school crack down on hair colour

[mrsfuzzy]

new school year and problems already! ds is 14 and like a lot of girls her age experiments with her hair, for the first time during the school hols she tried a semi permanent raspberry colour on her red hair [god knows why- ex p let her do it] anyhow i was cool with that as it doesn't look that obvious, as she washes it it becomes less obvious, however school are cracking down on these things make up, uniform etc as they did last year, but she brought a note home yesterday saying to remove the dye or steps will be taken, i wasn't fazed by this as each wash reduces the colour, but how do people 'get away' with flouting the rules about such things one girl has dyed her hair jet black with blue streaks over the hols and mum told me she is not going to remove the colour for anyone, one lad keeps one side of his head shaved in spite of repeated warnings, mum says she ignores them, i accept the school policy that's not the problem but aibu to wonder why it seems the 'easy targets get picked on' to set an example? any thoughts or similar experiences anyone?

David Bowie certainly looked a bit odd at times but he's a great musician.

All this seems to get so polarised but in reality it's not. Sensible uniform, easy to adhere to, discretion applied for extenuating circumstances, proportionate sanctions eg isolation, detention, removal of offending items for those who flout rules. Not suspension or sending home.

if children get so distracted by all the individualism around them then how come they don't in almost the whole of Europe, America and Australia where very few schools have uniforms then? it's nonsense.

there's no evidence to back it up.

teachers are made to look petty and ridiculous to bother enforcing rules about hair, dress and makeup that would see them in a tribunal in real life grown up land.

It's all very old fashioned isn't it? Are people saying I looked conservative as a child and it never did me any harm, but did it do you any good, will it do your kids any good and does it really make any material difference?

Why dye your hair, why look different? but teenagers ask why be the same? why should it matter if my hair is blue? why do you judge? And you can see why they do by the reactions from some on this thread - there's a knee jerk emotionaly negative response. If you think their hair colour is meaningless why make a rule about it? If it's about detraction, it gets old very quickly and takes a seriously creative mind to shock a class on a regular basis now that would be an interesting kid to meet.

I like to see the teens in a nice smart uniform (old gimmer me) but I do agree that it's a bit outdated. Also, lots of the kids still look an untidy mess in their uniforms- shirts untucked etc. maybe it's time to do away with them.

We get a letter home from the Head when the temp reaches 140000000 degrees to say the pupils can remove their blazers. They cannot remove them until we've had the letter. Ridiculous

I'm all for kids wearing school uniform but I don't understand the issue with hair dying.

I died my hair pink when I was at school. I'd never been in trouble before so was shocked to be literally dragged out of assembly and told that I'd be suspended unless I got rid of it. Hair colour had to be natural.

Another girl in my year had bleached her hair to bright yellow straw and wore the thickest orange foundation every day. very natural

Neither dd or I die our hair to 'make a statement' we do it because we think it looks cool (to us). Otherwise our 'beauty routine' generally consists of washing our hair and then going out. dd sometimes straightens the ends of hers as they get a bit fly away. Neither of us wears make up or spends inordinate amount of time choosing clothes.

Oh and we are both book worms and dd is an honour student. I celebrate the fact that she enjoys expressing herself. What's not to like. It is a most peculiar idea that her school where everyone wears what they like (very very limited rules) and has their hair how they like is somehow full of people who cannot express themselves with every other aspect of their personalities. Colouring your hair does not somehow suck out personality or intelligence. dd's hair is really not so incredibly exciting that other pupils just can't think about anything else in her presence.

"I also think the 'I can do stuff because I'm an adult, and I can tell you what to do because you're a child' position is really stupid"

Err.......right.......how does that play out in life then?

I grew up on the continent.

No uniform, no rules about dress. We had punks, goths and Madonna imitators, but mostly kids who dressed for comfort ( jeans, t- shirt). The whole uniform thing turns Brit kids into wanabe rebels or wanabe sex godesses ( or whatever it is girls try to look like with their rolled u skirts
). If teens are allowed to wear whatever they like, they end up dressing quite normal, mostly.

If weed is legal, it stops being cool and becomes something for losers, not rebels

If pubs are open all night, binge drinking lessens as people are less obsessed with alcohol.

If you talk to kids about sex and porn, I mean REALLY talk, getting pregnant at 14 is not cool but a bit silly, and girls and boys know hiw to bring up contraception before sex.

I love love love England, but do policy makers here know anything about basic human psychology?

