To ask what UK parents really think of school uniform

[longtimelurker101]

Relating to the thread on school uniform and hair dying. What do parents really think? Do you support the idea or would you prefer that schools across the U.K went non-uniform and had no rules regarding appearance?

Argh this is so frustrating, you cannot say " and you do" because it doesn't logically take apart the reasons given. That's all i said, I don't think schools should ban girls from wearing trousers, just you need to put your argument in a better way because it is easy to dismiss it.

Our school has a uniform - in local terms it's pretty strict. Blazer, shirt and tie, with optional jumper, cardigan or sleeveless jumper. Black bottoms, it can be trousers or skirts, black shoes.

It's mostly stuck to and mostly it's proper shoes or boots. They have occasional monitoring weeks where they have a good look at what pupils are wearing and let them know if anything isn't up to scratch - no-one gets sent home, no-one gets disciplinary notes. A few kids don't have blazers but wear the jumper with a jacket and take the jacket off in school. Pupils can take off their blazers if its warm without permission.

Hair colour/length is not an issue.

I've added a photo from the school website, I am sure the skirts would be banned in some schools from what I've read on the thread. I think that photo is fairly representative. There are some that are more way out in terms of hair styles and some with more conservative skirt lengths or trousers.

The school has very little in the way of discipline issues and is very successful academically. I accept that a lot of that is down to demographics but some is just down to not trying to score points or make a mountain out of a molehill.

I've said already I'm not sure a shirt and tie is necessary but I equally don't like the polo shirt and joggies suggestion - especially for high school, but then I've never been a joggies fan tbh. Two boys I've got to teenage years with no full length joggies ever. Jersey shorts are a different matter :o

I don't mind some form of uniform. What I dislike is having to send the DC to school in the scratchy, synthetic not-warm-enough combination of official and department store stuff available.And specifying a particular colour of coat is particularly annoying.

Relatives abroad went to a boy's school where the uniform was: blue blazer, beige chinos (beige shorts in summer), any shirt, any tie. Just enough sameness to look and feel like a defined group, plenty of room for individuality. The boys competed to find the most offensive shirt/tie combination.

The obsession with blazers generally does puzzle me. It is not the 1950s and they are children, not clerks at the Ministry of Works.

Pullover, shirt, trousers (for boys and girls). Job done.

I thin uniforms are pointless and we shouldn't have them. I don't think they make any bearing on bullying.
If we must have them I think they should be practical and cheap and not silly ties or Blazers.
Trousers, trainers, a jumper and a polo neck are best I think.

The school skirt thing, I personally don't see an issue as long as its not ridiculously short, and talking to my students about it, girls do it cause "everyone else does" and because other girls make comments if you don't not as any kind of allure.

seneca While I agree with you the reality is that in my line of business, if you want to look smart as a female you wear a dress or a skirt. You do not wear trousers. If you want to look smart in a trouser suit you are looking at spending 3-4 times as much for the same effect as you need to get the suit made to measure plus never gain or lose weight if you have anything close to a curve.

My post was also focused on the point of female teachers and pupils having the same rules regarding trousers. I don't agree that because it's allowed for a teacher that it should allowed for a pupil. Teachers are not equal to pupils IMO. My DC know their teacher is above them in terms of they set the rules that they must follow, no matter how stupid those rules are. Idealistically I would love it if we could all challenge the stupid rules that exist in every school but, just as in working in the real world, we can't tell our bosses what their rules should be.

But Want2b, it's just impossible to articulate why a girl should not be allowed to wear an item of clothing that has been conventional dress for girls and women for decades without it being sexist. Why does a school require this? What sort of discussion ensues about this?

And maybe where you are and in your work, the convention is to wear dresses and skirts, but that is certainly not the case everywhere. I am a member of a profession historically know for conservatism in dress, and I haven't worn a skirt or dress to work since about 1997. I do have to look "smart" much of the time. I am interested in fashion and I pay attention to how I dress. But that does not involve a skirt. And if my employer made that a rule, it would be very difficult to express that in a way that is not sexist.

Fuss about nothing really seeing as very few schools enforce this policy.

Seneca you obviously have a bee in your bonnet about this issue, we have all agreed that this should not be the case. However, the "teachers do it " point is poor and that has been made out to you many times.

I do lots of things I tell my children not to !

Seneca where I am you can wear trousers as a female and my employer would never make it a rule that females are not allowed to wear trousers. However, the reality is that if you look at any of females in upper management they are predominantly wearing skirts or dresses when dressed for smart business (what you wear when you want to look your most professional IYKWIM!). The men are wearing ties, leather shoes with laces. Both sexes wear a blazer.

I think uniforms are a good idea, I went to a school where the uniform was successfully banned. It was hell for me and other teenagers with no confidence, every morning I had to decide which clothes to wear hide in it made girls into sexual objects with many showing as much of themselves as they could. As for fashion, it was like a car crash on a cat walk and it clearly divided the school. Teenagers have enough to go through without being on a fashion display, or making the shy ones stand out from the crowd because they don't wear the right/sexiest/coolest/latest clothes everyday.

Uniforms are a good idea. I like them.

Love uniform. For me it gave me a sense of pride and belonging in my school. For DCs they will be going to a school with a practical and smart uniform which I hope will do the same for them.

OP, you are trying to police the thread, at least where my comments are concerned. You think my argument is poor. So be it. To me it falls into discussion of hierarchies and how people within hierarchies are treated, including children. I'm a feminist and I work in the area of human rights. Power and how it is used, and most important, how it is abused, is my everyday bread and butter. We are just on very different planes in this discussion. I am now going to leave it.

