by the thousands, the NHS slashed and a million other real-world problems faced by real people every day.

And yet somehow schools believe that the type of shoes a student wears is the most important thing to get upset about. So important as to deny him an education. And judging from all the posters on here agreeing with the school, they've done a good job of brainwashing you lot. How you look must be much more important than what you do, right?

Typical England, a failed empire that will never see its fortunes rise again as long as this kind of ridiculous classist and backwards thinking prevails. Nero fiddling while Rome burns comes to mind.

I hate school uniform, always have, always will.

However, if kids are at a school with a uniform then you need to stick to it.

There are loads of parents that would write a note saying 'they can't afford it', 'their kids can't wear them', 'whatever'... if the school would easily accept a note in their planner, simply because their kids don't want to wear school shoes/tie/jumper (whatever) - so they inflict a punishment on the child, so the children don't ask a parent to write a note for them.

Even if the situation is the truth, the only way to put pressure on the parents is via the children. If there was a 'fine', there would be an even bigger uproar wouldn't there!

I don't like it - but really, what other choice to senior schools have?

I'd have found a way to do so if his trainers were obviously trainers or bright white or something but they're not

If you could find a way to buy school shoes, you should have.

Most schools apply common sense to the uniform problem and understand if a child is just wearing the wrong clothes for the sake of it or there is a genuine problem like the OP's. It would really annoy me if the school took that attitude with me and they wouldn't get a penny from me for any of their fund raising ventures ever again. Well they might but that is how I would feel at the time if my son was treated like the OP's

"I find the rather anal obsession with the precise design of footwear totally bizarre. Surely the important thing is that they are suitable to wear all day not that they conform to insanely narrow definitions of suitable footwear."

So the workplace also has bizarre rules? I have never worked for a company that doesn't have some sort of rule regarding footwear be it safety shoes, no open toes, no sandals, no trainers etc.

I have been a HoY and have received notes in planners regarding not being able to purchase shoes....the vast majority of these once I investigated turned out to have been written by the student so I can fully understand that the school need you to contact them.

The school has rules which you signed up to when your DS enrolled there and unless you speak to them and explain why should they allow your DS to not conform to the rules in place for everyone?

These rules whilst may seem stupid and insignificant to some of you are there for a reason and whilst it is the one that as a secondary teacher I sometimes hate being part of my job to monitor I do appreciate the basis of these rules; i.e. everyone in the same dress so no economic factors immediately disadvantaging students, the need to follow basic rules as life dictates becomes a norm etc

It's one of those things where the less well off end up paying more. Cheap shoes that only last 5 minutes so you need to buy more pairs, but don't have enough money at once to get a better quality pair. And the school is effectively forcing you to buy cheap shoes as they can't wait for you to put aside enough for a new pair.

And yet somehow schools believe that the type of shoes a student wears is the most important thing to get upset about. So important as to deny him an education. And judging from all the posters on here agreeing with the school, they've done a good job of brainwashing you lot. How you look must be much more important than what you do, right?

I agree, I think it's totally crap of the school. Other countries don't have school uniform and perform better than us educationally. While I quite like having a uniform as a parent they could get their heads out of their arse for a bit and come up with a compromise.

'Even if the situation is the truth, the only way to put pressure on the parents is via the children. '
anybody with this mindset should not be let anywhere near children