To complain to this teacher (and what do I say)?

[MerryMarigold]

Dd (Y2) started a new school on Monday. The school uniform says PE kit should be school T shirt and black shorts. Before she started and I was in school, I saw some of the older girls doing PE in cycling shorts, so I assumed black leggings would be ok and sent her in with these in her PE kit.

Anyway, she had PE on Wednesday and came home saying she is not allowed the leggings and needs black shorts. Fine , I will go to the uniform shop at the weekend, which is probably the only place you can get them at this time of year. Then yesterday she had PE again and had to sit out because she didn't have the shorts. Apparently you can't do gymnastics in leggings. She was sad as they were playing stuck in the mud which she loves. I really don't see why you can't wear leggings to play that!

This is not some posh school, it is a state school in a fairly deprived area. At our last school we didn't even have a pointless PE uniform.

I just feel it was very unkind to make a small girl sit out of PE which she loves, single her out in her first week at a new school and give me one evening's notice to get shorts for her.

So, anyway, do I bring this up with class teacher (who is lovely)? Or PE teacher herself? And what do I say?

Merry I don't think it was such an unreasonable assumption and in any event exclusion from the lesson was an over the top reponse given she had something suitable. It shouldn't have mattered, and would t havbe in plenty of schools. Lesson learned.

Id have thought you could have had a few days grace, as your dd is new.

However, just cut the leggings off. Sorted.

It is also possible that there was a collective 'sitting out' that your DD may have been caught up in - a generalised 'all those who haven't got the correct PE kit in school will have to sit and watch today'. I know that an exception should probably have been made for your DD, under the circumstances, but I do know that, on occasion, when the 5th person has come up with the 'I've not got my kit', amidst the general chaos that is an infant classroom getting changed, I have been known to issue a blanket instruction of that type

"I think I have answered several times why I thought black leggings would be ok."

You think you have, but the clue is in the name - cycling SHORTS are shorts. Leggings aren't shorts.

Yes, frustrating and a bit unfair to exclude your dd from the lesson in her first week, but cycling shorts are shorts, as required, and leggings are leggings... It was a bit of a leap to assume leggings comply with a shorts-only PE uniform policy and would be allowed unquestioned. It's quite likely the school isn't particularly enamoured of cycling shorts, either, but at least they are a type of shorts!

You are not only unreasonable But actually ridiculous. How do you go from the uniform is black shorts to leggings?! You were the cause of your daughter missing pe.

YABU the school has a uniform and you decided not to follow that. Your Dd missed out because of your decision not the teachers.

[Just to say that the exception could have been made for your daughter because of the time needed to get her new shorts, not because leggings are actually fine, IYSWIM? When we have uniform issues that need a shopping trip - e.g. the child in white trainers when the uniform is black shoes - then we would usually give a week or so's grace when nothing extra is said, to allow for a trip to the shops]

Always get DD PE shorts from Next, free next day delivery to store and great quality too.

This sums up exactly why school uniform policies are such a pile of wank, and why I am so relieved that DD's school doesn't have one. A child has appropriate clothing for an activity yet due to some arbitrary rule made up by some random adult she has to sit out. Pathetic, what a waste of everyone's time. (And DD goes to a specific gymnastics club where leggings are more than acceptable so it's utter gibberish to say otherwise

well said

there are many reasons why leggins may he appropriate over shorts anyway. and if track suit bottoms are allowed in some schools why aren't leggings.

dd does gym and she wears leggings.

Ah, also read the OP again - you mention class teacher AND PE teacher. Are they different people? Did she have the same teacher both for the PE lesson when she was told she needed shorts, and the one she sat out of? It may be that, if the two teachers are different, teacher B had no idea that teacher A had already spoken to her about the incorrect kit and thus the short notice element of getting new kit, and so may simply have gone for the 'standard' school approach, which might well be 'sit out if you don't have correct kit'.

Op it seems utterly stupid to me.

I would ask in writing if they could explain how leggings pose a health and safety problem and perhaps ask local gymnastics team what they think.

Some people, lots of people are able to take on these petty and insane rules and take them with good grace.

I am not one of them.

You will have a whole array of irritations to deal with, so dont be labeled that parent complaining over something relatively insignificant

but it sounds like the teacher is that teacher doesn't it?

i dont think any parent should feel bad about doing anything school related for being that parent.

Bloody hell - a child doesn't have the correct length of garment for PE and she has to sit out of PE?

Utterly ridiculous. Thank god for the common sense of the Scottish education system.

Do you bring it up? Yep, I would in the context of the consistency of the uniform policy. Either they enforce it across the school or they don't - they can't have one rule for one child/class and another for others.

I don't understand how upon seeing a girl doing PE in cycling shorts, your thought process was to buy your daughter leggings for PE rather than erm...cycling shorts.

I agree with pink i wouldnt have done anything to make her stand out.
I really have no idea how you go from shorts to leggings
This happened when i was at school over 15 years ago

just totally unnecessary to make her miss it! Let her do it then ask she has shorts for next time. If you forget pe kit at my kids school they use spares or let you join in in uniform.
Poor thing. I would totally say something.

Black cycling shorts.

www.clothingattesco.com/f+f-school-2-pack-of-girls-cycling-shorts-with-as-new-technology/invt/ap439210&bklist=icat,4,shop,catgbacktoschool,gi-bts-pe

You thought leggings would be ok because you saw other kids in the cycling shorts. As a PP said, leggings aren't shorts.

WTH are some parents so reluctant to take responsibility for their own willful mistakes?

"Some people, lots of people are able to take on these petty and insane rules and take them with good grace."

I am not one of them either.

op YANBU. What a load of bollocks. Trivial, petty and disproportionate response from the teacher. How on earth can the fact that a yr 2 child was forced to sit out and watch PE as she had an extra four inches of material on her "bottoms" be anything other than trivial and petty? Surely they are allowed leggings or tracksuit bottoms for PE in the winter.

The only person being childish here isn't the child, it's the teacher. Jesus, things like this at primary school make me so glad I HE.

I'd replace the leggings with shorts ASAP. If the next PE lesson was before I could obtain the shorts Id write a note explaining the delay and asking she be allowed to participate this time in leggings.
Some schools will relax rules with good reason. My dd can only wear bamboo socks because of a medical condition until recently I couldn't source black only brightly coloured ones and so she was allowed to wear any colour I could find although the children used to tell the teacher regularly she was wearing inappropriate uniform.

Pick your battles.

This is not worth it.

A tad upsetting, but no big deal really.

Sort out the shorts and then don't give this a moments more thought.