I have always been in favour of uniform even when I wore one myself.
The local primary sells the logo items quite cheaply and also runs a very successful swap shop for outgrown items. Bottoms are just grey trousers or skirt and tops polo shirt and sweatshirt or cardigan. There is also the option to wear a gingham dress or shorts in Summer.

I think uniforms can be useful in terms of disguising income differences, and for younger kids, parental taste or lack thereof (which does matter, to kids). But otherwise, I don't agree they do a lot. A school isn't better or worse with or without a uniform, or whether kids call staff by honorifics or titles. There are several ways to skin a cat, and all kinds of schools can suit different kids and their families.

I still feel my back going rigid over the forcing girls to wear skirts rather than smart trousers, though. It's completely ridiculous. Thought so in the 1980s when subjected to it, and still do now. Staff being allowed to when we weren't struck me as innately hypocritical, too. Either it was smart, or it wasn't. Looking back, staff making those rules came to adulthood before the end of WW2, so it makes more sense. But today? It's 2016.

In Italy in the lower primary years they wear their own clothes but they wear little smocks on top - useful when they are out and about so you can recognise them all. The girls tend to have little flowers and bunnys and stuff embroidered on them and the boys have cars and stuff.

There's never a bad time for C&Ping...

"'Subtle' (makeup) expresses a value judgement about women's appearance no matter what way you cut it. The value judgement is composed of elements of misogyny and elements of class discrimination. As I said before, the idea behind it is that only slappers trowel on their makeup. You are absolutely right to insist the public perception of the school is important in Britain.

(Wrt parental and comunity perceptions of schools ) it is shameful that so many unexamined prejudices are allowed to stand, to the immense detriment of the educational process and to those at its mercy. Are parents put off by the impression that there are 'too many' black students in a school, or 'too many' Asian students, or 'too many' who speak Polish or have Irish names or are Travellers, and is it ok to pander to that? Because the end result of that would be racial and ethnic segregation and a divided society along income and ethnic lines, and the continued relevance of the word 'slapper' and other sexist, classist and generally derogatory terms for women.

Oh wait."

I approve of uniforms in general, I don't approve of logo items that cost £12 each. We're on a low income and because we're on working tax credits no longer qualify for the pupils premium. The people who sneer at supermarket trousers and skirts obviously have more money than us. The DC school have now announced no plimsolls, just trainers, for PE, and no skorts, just proper shorts. This cost me £6.50 last week in Sainsburys, I couldn't have afforded it otherwise and can't really afford that.

Uniforms are fantastic and make life so much easier for everybody!

Schools still have to police what students can or cannot wear. There is always a smart parent who thinks it's acceptable to send a kid wearing completely inappropriate clothing. A uniform simplify the rules a lot.

No question about what to wear every day, no discussion about clothes to buy. Life is so much easier for the parents.

Kids also learn how to dress. Only in England would all boys know how to wear a tie when they are teenagers. Sadly, ties are disappearing, but it's a good thing to let children be used to the real world. You don't dress up like a circus performer to work in most offices.

Of course, it also hides a lot of inequalities between the kids!

An awful lot of people don't work in office, you know, and these days for those that do casual clothes are the norm. DH wears jeans and a shirt every day, as do most men in his office. Ties are gir weddings and funerals! Still, I'm sure all the Europeans and Americans who need to wear a tie at work can learn as adults.

That's got to be one of the silliest defences of school uniform I've ever heard, tbh.

Alicewasinwonderland, I very much doubt that people in the many countries that don't have school uniforms turn up to their first day as work dressed as a circus performer. Similarly, I'm sure that those that have to, such as nurses and police officers, manage to wear the correct uniform for work even if they had no uniform at school. As for ties, 1). not all secondary schools have them as part of their uniform in the first place; and 2). they appear to be less and less common in the adult world, at least if Robert Peston has his way!

No it doesn't hide inequalities.

the "poor" kids are the ones who turn up in the faded blazers. or the ones where they are far to big as the parents can't replace them so buy as big as possible.

I think all schools should have compulsory uniforms.

Firstly, it removes a lot of the pressure on teenagers/children to be wearing "cool" outfits, or dressing in a particular style. When everyone HAS to wear the same ugly arse skirt, it levels out the playing field as it were.

Of course, kids will always find a way to show off - an expensive watch or whatever, but it's so much less obvious when there are uniforms in place. Likewise, I think it's important that people can identify a child's school from their uniform - that way it makes it much easier to report bad behaviour outside of school (bullying on public transport, etc).

Likewise, for those who said "oh you can tell who is wearing the cheapo version of the uniform from asda" or whatever - this is true, but it's about a MILLIONS times worse when people wear their own clothes! There's not THAT much difference between a navy pleated skirt from john lewis and one from the bargain bin at tesco. Likewise, hand me downs are far, far less obvious when there is a consistent uniform, rather than when someone is wearing an outfit that was fashionable when it was bought for their sister four years ago.

We didn't have a uniform at primary school. It's great to look back at the photos and think "wtf were we wearing?!" Primary photos with school uniform are 'boring' in comparison!

In secondary school we had a uniform but in the final year we were non-uniform (we also got to write our own sick notes). This was to prepare us for life after school - where we choose what we'll wear. So I find it odd that schools get students to wear 'business dress' in their final year. Surely many students are going to university or college and won't have to wear business dress anyway.

I agree RiverTam. DS was going to crawl around the classroom floor in reception in a shirt and tie and tailored trousers - at the same time as I was going to my professional office job in a FTSE 100 company in jeans. I think shirt-and-tie is daft for a primary school, particularly EYFS. It's not appropriate clothing for the job in hand. Kids aren't sitting behind desks all day these days.

math, not sure what the point was about subtle makeup, but surely it's subtle make-up as in no brash statements, in the same way that extreme hair styles are not allowed. Nothing to do with passing judgement on those who do wear lots in normal life?