To not get schools issue with dyed hair?

[fitforflighting]

I suspect I may get flamed for this but I genuinely do not get it.
They have a rule against earrings including sleepers. That I get especially with younger children or in sports were children can end up getting them at worst ripped out.

I can kind of even get extreme haircuts with big shaved stars or strange styles that look unprofessional and might not be allowed by adults in a professional work place.

But this week and last term several of senior age children who had dyed hair brown/red/dark purple etc were sent home from school to re dye or put in isolation by teachers with errr brown/red/purple dyed hair! One of the children's teacher has bright purple hair. It does not make her any less of a English teacher or lesson her professionalism in school I don't reckon so what is the problem for teens?

As Giles says learning that people look different and you have to work with it is an important thing.

Also if it was normalised after a short time no one would care because it wouldn't be such a big deal

"that's different to deliberate disruptions such as shouting out, making a right racket or a right mess, being nudged or prodded etc. no one should have to put up with that."

But the point is, if all of the above are a direct - and predictable - reaction to the specific haircut, you can't necessarily deal with one without dealing with the other.

(One of the most notable behaviour incidents i can remember - letters home, sent to the head for lunch, the whole works - started in seconds from a piece of expanded polystyrene. It was that kind of class.)

Yes you can. You deal with the idiots making a fuss about the haircut

Mooney, actually, you deal with both. Lurked has explained clearly why schools have the rules they do, so for the example of an absurd haircut that breaks the rules and is designed to get a reaction from the class, you deal with both the child with the haircut and the children being an idiot about it.

Exactly how you do that depends on the child and the class. But you do deal with both.

"Exactly how you do that depends on the child and the class. But you do deal with both."

So you DO exercise judgement. I thought you just had to follow "da rulz" and that was that.

Lord, I will repeat my post above:
"So in one class, with a particular child, an absurd hairstyle would simply get a tiny and momentary stir, and this could be dealt with entirely discreetly by the child in question being asked to go to the hairdressers at the end of the day.

But in another class, with a different child, the main aim of a particular haircut would be to create a distraction and reaction - the mcfc example above would be a good one, as it would have been designed to encourage a reaction from fans / non fans of particular teams, specially designed because this was known tio be a dividing line within the class. Knowing that, a good behaviour manager would deal with it more robustly and immediately, to retain the focus of the rest of the class."

So in the first case, the child would be asked to change their hairstyle by the following day. In the second, they might have to be asked to leave the classroom and spend some time elsewhere in the school before changing the hairstyle for the following day, because should they be left in the classroom, the behaviours that Giles points out - shouting out, mucking around, pushing, shoving etc - might well occur.

Same rule - hairstyle not allowed. Slightly different process for enforcement.

Yes you can. because you treat the reactions to the hair cut as you would treat the same reaction to someone's scar or birthmark etc

as unacceptable to pick on someone's appearance.

a shaved head could well mean an accident with the clippers or it could kean they are undergoing chemo or loosing their hair. or shaved it off fir a charity after a family member got sick.

a bright colour hair could mean their hair took to the colour more than expected or it could be for they landed a part on a theatre production/tv ad or something they have wanted to do for years.

either way it's not acceptable to take the piss.

Teacher don't get me started on the disruption a wasp causes!!!

Giles teachers would know about the scenarios you discuss - as will the kids.
You can't compare a child with cancer to a boy who shaves the middle of his head to get attention ...

Well I would certainly hope that the reason the kids don't laugh at one kids shaved head is because they had personal medical information shared with them in order to ensure they left that kid alone and only laughed at the other.

if a shaved head is funny to them it's not only gonna be funny cos it's a particular child surely.

taking the piss is not acceptable whatever the reason. and isolating fir a hair cut alone is just making a bigger deal out of what should he nothing

if a kids an attention seeker and a class disrupter then deal with the behaviour. I can't see how you cab decide that's what he's doing by a haircut unless there have been incidents before and other problems. in which case any dealings have been ineffective and the problem. again is t the haircut but the ineffectual dicipline that's happened before hand. and I'm. assuming a poor attitude he or she has in general that they need to turn around themselves.

And besides, many well behaved attentive decent honest non-attentionseeking people dye or cut their hair.

and should be free to do so

"if a kids an attention seeker and a class disrupter then deal with the behaviour."

Surely that is exactly what we have all described? He / she is choosing to attention seek and disrupt the class, on this occasion through a haircut but on other occasions in all sorts of other ways....

