Is there ANY proven correlation between school uniform and performance?

[Hullygully]

Any data (either way) anywhere?

'seeker Sun 05-May-13 10:02:12

I am prepared to bet that if you surveyed parents about what they thought made a good school, a majority would list homework and uniform among the things they were looking for. Interesting that they are two of the things there is no evidence to support being benefits.'

So homework doesn't teach the student time management?

Or setting priorities?

The importance of planning, organisation and self-motivation iis irrelevant perhaps? It doesn't allow the teacher to determine lesson assimilation?

Independent problem solveng and educational independence, useful for Higher ed. Opportunity to review the class material i your own time, pace and style. Do Parents get a chance to see what is being learned in school and to invest in the educational process.
Let's students know that they may have to do things ? even when they don?t want to or they aren't as interesting as Britney Spear's Crib on MTV. They have to take responsibility for their educational process.

You didn't like homework as a kid... we get it. Neither did I, that doesn't mean it is worthless.

Don't know if this has been countered since publishing...

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/mar/29/homework-linked-better-school-results

I think the problem is that uniform changes are almost always linked with other measures to improve a troubled school. It's impossible to say whether the uniform change alone would make a difference. But it does seem unlikely.

I agree with the homework comment though. We discounted the state school that we were allocated because of the feedback from our neighbors regarding homework.

Three pieces total each week in year 7 which either gets marked by classmate or comes back with a tick and no comments, either to encourage the student or to suggest areas for improvement.

Peer evaluation... like it.

There should always be some sort of comment though, other than a tick.

Even just 'Excellent' will do, or a smiley face stamp meaning the same.

...one can argue the benefits of homework until the cows come home but I don't think much of a school where teachers can't be bothered to comment on work that had been set

You are correct to think that.

I'd be having a chat with any teacher who felt that 'acceptable' and certainly with the headmaster/mistress should it be school wide.

They get a 'must try harder' on their report card.

Anyway seeker, judging by the threads about homework, the majority of MN mums and teachers think that homework is a waste of time. So I don't understand the basis of your assertion that the majority of parents think homework is of benefit.

Or by the 'majority' do you mean the feeble minded MC mums who take the attitude that a school must be good if the boys wear boaters?

Do teachers think it is a waste of time as it is more work for them?

Or do you really think the short time available in a school week is sufficient for all kids to assimilate their work?

If the kiddiewinks aren't doing homework prior to Uni, how will they develop their own abilities to learn? Crucial in Degree level studies.

Or do they thiink teacher will spoon feed them?

Doesn't bode well for those subjects with 5 - 8 hours of lectures a week does it?

I've been doing OU for about 12 years, it is pretty much all home work.

It would be interesting to have a proper study done, taking a variety of schools and changing their uniform status, preferably with no other changes made. E.g. Eton go completely uniformless with minimal dress code, Hills Road Sixth Form College goes into business suits.

My hypothesis/prejudice would be that following a transition period, there would be no difference whatever, but that could well be wrong. I can imagine I suppose that a uniform gives an impersonal reason to discipline a child and impose a regime on them, which could be useful.

Yes it would joan.

The continual sniping at seeker is really tedious, btw.

That isn't a study...

It is carnage. Would any changes in performance be down to uniform or lack of, or due to the trauma of an enforced change?

Is anyone actually asserting that a uniform policy enhances performance?

It just seems that a lot of people are spending a nice sunny Sunday afternoon challenging an assertion that no one seem to be making.

Re homework (and going off topic, but then, the uniform thing has got a bit boring, hasn't it), I quite like the idea of the "flipped classroom". The idea is that the children do the actual learning and finding out stuff at home (using books, website, YouTube tutorials etc) and then in class they do they challenging stuff that would normally be homework: essay writing, problem-solving etc. The idea is if there's anything they don't understand, they can ask the teacher/each other for explanations.

Not a bad idea, but it would be murder to organise... and they'd have to have good parental support early on.