I think certain schools have deliberately strict and nonsensical rules about uniform so that mildly rebellious children can get a kick out of - say - having their top buttons undone/socks down etc and the teachers don't have to deal with "proper" bad behaviour. If teenagers were allowed to dress as they liked/have facial piercings etc they would have to be seriously bad to get their kicks...

oh that is such nonsense, sorry.
i honestly think that some teachers just get a kick out of shouting at year 7s about their shoes, like a little power trip.

Its throwing it down here this morning so I said to DD 'put on your ankle boots because you will get wet'. Bearing in mind she wears trousers so to everyone else they look like a full shoe, I was a little stunned when she told me that yesterday staff were lifting girls trouser legs to check they weren't wearing boots.

I mean really? If you have to physically left the trouser to check is it really that much of an issue?

it is just sad and nothing whatsoever to do with education

Why can't they wear boots?

A local school has done this. New head

I think they've run out of space in isolation.

Personally I would have tackled the bullying culture before hair colour but I'm not a head

We couldn't wear boots at secondary either. A lot of girls did. We spent most of our time dodging the one teacher who would tell you off for it, most of the others pretended not to notice (unless they were massive boots).

I think it was probably to do with floors / safety and having great big 'clodhoppers on'. Since the long Dr Martins and long over the knee boots were about at the time I suppose it could have been a possibility but most of us just had pixie boots.

I don't think it's about rebellion.
My daughter is year 9. Her school allow subtle hair colour and subtle makeup. My daughter is over the moon with this.
She likes to look nice, and express her individuality a bit.
Hair dye/makeup doesn't stop her achieving great success at school. She's top of the top sets for everything.

Isn't the whole hair dye (or not), makeup, piercings thing about teaching children that it is important to dress appropriately for the occasion? A lot of workplaces insist on wearing uniforms, or having hair that "must be within the range of natural colours" or having no visible piercings. Yes, children need to be encouraged to express their individuality, but they also need to learn that there is a time and place for this.

Also, rightly or wrongly, children need to understand that some (many?)people judge you on your appearance. Its human nature (being judgemental) and rebelling against it is only going to hurt you. So whilst it may be your right to dye your hair pink and have five piecings in each ear, it will get counted against you if you go for a job interview in the city.

I wasn't at school that long ago and had a very strict uniform so skirts measured ties at waist length and we had uniform inspection at the start of every lesson. We also had to keep standards up on the way home, so if a teacher caught us looking a mess we would still get a detention even if out of school grounds. I found it helped to support the general school ethos of getting your head down and getting on with it. It also helped the teachers assert control from the off, control that I think is necessary when you're an adult in charge of 30+ students.
Our teachers had to wear smart business dress, as did sixth formers.
We were lucky in that our school was very consistent and everyone got punished, unlike some of the schools mentioned here. If your hair wasn't within the accepted boundaries you were not allowed in the school photo for example.
My mum didn't allow me to dye my hair, so I didn't. I wasn't aware as a child that I had a choice, and I'm surprised that so many parents think that their child's 'need' to express themselves comes before their attendance at school. If you know they will be sent home for flouting rules, don't allow them to do it.
Fwiw ours was a very successful schooling a very deprived area. Our headmaster turned our school around from worst performing to best by adopting a zero tolerance policy and I'm very grateful for the education I received there.

Valium, lord knows. They are a normal, run of the mill pair of lace up ankle boots that look reasonably like these but in black. I can appreciate its not a good look with a skirt, but under a pair of trousers they look like a normal pair of shoes.

To lift trouser legs to check I find staggering.

Jammie-sounds like my son's school. I like the uniform, ds would never leave the house if he got to choose what he wore,I can just imagine the arguments now...

One good thing about the uniform is that the kids tend to behave themselves on the way to and from school as they are easily identified and the schools here take misbehaving out of school a seriously as in school.

Kids have weekends, evenings and holidays to express themselves and plenty of time once school ours over to dye hair.

Is over

jammiedonut Whilst I am pleased that this has worked for you and others, I don't think this works for all children.

For example for some children 'zero tolerance' can be just a source of stress. It not that they want to break rules its just that they become overly worried about breaking them accidentally which means their academic performance is compromised. They could become forgetful due to stress and worry- which is a problem regarding organising when organising work.

If they have SEN (even mildly) their fine motor skills could be impaired so keeping socks up, ties tied correctly and shirts tucked in is more difficult. Being nervous about being reprimanded would make it worse.

The rules being relaxed, even slightly, teachers exercising discretion, can make a difference as these children would feel less different / singled out.

All the kids here wear their shirts un tucked but under their jumpers.

All schools here have clip on ties.

It's just part of the big wide world coping with wearing clothes you don't like. Plenty of places of work have uniforms too, you just have to get on with it imo.