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?

captainfarrel I agree primary school kids do have the common identity and pride in the school thing going on - however my kids had that every bit as strongly at a non uniform state primary here in Germany as anything I remember from my own uniformed primary days.

Here group identity and bonding is talked about in the context of the 3 day residential trips they all go on in the last year of Kindergarten and at least once in their upper primary years. Usually nothing fancy or too expensive but a take-over of a small youth hostel or camp site in the cases of the older kids or purpose built centre on a farm for the younger ones. They talk about it for years after and it does indeed really bond them - I'm still amazed the Kindergarten teachers do it but all credit to them especially!

Gikle's, i don't see any problem at all with a child wearing a practical shoe, as long as that shoe is reasonably practical for ALL the activities that the child is doing that day for which they will be wearing those shoes. So wellies are brilliant for walking to school in the rain, but not for wearing all round the inside of the school all day, say.

there may be practical reasons - lack of space often a big one, the school I work in was built for 240 children and has nearly 400 - why a child cannot have with them at any one point all the shoes that, in a perfect world, would be practical for that day. So a compromise - a reasonably waterproof, probably leather, closed toed shoe type - sometimes is the best way forward. The girls in my class, for example, wear everything from Mary Janes, brogues, boys trainer-type shoes to kicker boots, depending on personaility and choice of breaktime activity in the main.

(Plain black trainers are rather harder to find, and although there is virtually no restriction on sensible styles - not high boots, not sandals, not plastic shoes such as crocs - there is at present a requirement that all shoes are black. So girls and boys alike routinely wear sturdy boys trainer-type school shoes in the school i work in)

No one's still answered as to why a child shouldn't be able to wear a practical shoe.

I didn't write the uniform policy at your child's school. That's why I haven't answered your demand. At my school there is no such rule, just that shoes must be sensible and black. Boots in winter are fine.

I think not wearing a coat in this weather would prompt questions from staff, at primary level anyway. There are boys in short trousers at my school in this weather, I do wonder what their parents are thinking(they are not poor btw) Children that wear a blazer:could they not fold it into their bag and put on when they remove their coat?

"No one's still answered as to why a child shouldn't be able to wear a practical shoe."

If children at your school cannot wear practical shoes, then that can and should be changed. Being in favour of a basic uniform as a general principle doesn't make any of us in favour of all particular uniforms at all particular schools - why plaid kilts are the norm for private schoolgirls, I don't know, nor why some still have straw boaters - and if I were to be a parent or teacher at a school that did not allow all children to wear sensible shoes, I'd object. Not to 'uniform as uniform' but to the practicality of their shoe regulations in particular.

I'd rather have a teacher that teaches rather than one who spends their afternoon on mumsnet , but maybe that's a radical thought

Part-timer, me! Just finished planning for next week, the weekend is my own. Would normally do more practical stuff around the house on my day off, but only this room has any heating...

As i've said before, our school has a uniform policy which is pretty much complied with and subject to a quarterly spot check - no letters home to parents though. they don't care about top buttons, how ties are tied etc. Pupils can wear a jacket on top if they need to or a hoody underneath if they want to - as long as they take them of in school. Pupils can take blazers off if it's hot, wear or not wear the jumper/cardigan. Wear trousers or skirts (of any length or style) as long as they are black, shoes should be shoes and should be black but they don't care if they are boots or walking shoes or ballet style or whatever and if the weather is poor, they'd rather the pupil was was warm and dry than worry that they had brown snow boots on. They don't worry about hair colour or style either.

It's really not that hard. This is a school that has no real disciplinary issues and classes full of engaged and hard working pupils and sits in the top 5 for academic results (Scotland).

My DSs go quite happily in uniform to school everyday.

Wasn't referring to you teacher but the author of some of the essays on here who has flaunted their "As a teacher" status like their opinion is THE only one.

But "black" is so limiting. the shoes that I usually by my chikdren for the winter I've never seen a style in black. and not all schools alow ankle boots. mine doesn't.

so a restriction of black leather shoes is very restricting. I had to undergo physio as a chikd. o was u able to wear the show inserts I needed as m
no acceptable school shoe could fit them. had I been able to have a wider choice of shoes it would have been different.

so while you lot are in and out of clarks in 5 minutes flat or who's kids can pick up any shoe in any shop or supermarket and who can make these cheap shoes last all year "and still look like new" are all very lucky.

reality fir us is that due to high in steps and thrown in feet several styles have to be tried before one is found that fits. I refuse to pay extra for stupid accessories which stupidly limits choice even more.

bow I'd love their perfectly smart ecco weather proof ankle boots to be accepted. nut dark purple isnt allowed. but black patent flashy light shoes are.
ales no sense to me

There are loads of sensible back school shoes around, there's a huge market so of course retailers supply them.

Giles, DD also requires fairly heavy-duty in-shoe orthotic insoles so i understand the problem. The fashion for girls' brogues is a godsend - this year she even had a choice between two different Startrite brogues, though we do have to travel to specific fitters who understand fitting with insoles. Many girls with insoles at my school wear, as I said, 'boys' styles, and those again work very well

back in day, small village school shows age it just wasn't the done thing. my parents would never have been "that parent"

oh no, hours shoe shopping was far more preferable.

