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?

a bit unfair on male colleagues who all looked at their feet when going up the stairs though!

I really don't think the comfort of men should be part of the consideration in how women chose to dress.

By leveller the pp clearly means that some children are incredibly poor and do not feel so in uniform. Schools can provide uniform for these pupils easier than providing other clothes.

And apparently the idea that children should all just be civil to each other and stop being such little pricks doesn't cross anyone's mind. Nor apparently does the idea that schools should deal directly with the bullying. It is amazing to me to read a throwaway comment to the effect that the alternative to schools providing uniform would be for schools to provide street clothing.

Could it just be that children are not very nice to each other and that schools are trying to make it so there is one less thing to cause these issues?
Stuff doesn't cause bullying. Uniform, shoes, bags, jeans, whatever -- not the cause. Poorly socialised people cause it.

"How bad are teachers if they rely on magic polyester as a means of keeping students working?"
Oh dear, UK teachers are usually suberb and hard working folk, please don't attack them.
I have come across at least one who thinks polyester is magic.

Something is badly wrong in British schools, where the lowest third of students is composed of underachievers and the disengaged. Teacher attrition rates are sky high. Management seems to be piss poor.
While I have much sympathy, this is rather ironic: “Trainee and newly qualified teachers cannot fail to understand that, despite Michael Gove’s intentions, teaching has become a profession monitored to within an inch of its life.” (Mary Bousted, ATL)
It seems people don't much like to be monitored in the workplace.

I am not suggesting that getting rid of uniforms would cure any of the problem linked. Uniform is emblematic of the 'top down' issue that seems to be causing so many issues for the main players in education, teachers and students.

There are issues within any system math, education in the western world and social attitudes towards teachers in some if their societies cause problems.

Your point that uniform doesn't help in a broad sense fails because many many posters have said that it does. Sorry.

Why don't we deal with bullying? We do, it's far less common now than it was in the past, but children canbe and are nasty to each other no matter what you do. No matter where you are, this is not a British issue alone, and in fact again many here have said that the broad stroke uniform rules helped them avoid it.
Your point about disengaged students in the UK? Glass houses again dear! The u.still has the largest disparity in educational outcomes and provision depending on wealth. Now part of this issue is the fact that education can only provide broadly the solutions to problems, schools can be an way of providing social change but there has to be a combination of social policies to make it work. Far to often it is left to.schools alone, who cannot do it on their own.

You do like attacking the British system don't you. Chip on your shoulder?

Math your last post tells me how little you actually know about uk education .

She just likes attacking and won't even acknowledge any reasonable points. Rather like arguing with a rather thick right wing republican.. oh wait.

You do like attacking the British system don't you. Chip on your shoulder?

I didnt realise there was an agenda to this Q.

A couple of us have said that school uniform does not prevent bullying and that we should tackle the bullying and one upmanship. not cover it with a uniform.

That is not 'attacking the system'.

Bullying is not 'the British system'. Supporting it does not make our country better.
Dialogue and problem solving will do that.

But in contrast to that many posters both teachers, parents and former pupils have said that they feel it does help you combat bullying and can make students are economically disadvantaged feel less conspicuous which aids their education. Lots of maths postage been quite critical of British schools she even says:something must be terribly wrong in British schools" so it feels like an attack

Oh and hasn't this thread been an example.of dialogue where the majority of British parents have stated a pref for uniform?

But something is terribly wrong in British schools, and discussing it is not a personal attack.
Its partly the self entitled parents who know their rights but not how to teach their kids to listen to the teacher. But not completely. There are problems with the new systems.

Parents are being messaged by the school for non attendance when their kids have had medical problems, and people have said 'Oh its just an automated system, theres nothing you can do about it'.
So that system doesnt work correctly and needs updating.

Taking it as a personal attack is not fixing the problem.

long maths is not the only person disagreeing with the usual pro uniform arguments though.

