To think we could all have been done twenty minutes earlier

[Todaysrollercoaster]

Have been given a form group for the first time in four years.

Tax payers, be glad. Twenty minutes of my time and your money on

SHOES. This is important because if you don't wear the right ones you won't learn anything.
SKIRTS. Too short and you're asking to be raped.
Top buttons MUST be done up and God forbid if you wear any perfectly normal addition to an outfit of jewellery or nail polish.

Let them fucking wear what they want and let me teach, FFS!

Reminds me (with horror) of my own school days - loads of time wasted on uniform bollocks.

I recall one line from the extensive uniform policy "Boys must wear white shirts but pastel shades are not frowned upon for sixth-formers" This was a very average State School.

Depressing we haven't moved on.

dd is in senior school and has been told they need to ask before they remove their jumpers

how odd

I agree Todaysrollercoaster. I think its crazy how much emphasis is put on what kids wear to school. Surely what they wear has nothing to do with them learning. Sometimes it seems like conformity is more important than how much they learn. God forbid them looking different to one another!

It was so hot on some summer days that my fellow pupils quite often fainted during interminable assemblies whilst standing close to the full height windows with sunlight blazing in. No-one thought it might be an idea to shorten the agony or reorganise it. I sincerely hope that's changed.

It's about control isn't it? Control what you wear and we will control everything. But by Christ it is tedious.

God, I hate school uniform. As a teenager I constantly undermined it, staying within the letter but not the spirit of the rule. As a teacher I had far better things to do than check what DCs were wearing.

I went to a school in a country that does nit have school uniform so the whole idea is alien to me.

There were no rules on what to wear, yet never did anyone turn up at school in a short skirt, high heels, gorilla suit. Everyone actually dressed quite normally and practically, because that's what your peers wore.

Just look at what school children wear in France, Germany, etc etc. It's jeans, sweatshirt, flat shoes that keep the weather out (don't get me started on the inappropriate clothing schools insist girls wear, flimsy sites, not to mention the rules on skirt length being unimportant when it's pe kit).

Shoes, not sites.

I disagree with pp saying we shouldn't have uniform. If you do not have a lot of money it is more obvious when you don't have uniform. When you have uniform everyone has paid the same price, and doesn't have brands.

Reminds me of getting sent home from school because I didn't have a bag with me capable of fitting a large A4 ringbinder

That was the policy apparently. Fuck the fact that I had not one single run in with an A4 ringbinder for the entirety of my schooling.

Noah that's the jumper rule where I work too. Ffs if you're hot why can't you take jumper off.
Yanbu

They do have brands - coats, bags, trainers, phones.

Or if they MUST have uniform can't we stick them in jogging bottoms and a polo shirt and to hell with what's on their feet?

My reply for the "bullying" argument is that they'll just find something else to pick on. You could dress 100 teens in exactly the same clothes and someone will still be too tall, short, fat, skinny, spotty, tanned, pale. They won't have the right hairstyle or accent, too shy. You see where I'm going with this? Teens can be brutal and if they want to pick on you, they'll find something.

I didn't have the right clothes or brands but I did have my own value and the notion of loving yourself for your strengths drilled into me from a young age, bullies tried and it was no skin off my noes. Clearly that won't work for everyone but I can't quite grasp how dressing them all the same is the answer to preventing bullying.

Sorry but uniform is about showing you can adhere to rules. The asking to remove items is about showing respect to the teacher. We used to have to stand each time a teacher entered a class, again to show respect to the teacher.

Small things like that bring discipline into a classroom

They show respect to me after arguing for ten minutes about their trainers?

Ha. Ha. Ha.

At both my secondary schools, the poor kids stood out as their parents couldn't afford the expensive items like the school tie that you could only get from one supplier, or a pair of regulation type school shoes - it is a joke to suggest uniform is a social leveller - it's just isn't, it's just a stupid hangover from the past.

I don't get why teachers let kids back chat and argue with them.

These are the rules, follow them or fuck off. Like life. Follow the law or get the consequence.

I'm quite a fan of uniform but only with loose rules really. I think it has to be practical and affordable and easy to get hold of. I also think that academies get a bit too big for their boots - my kids' school is suddenly really fussy about uniform which seems ridiculous at a primary with a very mixed intake.

So you would do what Lunchpack?

Tell the kids 'tough, these are the rules' and enforce them with whatever measures the head has said should be used for infractions

I don't get why teachers let kids back chat and argue with them.

I'm guessing you feel the same about football refs and the Police - the truth is, you have to pick your battles, and teachers have a lot fewer sanctions than they did when I was a kid. Watch any TV docco on the Police and you'll see plenty of backchat from the public - it's a balancing act.

Ok.

How would you enforce them?

DS1 says they have whole assemblies on the length of the girls' skirts. They don't seem to have twigged that this is utterly irrelevant for 50% of the audience.

Uniforms are ridiculous.
I had a top to toe uniform and I still got bullied, why? Because my mum didn't care for buying me trendy bags, shoes, pe bags etc.
We had to ask to remove our jumpers too, the result? I fainted during assembly. I still hold this as child cruelty.
We also got sent home if we were scruffy. Whenever it rained badly anyone who walked to school got sent home as they were bedraggled. If it was still raining after I'd been sent back to change I wouldn't bother returning.

Ditch uniforms and have dress codes. The school can always ban obvious brands if they cause problems.

I agree with uniform but not with the shoes,hair and bag rules that some schools have. Conforming is not an essential thing.