To have no comment on this whatsoever

[friday16]

"Rhys Johnson, 14, was ordered to be taught in isolation for flouting the uniform code at Milford Haven school, in west Wales, by getting his head shaved at a Macmillan cancer charity event.

The teenager raised £700 with a friend last weekend when he took part in the charity's UK-wide annual coffee morning. He wanted to raise cash for cancer research after his aunt was diagnosed with the disease.

But he had been warned in advance by the school not to get his head shaved. As a result he was removed from class when he showed up on Monday morning, and was subsequently taught in isolation."

Here

But it's a whole other thread about whether the rule is stupid or not. And on another thread I'd agree. It's a stupid wanky rule that serves no purpose other than to give adults authority over children.

The rule does exist. The kid broke it. He's being punished.

Actually, no doubt that now the redtops have got hold of it the HT will have to back down and lovely Rhys will be reinstated. That will really help behaviour in the school.

"Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Botticelli, Reubens, Degas, Turner et al...all manged to be pretty good at art without resorting to a Superdrug home hair dye kit in pink shock."

Lol! Don't go there please. Michelangelo defied his own father who wanted him to be a banker/lawyer whatever... before Medici artists did not enjoy premier-league-footballer status they did afterwards.

Justbecause for me who has to dish out pointless rules every day I find it infuriating (like a lot of things in schools). These rules are often amalgamations of many schools' rules to show (as a PR exercise) which school is the strictest/toughest ergo 'the best' in PR terms. More and more rules, competitive rule making so to speak. All lapped up by management without much thought to the day to day practicalities of having to enforce it (ie the plebs or teachers).

stillenacht. Yup. Same in my school In fact, as mine is in Italy, it's even more rigid and rule regulated.

And I'm going to be late for my 12 o'clock lesson if I don't scram.

Lenient behaviour policies?! A policy on hair length??

disregarding hair length and focusing instead on each child personally is not equal to 'very lenient behaviour policies'

I doubt such data exists, LaQueen - too many other variables, I'd have thought.

I'm a teacher. I have never worked in a school where the length of a person's hair is part of the uniform policy. Feeling very glad about that, too. The only rule regarding hair length is that long hair be tied back when necessary (PE, science, cooking etc where it could be a danger).

Does anyone know if there's any link between schools with strictly enforced uniform rules, and rigorously enforced behaviour codes and their academic success?

Yes. The schools that get into newspapers with silly rows like this are all, pretty much without exception, failing or near-as.

The ne plus ultra is this school. The head (whose main qualification appeared to be being the daughter-not-in-law of a Chuckle Brother) was sacked within a term.

The school may be being arses or not. We don't know the background of this boy. If he is a constant pain then this may be his v flicking, trying to wind them up. If he is a model student ordinarily then it is a shame.

If he is a constant pain then this may be his v flicking, trying to wind them up.

Macmillan are still seven hundred quid up on the deal. His aunt still has cancer. Neither of those things is negligible.

Lots of schools throughout Europe do very nicely without petty uniform/hair rules (and also some schools here too). Rules for safety and well being are of course needed, rules for uniformity are helpful at times but of course can be taken waaaay too far ime.

LaQueen, it's always nice to have an opportunity to quote Feynman. It's the same mistake that makes bad schools think that uniform policies make schools better, rather than being the sort of thing that better schools do as part of being better. The school you cite brought in a better head, and one of the things they did was deal with uniform issues. had the weak head done the same, good things would not have happened. Over to you, Richard:

"In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head to headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennashe's the controllerand they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land."

Absolutely Friday

The school are being obtuse in their response.

The rule of hair being no shorter than a specified length is controlling and nonsensical.

article here about the link between uniform and achievement.

Any other sources Buss - evidence based preferably? I wouldn't expect The Grauniad to say anything to the contrary tbh.

I really believe in following the rules and being compliant but what I don't get is the obsession schools and school teachers and senior leadership teams have about lengths of skirts, ties, hair, makeup and hair dye then they turn a blind eye to:

BULLYING
INTIMIDATION
THEFT
DRUG TAKING
DISRUPTION
ASSAULT
INSUBORDINATION
POOR TEACHING

It's about priorities - when the priorities change I shall respect the profession.

We have none of the non-compliance with appearance problems at my daughters school, we have no problems with the quality of teaching, we have no problems with behaviour. The only reason that is so is because we pay and if the school didn't deal with the big problems we would stop paying.

It's perfectly possible to do both - the 2 are not mutually exclusive. I don't pay - I don't believe in private education - and the state school my DCs have achieved this. If you think that bullying, drug taking etc etc doesn't exist in private schools then you are deluded.

I can only speak from experience SirChenjin. When my DD attended a top 100 comp, there were all of those problems and the school said they did not exist in the school. Those problems do of course occur in the independent sector but in my experience if one has to contact the school one's concerns are taken seriously and the matter is dealt with rather than denied.