Which is why an absurd / not allowed haircut by a know class disrupter / attention seeker would get a different reaction from one from a normally well-behaved child, though the outcome - a hairstyle returned to something acceptable to the school by the following school day - would be exactly the same.

Again Giles is desperately trying to maintain their argument despite it being logically rebutted.

Also in terms of argument, the levels of expertise and ability to see provided by teachers on here is being routinely criticised by those whose only experience is that they were once in school. The major problem of education, it's fine to question but it's not fine to dismiss those people who have a level of expertise because it doesn't agree with your opinion. Also lots of post hoc fallacies being continued by those doing the criticism.

But if the cut was allowed and any reactions punished it wouldn't have any impact would it.

by banning it they have somewhere to go. if it was allowed and people were used to seeing a whole range of colours and cuts no one would give a shit.

"and should be free to do so"

But if it is against the school rules - and lurked's post explains why many, if not most, schools have rules around this - then it should be dealt with according to the normal procedure for a child breaking the school rules.

If there is no school rule about it, or there is a good reason for the exception such as many you have described, then dealing with the 'responders' is all that is necessary. But if there is a school rule about it, which will be for the many reasons that lurked described, then you deal with both parties.

You may disagree with the school rule. But if the school rule exists, then you cannot blame the teacher for the fact that they respond to its breach. And quick, consistent response from every member of staff makes it HUGELY less time consuming and allows maximum learning by the class.

(DD's descripton of enforcing the makeup rule in her class - below 6th form, so none allowed: Class enters form room for registration, tutor hands relevant children makeup wipes as they enter. By the time the register is finished, all makeup has been removed. I - as a teacher - happen to know that one of her peers wears medical makeup for a facial scar, and of course she is never given a makeup wipe. No words spoken, no time wasted.)

I suppose I'm repeating lurker's point that if there is a rule, you cabnnot complain that it is enforced. You may think that there are better alternatives to having the rule in the first place, but other stakeholders in the school may not think this. There is, in discipline and good order terms, nothing worse than having a rule that is not enforced. Either have it,. and enforce it, or don't have it.

So if you cannot convince your DC's school to move to a policy that allows all hairstyles, do not complain that the school enforces its rules.

At least two dufferent parents in this threads have recounted incidents where staff have either not known or have ignored medical reasons for hair not being as per the school rules. So I'm not sure why piece is so confident that they would know or take that into account.

Thus has been a very interesting thread. But, as with the other threads I've read in the subject, nothing I have read has changed my mind that Britain's obsession with children wearing uniform is misguided at best. It sounds like the change needs to come from the parents and politicians so hopefully some people will now think that just because it's the norm doesn't mean it's right. I will certainly always fight for DD's school to remain non-uniform (whatever the argument in secondary school there is, in my mind, absolutely no argument for uniform in primaries), and I will, using the right channels, challenge nonsensical rules or implementation of rules with regard to uniform in whatever school she goes to next.

"staff have either not known or have ignored medical reasons for hair not being as per the school rules"

Like the double standards that allow staff pink hair but not students, that is indefensible, and I won't try to defend it.

For me, it isn't a sufficient reason to get rid of the rules altogether, for everyone, while school reputation and all that rides on it is so influenced by public perception of student appearance and behaviour. One of those 'hard cases make bad law' situations.

I understand that, I'm just challenging the assumption that a teacher would always take the medical reasons that Giles suggested could be why a child's hair was not as per the rules into account. This thread tells us otherwise. To me it adds weight to the argument that hair, beyond H&S issues like long hair being tied back in the lab or for PE, should not fall under 'uniform'.

"But if it is against the school rules"

That doesn't matter. Human right and the law of the land supersede any school rule.

It's illegal to discriminate against someone because of the colour of their hair and it's illegal for schools to impact a child's education on such spurious grounds.

School rules on it do not matter and can be ignored. They might as well not exist.

It's illegal to discriminate against someone because of the colour of their hair and it's illegal for schools to impact a child's education on such spurious grounds.

How do you define discrimination? It is certainly legal to deny someone a job based on hair colour; equally you can deny a student an education if they do not conform to a dress code.

I could have better said, you can deny a child admittance at a school if they do not conform to the dress code.

Lord chosen hair colour isn't part of a protected characteristic and so isn't protected by law. At least on it's own, if it were part of your religion or culture you might have a case, but even then such protections are not absolute.

Lord brightside literally nothing that you have written is correct.....
It's not illegal
Nor is there discrimination
And their education is not being impeded by being in isolation....
So a load of tosh really :)