That is the homework model at DC's school. Early on we had to teach them how to Google, how to extract out the relevant information and how to critique the facts in the classroom discussion. These days we just leave them to it.

Basically, the school's philosophy is why spend valuable classroom time having the teacher reciting facts when the pupil can do learn this at home. This way the teacher involve kids in discussion at lesson time rather than stand at the front imparting facts.

Not a bad idea.

I suppose information could be provided in booklet form or on short films accessed at home.

The school doesn't need to provide any extra material. It's all out there already. There are a lot of academics who have their own websites plus YouTube videos.

In anycase, the issue isn't access. It's commitment. 90 min of prep work most nights. You won't get too many takers from parents who think that their DC's brains will explode if there is too much pressure.

Certainly in adult training I have found the use of web based material to be very useful for bringing a group of people up to a particular level before group sessions. Learning Management Systems allow course managers to review performance in this web-based material to identify who has actually completed it and how well they did.

Far too much time is spent on easily measured but otherwise irrelevant things like uniform and homework hours.

From what I have seen in DCs' schools the technology available in the school is woefully under utilised and what is used is very poor in terms of presentation.

Re homework - I had my schooling in the Netherlands. Homework was not marked. Instead it was gone through in class. At any time, the teacher could pick you to talk through a particular item of homework. If you hadn't done it, but understood the material and got the correct answer, no problem. Understanding was the aim and you'd get your good mark. If you didn't get the answer, your book would be checked, and if you hadn't done the work, you'd be in trouble. The only exceptions to this would be essays, which were marked and counted towards the overall mark for the year.

This method put the responsibility squarely on the student, which IMO is as it should be. As a result, I never (other than essays) did my English, Dutch, French, German or Geography homework. I was strong in those subjects. I always did my Chemistry, Biology and Maths homework because those were my weak subject. History was always project or essay. Art and D/T were done at school only - no taking endless stuff home, or making models of stuff to plague the parents. Much better way of doing things.

Was that a Dalton method school pointythings? My DCs attended a Dalton method school for primary in the Netherlands. As a style (which sounds similar to what you described) it worked well for my DDs who are both self-starters. DS struggled with it as he needs to have a parent jabbing him with a pointy stick to get him to do anything.

My dd's school is very high achieving. No ties or blazers, and as little homework as possible- the school's philosophy was to get them to work at full pitch all day, then do other stuff after school. Generally only revising for exams, finishing work unfinished during the day, and practising anything not fully understood for homework. Seems to work- but I know some parents are very uneasy about it, and the philosophy is sadly gradually changing under a new Head.

Flipping is gaining traction in HE. If you only have two hours a week with a class it's utterly pointless just reading out the lecture notes to them.

I understood that the evidence for the utility of homework was weak at primary level but may be stronger at secondary level. However I've only skimmed the research in this area (not my sector and time is short).

What people here rightly complain about is not homework per se but homework with little pedagogical value (eg homework that is done by the parents).

Worry no, not a Dalton school, just an ordinary secondary (HAVO/VWO). I did my exams in 1986 though, so things may have changed since then. I hope not, though - with a little tweaking in terms of support for kids who are not self starters I think it's better than having already insanely busy teachers lumped with marking stacks of grammar exercises. My mum used to teach English in the Dutch system, and even without marking homework, her workload was humongous - she worked 22 hours, but did at least that much again at home preparing lessons and marking tests.

This thread has unearthed a memory of my own time in sixth form, where we no longer had to wear school uniform.

90% of people wore jeans. I once wore my lovely, faded patched ones and was taken aside by the year head who told me that we weren't allowed to wear jeans.

????? Said I, gesturing to my fellow students.

I was advised that we were allowed to wear denim trousers, but not jeans.

So in my case changing from uniform to non uniform didn't teach me much except to watch out for weasel words, and the institutional tendency to manipulate language for their own purposes.