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?

purple Well, off the top of my head, leggings tend to be thinner material than shorts and sweating through those may leave sweat patches on benches or cause pale-coloured underwear to be visible? We're not talking sports leggings here.

[/ devil's advocate]

I think this is one of those trivial incidents that it is really not worth going down to the school about. There will be lots of minor issues throughout your dd's school years that will probably irritate you. If you start bending the teachers' ears about them all, you just won't be taken seriously when something genuinely important arises.

You'll just be making a nuisance of yourself if you raise this with the class teacher who, as you say, has nothing to do with PE in the first place.

Was there really only one evening's notice to get the shorts? My child recently started a new school and it was me who was most insistent on trying to get her the correct uniform. The school said they would have accepted reasonable clothing. The only thing I didn't get was new shoes, I asked if her existing ones would be ok and they accepted that in the short term.

I wouldn't get too excited about it, but I don't like schools or systems which punish kids for adults' actions. It is not a good introduction to their ideas of pastoral care. Let's hope there aren't kids at that school that really need support. You could say something to the class teacher at drop off/ pick up along the lines of 'I have got her the correct shorts now. However I do think it was a bit harsh to exclude my daughter in her first week at a new school for something that was not her fault.' And just bear in mind that that is their attitude for future.

Asda or Tesco website or eBay.

teacherwith2kids, my dd doesn't have the correct T shirt (school's fault), so does this mean all the kids will be bringing their own T shirts to school and asking if they can wear them?

A simple note to me (not relying on a 7yo to convey a message which is so important it involves her missing a lesson), to say can we have shorts for next week would have sufficed.

(I am not saying that I,. or the school teach in, is strict about uniform, or would respond as OP's school did. It doesn't choose to be, partly because we have very little trouble around it and thus it isn't worth our while to waste time over it. But other schools I have worked in DO have strict uniform, usually at least partly in response to previous time-consuming (or reputation-affecting - I have been told in all seriousness that parents would not consider my DC's old primary 'because it's not a good school - some children wear stripy tights') issues)

Leggings are often see through these days and may be banned for that reason. Why some parents think it's ok for all and sundry to see their 12 year old's lacy pants is beyond me.

"does this mean all the kids will be bringing their own T shirts to school and asking if they can wear them"

IME, quite possibly! You will have to wait and see. Certainly if I was your DD's teacher it would be something I'd be keeping an eye out for, if it was a school that cared about uniform.

vader, the fabric is a bit thicker than the shorts fabric - cotton as opposed to nylon. Maybe nylon is a better fabric for sports!

teacher, I guess the office (this is the only place where you can get the school PE T shirts) do not care about PE uniform quite as much as the PE teacher!

I can't imagine any shorts that are thinner fabric than regular leggings.

Would it be because it was the second time she had turned up without kit?

Are they to know that kit wasn't forgotten at home rather than you will be buying at the weekend?

because it was the second time she had turned up without kit?

I strongly think so. The "one day's notice" is irrelevant.

I have been told in all seriousness that parents would not consider my DC's old primary 'because it's not a good school - some children wear stripy tights') issues)"

You see, this is why I could never be a teacher my first thought in response is that you've dodged a bullet not having to deal with parents who think so superficially.

I think part of the reason I feel so strongly about this is because one of my DCs used to attend a special school. They were very relaxed about uniform. One of the younger girls used to wear coloured tights every day. (It was actually another item of clothing but I don't want her to be identified) Her parents dressed her but she loved her coloured tights and they were always admired in the playground. Very very sadly she had a life limiting illness and died whilst she was at that school.

It just seems to me that whilst our children are actually children, what they wear (as long as no health and safety concerns) to run around a gym is really very minor. So much energy seems to be spent on trivial things.

Why on earth waste so much time and energy on this issue? Just buy your dd the shorts and move on with your life! I find it staggering how people can make an issue out of something so trivial, especially when the reason for doing it is that you think they made an issue out of something trivial. It's like the pot calling the kettle black. Your dd is not going to become obese and unfit because she missed one PE lesson and as you haven't mentioned her being in floods of tears and telling you she hates the school, she doesn't sound scarred by the experience.

I suspect, btw, that if you had sent in a note saying 'no shorts today, I'm really sorry, will be buying them at the weekend - if DD has PE today, please would she be allowed to wear her leggings?' all would have been well. Especially if it was a different teacher on the different occasions, communication can easily be assumed by you but actually not take place - our PE specialist literally turns up for the lesson, and has littke contact with class staff, for example.

vader - decent leggings vs. those nylon sports' shorts available in all good supermarkets and uniform shops.

roundabout

I couldn't have put it better!

so much energy seems to be spent on trivial things

This is my impression too. And much of it seems rather vindictive and not very child-centred - like stopping a 6 year old from doing PE because she's in leggings. It's a very odd thing to do especially where a child has changed schools mid-term.

as for the issues of me writing a note, and the second time of transgression, I did not realise it was such a big issue. The reason I did not realise this is because the school did not communicate this fact to me themselves. I think the teacher should have alerted me to it, rather than jumping to exclusion from a lesson the next day (I did not know she had PE the next day and neither did dd), and not relied on a 7yo to convey the information. If I had known that "Under no circumstances will she be permitted to do PE in black leggings again, and she has PE tomorrow so you'd better have the shorts by then", I would have driven to the uniform straight after school on Wed so that she had them on Thur morning. It was certainly possible, if a pain in the backside. I just didn't realise that they were going to be so precious about it, since they did not communicate that to me personally. And it was actually the PE teacher who let them go from school on Wednesday so she could very easily have spoken to me to my face. To not bother to communicate it to me implies they were not that bothered by it either.

Can you not just buy her the shorts and move on?

I'd add that I probably wouldn't bother to say anything, but it's the sort of thing that if repeated gradually saps parental goodwill. Not that most UK schools seem to care very much about that any more.

Mistigri,

As I have said before, I can see it seems as if energy is being spent on something petty when you look at it at the '1 child' level. On a collective level, it takes HUGELY less energy to have a ritual 'no kit = sit out' policy for all, every week than choosing to evaluate every child's non-unform kit against a notional 'fitness for the specific purpose of this lesson' standard.

I can absolutely understand PurpleHeart's view of this as being less than child-centred and 'demanding conformity' - in schools, as in most collective settings, a level of conformity is a given to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number - but spending energy on trivial things? No. More 'making clear blanket rules so energy is NOT spent on evaluating trivial things'.

And I find it staggering how people completely stop thinking for themselves and become mindless drones everyone something comes out of the mouth of teachers.

they aren't some miraculous beings who can do no wrong. they are people. like the majority of people, most are good kind and honest, hard working sensible and caring.but equally as with people there are others who are just spiteful or unnecessarily harsh or arrogant.

negative qualities in a person don't disappear just because that person becomes a teacher.and things don't stop needing confronting or questioning just because they have letters at the end of their name or work in a school.

wellies. Yup, I am and I will. However, getting the irritation out on MN is kinda cathartic .