To be fair most (not all) people saying they like uniform have no experience of anything else and are making big assumptions about what uniform does or doesn't do. That really isn't a very strong position from which to form an opinion. I don't know whether maths is American or a British ex-pat, but if she has no experience of UK schools (or Australian, or Chinese, or Japanese - there are other countries with school uniforms) then she is in an equally one sided position.

When I was a teacher in UK secondary schools I also assumed uniforms were a leveller and prevented some types of bullying, yada yada - most of the points trotted out here. I orchestrated Year 7 debates on whether school uniform was a good idea year on year, class after class and prompted them to list those sort of "pros" against the "cons" they could think of for themselves and which, as they were young inexperienced children with no experience of anything but school uniforms, all their primaries having had uniform, were usually "selfish" and emotional arguments, so the debates were usually a bit of a self fulfilling prophesy (partly because 11 year olds are still pretty conventional and accepting as well as inexperienced). I thought kids actually at heart were better off in uniform despite the stupid trivial time wasting of enforcing it.

Then I moved abroad to a country where there are no school uniforms and my kids attended state schools here and I changed my mind.

Stating a preference for something when you have no experience of an alternative system is pretty meaningless. Its like stating a preference for one food over another, when you have never tried the alternative food.

Oh and hasn't this thread been an example.of dialogue where the majority of British parents have stated a pref for uniform?

Not really. I, for instance, contributed at some length on the side against uniform on a previous thread, and couldn't really be bothered to go through it all again here. I strongly agree with Schwabisch, I really don't think the arguments in favour of uniform hold water.

But there are people who have said they had enough, and they preferred uniform. Why are you able to take sone persons point to reinforce your own but not others which suggest that this is vastly complicated issue and far from easy to resolve?

The automated system thing is just an example.of bad use of technology, the attitude to teachers ? Don't know what you can do about that.

My DC's uniforms are cheap to buy, easy to launder, and comfortable to wear. So I am very satisfied. It's cheap and convenient for us.

I also agree with Schwabisch. All the arguments on the pro-uniform side have been taken apart by other posters** as being poorly-founded and/or only selectively true. The strongest arguments on the anti-uniform side have not.

I have read many anti-uniform arguments on MN over the years but I remain pro-uniform. Nothing I have ever read has made me feel differently.

My daughter's school doesn't have a uniform, though there are rules which specifically discourage any sort of one-upmanship in clothing, e.g. no logos. Most of the students dress perfectly well for their environment (leggings, jeans, sweatshirts, walking boots/sensible footwear) and given the rough treatment the clothes get in the early years, no parent is going to waste money on designer clothing, so that habit doesn't form. I guess suitability for school is always on my mind when buying clothes. All of the pupils dress sensibly for their environment, with enough freedom for self-expression in the teen years.

I'd always been pro-school uniform, thinking that it was a leveller, but when I see the way some pupils dress and the ways that students will try and differentiate themselves in some way, then I find I am now on the other side of the fence. I also recall horrible nylon summer dresses and I'm so glad my daughter doesn't have to put up with the cheap material most uniforms seem to be made of.

Having said all of that, I think that if school uniform disappeared overnight, we would see some truly dreadful fashion disasters and boundary pushing

I think geek and others areally good example of confirmation bias, you only acknowledge the points that match your own opinion. Lots of pro uniform arguments have been made by lots of people.

So for example citing the leveller argument, lots of.posters have said that they feel this from their own experience, the only thing used to dismiss that is that kids find ways around this, yet many posters have said they feel it would be or would have been worse, why is one point valid and the other not?

So for example citing the leveller argument, lots of.posters have said that they feel this from their own experience, the only thing used to dismiss that is that kids find ways around this, yet many posters have said they feel it would be or would have been worse, why is one point valid and the other not?

Because of the absolute nature of the leveller argument. The hypothesis is that uniforms help level out socioeconomic differences in schools.

Every incident where a uniform fails to do so falsifies that hypothesis.

It's not confirmation bias in my posts, just accurate overview of the posts from both sides.