I wish the fashion had been boys styles back then but it wasn't. I'm. scarred fir life at the.monstristies I had to wear not to mention the measures taken to make them.fit.

it's a real shame uniform. o's the one tbing that hasn't changed iver the years fir the better. it's worse than.it was befire with rules and restrictions. and it starts at 4 ffs.

100 quid in shoes later fir something that doesn't even cover the foot properly or support properly but is. the.best of a bad bunch, when I have perfect tmy good boots at home already that can only be worn 2 days a week, well.i find that infuriating.

and don't get me.staryed in having to bleach the socks due to Mary Jane being completely inadequate fir any thing other than presentation. it's so wrong that's all.its about really.

I forgot the after the "scarred fir life" bit.

I'm. not that dramatic

Never had to bleach a sock in my life!!! Try brogues.

the last brogues we tried on dd1 didn't fit well at all. have tried them.twice at two different times in JL. didn't fit at either session.

the only ones that seek to fit her bar t bars. except after a while you can see her foot sliding about in them when she walks.

she's exactly like me, shies never fit properly and ankle boots are the best option. I haven't found a shoe of any style besides trainers that fit in over 20 years.

I always have to wear ankle boots or knee high boots and it's pot luck with that.

So it isn't that the school uniform specifies T-bars, it is that, of the styles that would meet the school's requirements, T-bars are the only ones that fit your DD? Are the Ecco boots that fit her also available in black, and have you asked the school whether they could make an exception for her? DS is a ludicrous unobtainable trouser size (24-26" waist, 34" inside leg) and we were given specific permission to vary the school requirements so that he didn't have to wear braces like a clown....

unifirm specifies back shoes. no trainers or boots.

she was told off fir keeping her boots on last winter.

I buy shoes she's allowed obviously but if there were no uniform restrictions on things like leggins instead of tights and the shoes they could wear (open toed being an exception of course for H&S reasons) it would be better all round.

I'm hoping to get her into a pair if kickers next time she needs shoes bit all depends on what fits.

it doesn't bother her that much thankfully , apart from when it's cold and her feet get wet where it's a bit open at the top. but it does bother me. the whole uniform.thing drives me crazy. I hate seeing 4 year olds in sodding pinafores and tights and polyester trousers and shirts and ties when they just spent a year and a half in pre school in jogging bottoms and t shirts and what they looked like didn't matter and they were happy and comfortable.

I get as a teacher you like it and let's face it most of us don't know any different given kits what we did as kids and it's what we have had to do with our own children.

but to me, uniform is impractical. too many layers when it's pe and kids who can't even read year are supposed to recognise their jumper out of everyone else's.

I often wonder if there would be so many posts about kids who have wet themselves if they didn't have to wait fir others in the loo to pull up their tights and tuck their shirts back in etc

I expected the teachers to at least agree in infants perhaps it would he less beneficial for personal care/ pe changes to wear a unifirm. but it does seem appeared centre matters more than anything else.

"I get as a teacher you like it"

No, as I've said multiple times, for 99% of children, 99% of the time, I genuinely don't care too much.

DD never wore pinafores, skirts or tights - pull-up elastic-waisted trousers, polo shirt that was short enough not to need tucking in and a nice big sweatshirt - make it easy for yourself and your child...

There's only so much making it easy that you can achieve when shirts and ties are involved.

Tbh, most of the things that you describe are ways that individual parents have navigated their way through the specified uniform, in the same way that your DD's mary janes aren't specifically required by the school. The school is at fault with the ties, though - but again, not a fault of uniform per se, a fault of that school's choice of uniform.

And many others. there are loads round here with ties.

some that require logo'd polo's shirts.

and that's just primary school.

from.sounds if it it gets worse too once they hit secondary.

It can be easy to get rid of the ties, btw - the school i work in got rid of them years ago. Ask around. It is MUCH easier to get rid of a specific piece of uniform that causes 99% of the trouble than it would be to persuade the school to get rid of the whole uniform, especially since NONE of the pro-uniform arguments can possibly be used to defend a primary tie.

Well that's good to know.

I have to admit from reading this thread that I do appear to be amongst the luckier ones.

shirts/trousers/ skirts etc can he bought from anywhere.so I buy the most reasonably priced fir the quality and ease as I can.

however paying fir the book bag, pe bag, jumpers/cardigans with the logo cost more than I spent on unifirm. fir both Dds (not including shoes)

I could have got some pretty reasonable outfits fir school if I hadn't have had to fork. that lot out. a drawer string bag costs a couple of quid in say sports direct. however the school ones cost 4 times that.

book bags are a pain in the arse. and again.more expensive than a decent back pack which wouldn't fall.open where the velcro gives the second you put something that isn't quite flat in them

this levelling thing, well even then for 2 children the your talking over 200 quid. that would buy alot in the way of clothes (in primary at least) when they could wear what shoes they already had and bring the bag they likely already have too.

uniform stuff in specialist shops is never on.offer. unlike supermarkets and deals in high street shops available on clothing.