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?

Also all the actual studies and evidence shows that uniform/not doesn't effect learning or behaviour, so it's a needless expense, hassle, and needless days lost when children are sent home from school for having the wrong thing.

I haven't said anywhere that I think non-uniform hinders learning. I don't really care if the school my DS goes to has a uniform or not. And I'm quite capable of ensuring my DS doesn't end up a bleating sheep irrespective of what happens in his school.

How did you avoid become a mindless sheep despite the petty bureaucrats at your school?

No idea if it's still the rules now. they have had a couple of uniform changes since then. they have gone the stupid blazer route so expensive now obviously.

there are a couple of schools round here where I don't think. I have ever seen the girls in trousers...

the local catholic primary school certainly doesn't state trousers on the unifirm fir girls.

If DD ends up at a uniform secondary, which she probably will (and we'll have bugger all choice about where she ends up), I'll be on the PTA and any bollocks about children missing class time because of sock colour etc, I'll be on it like a ton of bricks. I can clearly remember the bureaucratic implementation of uniform rules at school and all it taught me is that some school staff are utterly petty jobsworths.

I'm sure the staff of this projected school will appreciate a list of deviations from the rules that can be applied. And school staff aren't jobsworths, they are obliged to enforce rules that they have no part in formulating, and often don't agree with on a personal level.

Schools are there to teach, and most of them are paid for by the taxpayer.

It's not their job to make up stupid rules with no real reason behind them and in doing so create barriers to learning.

It took a long time tbh, culture, in all seriousness. After I left school I went to uni (obviously no uniform) and then have worked, for 20+ years, in an industry with very little, if anything, in the way of a dress code. But in fact I would say for a long time I made a lot of bad decisions which I now could confidently trace back to never have been encouraged, either by school or parents, to think for myself. I've done a lot of mindless rule-following in my time. That's not what I want for DD.

(My comment was in response to yours of 19.25 I think, took me ages to type out, sorry!)

echt are you saying that the PTA can't challenge a school's culture? Really?

Interesting posts here. I'm definitely in the 'pernicious nonsense' camp. I have come to hate school uniform, I think it is a waste of time and money. School hair rules beyond obviously sensible ones such as tying long hair back or controlling it in some form are pointless.

However, as many MN threads go on about, I have chosen to send my child to a school with a uniform - never mind that the choice was minimal, I'm very happy with the outcome. Also I am one of the few parents in the country who actually had an tiny outside chance of sending my child to a non-uniform secondary school - it was such a small chance that I didn't bother. and I might have had to take him to school rather than him going solo This is because uniform is not important enough to make that choice about. Having done that, I am certainly not going to make constant representations to the head teacher and governors about their daft uniform because they have better things to do and because I support them totally in their Herculean task. My child will be able to endure stupid rules for 5 years. I wish he didn't have to but it doesn't actually matter enough to make a huge fuss about.

I left school in 2009. We were made to keep our Blazers on at all times, even in the height of summer when it was really warm. We also had to keep them on during our exams in the gym which was always really stuffy during the summer.

I also recall a girl getting a lecture from teachers when I was in year 7 about a bandanna she was wearing. It turns out her mum had shaved her and her 2 younger sisters heads because of headlice. Needless to say, the girls mum phoned the school and went ballistic.

Not objecting to minor rules is not the same thing as mindless rule following, at all. I really don't think that schools have the ability to affect a child more than the child's own parents and family do.

What I don't understand is that surely whoever makes these rules, whether it's a class teacher or a headteacher or a governor, probably thinks themselves to be fairly intelligent.

So why is the punishment for "disrupting learning" with yellow socks or red hair or a coat in the playground; ACTUAL disruption to learning with isolation/being sent home to change/wasting precious teaching minutes doing "sock checks".

What sort of idiot thinks that is a logical process?

Tigs, do you know if the mum had phoned the school before the children arrived with shaved heads and bandanas?

Lol at the surprise at different rules for teachers than for students. I mean, why don't THEY have to wear uniform and sit exams?

You don't have to have your learning disrupted just follow the rules

There are a lot of jobs were you can't have a orange Mohawk

Jorah, unless it's a new school, most will have had their uniform policy for a long time. I taught at a school for 12 years and at no time did the rules on uniform change (I think they should have btw). If no one makes a case for change then often the status quo will prevail.

I loathe uniform / hair colour rules and the obsession of DCs 6th form with insisting students dress like 1980s bank clerks, something I have found puzzling, since they are keen for 6th formers to go on to ( Russell group) unis, where they will ( I assume) be unlikely to wear suits.

DCs skate just the right side (or occasionally the wrong side) of uniform / dress code rules. Generally the teachers aren't that worried. They have better things to bother about. Like teaching.

Personally I like the idea of school uniform (although its often unneccessarily expensive imo) because it is a bit of a leveller and stops me having to think too much about what to dress my kids in (they are still very small)
But the dyed hair thing? I am not in favour of strict rules on this.
I can't say it is pointless because I think the point of it is to remove any expression of individuality (dyeing hair doesn't have the socially alienating potential that clothing can have, and is relative inexpensive) and to illustrate that one of the objectives of school is to promote the propoganda of the state and create an homogenised mass of young people for the workforce.

echt are you saying that the PTA can't challenge a school's culture? Really?

No, I'm not suggesting this.

But the post I was critiquing was clear that it was about the "bureaucratic implication of uniform rules" that they objected, seemingly that rules are OK, just, er.. don't follow them through consistently.

I made it clear that teachers don't get to make the rules, often don't agree with them, and certainly don't get to choose, as individuals when to enforce them.

If it helps, I loathe school uniforms, and have done for the 35+ years I've been teaching. I've made this clear to any pupil who's ever asked me. I also enforce the school's rules to the letter, as I am obliged to do as a condition of my employment. Jobsworth, if you like.

You are only obliged to enforce rules which are lawful. School uniforms, regimented hairstyles etc are not enshrined in law and schools cannot refuse to educate children who do not comply with arbitrary dress code.

Culture- As far as I'm aware, her parents phoned the school and left a message for the headteacher. It was more the way the teacher was going about it which shocked me to be honest. It could have been handled by pulling the girl aside, telling her that bandannas were not part of the uniform and giving the girl a chance to explain herself. However, the teacher proceeded to shout in the middle of a corridor full of students who were lining up outside various classrooms. She then went and got another teacher who began to demand that she took it off in front of everyone.

LordBrightside, a child can still be educated in isolation, I would have thought that would be sufficient to fulfill the legal requirement.

A lot of teachers are chancers in my experience.

Yeah, of course they are, loads of them.

Love this idea thst if you just speak to the school, the head and govenors that they will implement changes. If anything the bloody opposite happens. Especially now all schools are becoming academies and that seems to go hand in hand with a new uniform and incredibly petty uniform rules.

We got an email home today actually about pe kit rules. The pe kit that was changed and made more expensive when they became an academy, it was great having bought uniform for September to be told by November we had to buy new. But hey they quite often give one free tie and blazer so it's Ok then...

Tbh given all the academies and the new uniforms they are enforcing, which of course can often only be bought from one supplier at a much higher price than the supermarket version, I am starting to wonder just who has s finger in the pot somewhere and is making money from it.

"LordBrightside, a child can still be educated in isolation, I would have thought that would be sufficient to fulfill the legal requirement."

A school cannot refuse to educate a child based on arbitrary dress code. If a school then chooses to systematically isolate a child as punishment for not following arbitrary dress code rules they would be open to prosecution.