Its all a bit meaningless and non specific now long - you accuse some posters of confirmation bias, but your counter arguments are very woolley and sometimes actually untrue.

You say:

"So for example citing the leveller argument, lots of.posters have said that they feel this from their own experience, the only thing used to dismiss that is that kids find ways around this, yet many posters have said they feel it would be or would have been worse, why is one point valid and the other not?"

You are citing a generalised "lots of posters" as agreeing with you, and also failing to acknowledge the existence of specific posts which refute your claim, from people who state that their direct experience of being a child from a poorer background at a school with uniform was that "It would have been no worse and no better. That's what I'm saying. It made no difference that we all nominally wore 'the same' clothes. We weren't 'the same'." (Cruikshank Wed 13-Jan-16 21:03:40)

I have acknowledged specific posts though, I've agreed that if we have to have uniform it should be cheap, comfortable and practical. That not all economic situations can be covered by it, and that in many other countries it works without uniform. I've even agreed that perhaps uniform causes students to be more rebellious in their image than if they didn't have it.

Cruiks post could be easily countered by those who've stated that they felt that the uniform helped them at school ( I'm on my phone so can't C and P them in). But its an example of you finding bits that agree with you and ignoring the bits that don't

It is clearly untrue that "he only thing used to dismiss [the leveller argument] is that kids find ways around this" because cruickshank posted that it was her direct experience as a pupil that uniform did not serve as a leveller in her case, and because other points have been made (such as my point children attending school in dirty, outgrown, faded or damaged uniform, and another poster's point about her reception age child being made to feel self concious about his shoes) highlighting other reasons why uniform fails to act as a leveller. Another significant an argument against the claim that uniform is a leveller is the fact that (leaving the USA, which I have no experience of out of it) European countries without school uniforms do not seem to have the problems uniform fans predict with children being ostracised or picked on for their clothing.

long you say "But its an example of you finding bits that agree with you and ignoring the bits that don't" but you have done this yourself in some posts when you say "the only argument against my point is X" when in fact there are numerous points against that specific argument.

In all honesty "finding bits that agree with you and ignoring the bits that don't" happens in every debate, that's why the "opponent" then counters by saying "but what about X?" Its how discussions like this go. Its a bit Pot/ Kettle to accuse other people of cherry picking (wow that is a string of mixed metaphors!)

I'm going to go and get on with other stuff now, I couldn't really care less whether the UK has uniform as I no longer live there :o Also the thread is so long nobody is now going to read or remember every point, so it is inevitable all the posts now fail to acknowledge some relevant counter point made pages earlier...

My opinion is that a lot of people trot out the same trite arguments in favour of uniform without any experience of a non uniform system, and that for that reason a lot of the arguments are inevitably based on assumptions (for example that never having a school uniform would be the same as a 12 year uninterrupted string of school non uniform days, which is obviously a false premise because non uniform days are "special" high pressure anomalies due to their intrinsic nature as occasional exceptions to the norm.

From my experience of a comp with a horrible uniform but loose uniform policy, students take every chance to differentiate themselves and form hierarchical structures and bully on the basis of uniform.

Examples include being 'naff' or 'posh' enough to wear your tie correctly (as others have said, the cool tie being inverted), collars turned up, skirts rolled up many times (only uncool kids would wear the length it was supposed to be), very tight jumpers that showed off the girls expanding chests, make-up which wasn't supposed to be worn applied in the school toilets, ditto hair accessories. I was bullied for wearing 'school shoes' which my mum thought everyone wore, but they again were 'naff' as they were brown and sensible and everyone else had black stilettos with pointy fronts. At one point, I bought some shoes to fit in and used to change in them on the way to school, hidden from my parents!

I am utterly unconvinced that bullying is extinguished by uniform, quite the opposite, unless the uniform is policed within an inch of its life which wastes literally tens of teacher hours every day. My school life was quite unpleasant, and a uniform was not a source of pride, it marked you as going to the not very good school!