Schwabisch -- I am Irish and grew up wearing school uniform. In primary that was a shirt buttoned to the neck, a tie and v-neck jumper, with a knife pleated skirt, plus a blazer for September and May outerwear and a school coat and beret for the rest of the year. In secondary I wore a v-neck jumper in the same colour as primary school, that could not have clashed more horribly with typical Irish colouring, and a contrasting v-neck blouse with an A-line skirt that was the same colour as the blouse, plus knee high socks that were the same colour as the skirt.
Years later one of the teachers went to a reunion of my class and told how she and all the rest of the teachers had danced around the staffroom when the question of changing the uniform was finally on the agenda. It is far, far nicer now, in its second round of change since the late 70s/early 80s. But it would be even better if it were to be abandoned altogether.
My DCs went to an American RC elementary school with uniform and a state high school with none. On out of uniform days in the RC elementary, choosing The Outfit was often a massive big deal. Plus there were all sorts of rules to abide by so threading your way through them and still ending up with something wearable was quite a feat.
Fast forward to high school, and they still had the mindset that wearing 'your own clothes' was a special thing -- for about a week. After that they were happy to wear whatever was on top of their heap, all except DD1 who organised her own laundry and had her weekly clothing planned in advance.
My DCs like to shop at thrift shops for their clothes. They often bump into people they know who are doing the same thing.
It really is not an issue, Lurker et al, that students wear their own choice of clothing to school. Mostly they end up looking incredibly boring.
Trixy, like Schwabisch, my DCs (4 girls and 1 boy) would be well able to understand that their favourite shirt once in the laundry cycle would not appear again for a few days. We don't have clothes that need ironing. Seasonal clothes are kept in our drawers and out of season clothes are in storage boxes
Lurker:
She just likes attacking and won't even acknowledge any reasonable points. Rather like arguing with a rather thick right wing republican.. oh wait.
As a matter of fact, I would rather bite off my right arm than vote Republican, but heyho.
If there were any reasonable points in favour of uniform I would be happy to oblige, but sadly I see none.
Piece, since most of the post you referred to as evidence that I know nothing about UK education was gleaned from the NUT website and a Guardian article citing ATL president Mary Bousted, then I fancy I am on pretty solid ground.
Plus like many Irish people I have a lot of relatives in the UK, some of whom are students and some teachers, some private and some state sector, among other professions, and I also have friends who have children in school there.