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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To agree with the Headmistress to send home pupils who do not conform to regulation school uniform.

300 replies

annemary12 · 07/09/2013 21:13

I am totally fed up with school pupils who look a mess and are not dressed in correct or regulation school uniform. I never understand why many schools allow 6th form pupils free will in their choice of clothes.

I think that if pupils are unable to abide by school uniform regulations what hope of they got when they leave school and are going to interviews.

I believe that all school pupils including 6th form pupils should wear a regulation school blazer and school tie so they can show which school they go to.

Headmistress like Leslie ellis are standing up for standards that have been in decline since the 1970"s and need to be fully supported in their desire to hold standards to at least the very shoddy standards that pupils display today. I for one am delighted that a head was prepared to take ridicule and derision in standing up for standards.

After reading the constant criticism of leslie ellis i thought it was time that someone stood up for a upstanding member of the teaching profession.

OP posts:
Original poster
annemary12 · 08/09/2013 16:28

NO i dont Daftdame. The name calling is not about their Academic abilty but about how they dress.

OP posts:
daftdame · 08/09/2013 16:32

Good, I am pleased you don't encourage it. Not very pleasant even if it is about their dress rather than academic ability, quite frankly.

grumpyoldbat · 08/09/2013 16:33

Still not acceptable to join in name calling.

Ahlaam · 08/09/2013 16:34

Couldn't agree more OP!

It is becoming rather tedious seeing parents incapable of saying to their teenagers that rules must be adhered to. No one likes going into work at 9:00am wearing certain smart attire but that is what work dictates and as adult we learn to abide by those rules.

I will not froth at the mouth about this...must walk away.

daftdame · 08/09/2013 16:36

No, frothing is not a good sign Ahlaam.

Talkinpeace · 08/09/2013 16:42

Uniform has a very simple purpose : to subsume the identity of the individual into that of the herd.
That is why military forces and churches have them.
Most early schools in the UK were linked to military/church families.
Later, state schools brought in free choice of clothes to rebel against the public schools.
Then, as inequality started to rise in the UK, uniforms were brought in to state schools "to stop bullying"
and the grammar schools went overboard trying to out public school the public schools on uniform.
What then developed was a poisonous non causative link between higher results and uniforms
(selective schools had uniforms and did better so it must be the uniform, not the selection)
BUT
the genie is out of the bottle
and UK kids leisure clothes are not suitable for school nowadays (hence the silly "suits" at 6th form)

TheBigJessie · 08/09/2013 17:02

OP, I think your daughter's behaviour is utterly deplorable, and it presumably reflects very badly on the ethos of her school. I'd far rather have scruffy looking 17 year olds than ones who thought it was appropriate to belittle others for their dress.

Pray tell her to spend a little more time on her own A-levels, and a little less time on practising being a cross between Katie Hopkins and one of the nastier style journalists.

Morgause · 08/09/2013 17:09

DD and friends have commented how much a dump one school is in particular, that School has loose uniform requirements. They call the sixth formers "SCALLYS" because of the strange and scruffy clothes they wear.

What appalling behaviour. I'm so glad I have no DCs at school with those little bitches.

TheBigJessie · 08/09/2013 17:12

Ahlaam :It is becoming rather tedious seeing parents incapable of saying to their teenagers that rules must be adhered to. No one likes going into work at 9:00am wearing certain smart attire but that is what work dictates and as adult we learn to abide by those rules.

Funny you should say that. The OP seems incapable of telling her child that name-calling and pathetic tribalism between the pupils of different schools is unacceptable!

marriedinwhiteisback · 08/09/2013 17:15

You don't turn a dump into a good school by having a logoed uniform OP. You do it by fostering mutual respect, dealing with dysfunctional behaviour, providing diffrentiated learning, and by having high expectations.

I think your views are formed because you live in a grammar school area and your dC passed the entrance exam. Most of the dc they are educated with will come from non chaotic backgrounds and will have been taught right from wrong. Where that teaching is missing in a stable loving home, it needs to be encouraged and enforced in schools and other public sector environments. A uniform which is expensive and heavily policed is not a panacea for society's ills. Support, excellence and a sound moral code are too often missing especially with non or quasi selective intakes. DD's state comp had a lovely uniform and afb reputation. The present was not so good and she wasn't proud of the uniform; she was scared to go to school. Her current indy uniform is gross beyond measure but she's so much happier and goes to school with a spring in her step rather than dread. We were lucky we could afford to take her out but for mmany it isn't so simple and it isn't so easy.

Darkesteyes · 08/09/2013 17:23

TheBigJessie i said the same thing about make up on one of these threads but i didnt put it as well as you.

marriedinwhite i dont always agree with all your posts but on this i TOTALLY agree.

Their priorties are seriously out of whack and their ideas need to be seriously bucked up.

WorrySighWorrySigh · 08/09/2013 17:44

"You don't turn a dump into a good school by having a logoed uniform OP."

Totally agree marriedinwhite. My DCs' school changed to a blazer and tie uniform and then plummeted to the bottom of the league tables.

OP and her DD sound very smug pleased about the school they have access to. The uniform just advertises what lucky clever people they are.

We have access to just the one completely crap school. Why on earth would my DCs want to advertise that they go their?

WorrySighWorrySigh · 08/09/2013 17:44

there

LynetteScavo · 08/09/2013 17:52

YABU, simply because most sixth-formers go on to university for three years, and spend their life in jeans before putting a suit on for a job interview. Which the majority of them seem to be able to manage.

My DSs school has uniform until y11, and they are strict about it (if you are going to have a uniform, you may as well ask everyone to wear it properly) but it's jeans and t-shirts in Y12 &13, and their A-level results are very good.

thebody · 08/09/2013 17:53

op if my dds behaved like yours I would be utterly ashamed and devastated. how vile and smug you both sound.

I think the HT is a daft cow who obviously has major issues with bullying and control.. she's a bully.

school uniform is a total load of old outdated bollocs that costs a fortune, doesn't improve standards, is decisive and silly, wastes much valuable teacher time and causes disruption and discord in schools.

European schools do far better than we do in their own clothes.

pointythings · 08/09/2013 17:55

OP I hope you told your DD off for her name calling - that's an appalling attitude. I wonder where it came from? Hmm

You still haven't addressed the issue in this particular case, which was supplier failure and the pupils being unable to obtain the uniform. Funnily enough I am now wondering why that is?

LynetteScavo · 08/09/2013 17:57

Personally I think 6th formers in "office wear" tend to look dire.

If they think they will be able to turn up to an actually office wearing the same type of clothes they wore to 6th form they will have a shock.

Highlander · 08/09/2013 18:02

14/15 yr olds in school will behave very differently to the adults that emerge as at the end of their school career.

A rebellious, pink-haired teenager does not an irresponsible adult make.

Talkinpeace · 08/09/2013 18:03

Lynette
simply because most sixth-formers go on to university for three years
what ever gave you that idea?
Education is now compulsory to 17 for all pupils
and even then, less than 1/3 ever went to University (the other 10% were mature and part time students)

"office wear" is little preparation for being a plumber or a carpenter or an offshore North Sea diver
"office wear" is about breaking their souls that little bit more

Original poster
annemary12 · 08/09/2013 18:05

Neither me or my DD are "VILE" for simply wanting to look smart.

When you were kids did you not call other kids from rival schools!

I do not encourage my very "NAICE" and respectful DD to call them "SCALLYS" but kids use these words in jest not in nastiness.

Please refrain from calling me or my DD "VILE".

OP posts:
LifeHuh · 08/09/2013 18:09

The school that stood out around here until recently for general scruffyness was one of the girls' grammars.

I actively dislike the whole wearing business attire in the sixth form idea.Why? What is the point of it,exactly?
I have a professional job,I have never had to wear a suit to work,for which I am very grateful,as I find suit jackets seriously uncomfortable.Dh is in IT - he doesn't wear a suit.DMum was a teacher...need I go on? Lots of adults don't have such prescriptive standards in their workplace,so why is it necessary at school?

DD (significantly smaller than average) had enough trouble finding anything remotely smart and fitting the business casual code in her sixth form - not a lot of call for business casual in Age 12-13. Not many suits for girls either.

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 08/09/2013 18:13

I won't use the term vile I will just say that you don't sound pleasant. And judgemental. I hope you Appreciate being in a financial position to be able to dress smart, but the ridiculously expensive uniform. Many arent, and to pass judgement on children unable conform to your ideals is just bloody mean.

They are people under those clothes.

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 08/09/2013 18:13

Buy

Morgause · 08/09/2013 18:17

I do not encourage my very "NAICE" and respectful DD to call them "SCALLYS" but kids use these words in jest not in nastiness

Yeh sure they do. Wink

They do sound vile, OP. I remember their type when I was at school. If anyone complained about the bitchiness they were "only joking".

marriedinwhiteisback · 08/09/2013 18:19

No, OP. I went to grammar school and didn't. My DS has just left one of the highest performing indy/public schools in the UK and doesn't. (And BTW he went to an interview at Oxford in jeans and received an unconditional offer which he declined in preference for a less elite uni with a course more to his taste but which gave him a stiff offer). My dd now goes to a very naice indy and doesn't. My DH went to the local comp and still feels sad for some of the kids who went there.

Just to irk you further, dd had highlights last week, has had her eyebrows threaded and has had a make up lesson at john Lewis for which I paid and wears make-up for schoolbut won't be called on it because it's so natural looking.

I can be a bit smug sometimes OP and have woound up a few peope on here over the years usually due to not understanding other people's lives, but I'm not nasty and I don't name call and if my DC did they'd be grounded.