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?

Joffrey if you knew the school didn't allow logs on shoes why did you buy them? Regardless of whether you agree with uniform or not you DS is at a school that has rules so why break them deliberately?

There was a poster on the other thread who listed a whole host of things that his DC wouldn't be doing - detention, uniform etc. Where does that line get drawn?

I do think non- teachers think teachers spend hours dealing with uniform issues - it really isn't much time you know - I have spent less than 5 minutes this week.

Also practical shoes is what schools want - fashion is brogues/DM style shoe. Very practical.

Logos obviously!
And obviously some pupils struggle with these shoes I know.

And it's also worth thinking about teh fact that kids don't just grow out of all their clothes at once.

outfits tend to cone from different places or be different styles. so if one 7-8 doesn't fit the rest still do and you just have to replace the one top or pair of jeans that doesn't fit. as often the sizing is so erratic.

bit witg unifirm it always cones in pa ks of two or three and if yku buy say three jumpers at 14 pound each. of ones too small they all will be. so it's not a case of replacing g jeans as and when they grow out of it, it's a case of having to replace all three jumpers or keep washing the same one every night.

this is extra cost fir the very families it's supposed to try and benefit

The poorest of families are provided with uniform.

And the rest?

you can earn a reasonable wage and still struggle to afford it.

I honestly do not see how something that can cost a good 2 or three hundred pounds ( maybe more in secondary) , has only one purpose due to logos, has to be replaced the second your dd grows an Inch to keep in line with length regulations, is of varying and sometimes questionable quality and may or may not have specific washing instructions can be called a leveller.

that months rent they have to spend on blazers and hockey boots and all the other bollocks insisted on is money taken away from other things.

I'm sorry if posting during the day makes you think I'm not teaching . I don't usually, but have had a significant amount of time on my hands due to y12 and 13 mock exams.

I didn't mean to offend by lumping everyone together BTW
, and I don't think I've used smoke and mirrors, I've agreed on lots of points regarding uniform not being a total leveller, that draconian rules are daft, that it should be simple and easy. Also if you notice I said in one of the first posts that I could go non uniform, but I did see reasons for it toon.

I am a single parent Gikes you don't have to tell me!
Schools have all kinds of payment plans nowadays.

I paid £30 for logo blazer, £5 for tie and £10 for pe top and everything else was Asda. Paid in instalments of £20 to the school.
This is a different school from where I teach - my school does the same.

I really like the idea of uniforms

piece my kids have been going there for over a decade (lots of kids, spread out in ages). Wearing shoes with a logo on has never been an issue, so far as I'm aware. As I say, there have been several uniform chages i that time and with yet another new Head, it is probably a case of new broom sweeping clean. So I will ignore it.

I think you can gather though from various threads that is rarely the case. in many places it's dictated to down to the bloody socks and many available only from a single supplier.

Giles it appears to be the norm in the majority of schools around here (north)

as I've said before from many of the anti-uniform crowd there is no other way than their own way and anyone else's opinion is dismissed as wrong or invalid because of their own experience, and despite that it is based on others. It has been one of the frustrating things about this disussion.
That is more than a little bit ridiculous and perhaps a sign that you are way too invested in your thread and in the cause of uniform.

Anyway, actually math I think there are some good arguments for it, despite what you think, and it is just that what you think.
You really do have a large blind spot here. Your opinion that there are good arguments for uniform is just what you think, isn't it?

Of course people are going on their own experience and observation. I know what I have seen with my own eyes, thank you, and since I have seen my DCs wearing both uniform and their choice of clothing to school I know which we all prefer and I also know why. DD1 started school in 1994 and I still have two DDs still in school so I have had plenty of time to observe and reflect.

What else is there to go on besides one's own perceptions? Statistics on time taken by teenage girls getting dressed in the morning or time used in the school loos checking their makeup?

My experience of the US was both wealthier and extremely poor schools in New Jersey, think ones where people's parents are all university lecturers or work in NY banking, and then another which has the highest crime rate in the East Coast of the US. I'd say in the former had as many social issues as the latter, but in the latter the have and have nots were much more visible.
My experience is of the middle ground, which is occupied by many millions more children than the extremes you saw. Mine is also more current than yours was. So I respectfully suggest that your perceptions of 'the US' are not as accurate as you fancy they are.

So here's a question: Are a lot of those that are anti-uniform in that mindset because of the poor way they were handled with it at school? It seems that many folk who are anti it have a bit of an issue with the way they were treated, and on the contrary many who are for it found uniform helpful or them in the past.
Not in my case. I was open minded about uniform when I decided to send my DCs to a uniform school in the US. The uniform was less stuffy by a long shot than the one I had worn in primary, and more practical (trainers could be worn, plus pajama bottoms under skirts for outerwear in the cold, and gym uniform was a basic guideline, not an actual uniform, and there was no official jacket or coat). There was an official uniform for school sports teams, bought through the school and included in the cost of participation on the team.

While my uniform in my Dublin convent school was woolly, scratchy, impractical and probably expensive, the nuns didn't go around making an issue of it. It was an all girls' primary. In (mixed) secondary, nobody made an issue of it either, except one year a few girls tried to wear a jumper that was several shades darker (and immeasurably more attractive) than the uniform colour and were asked to get the right colour. The colours were so unattractive and unpopular there was no way you could find the items anywhere but the official supplier but it was still cheaper than the primary one.

There was a huge hoohah one year when a science teacher told a girl she looked like a slut when she was reclining on her chair in homeroom. Nobody supported the teacher and she was made to apologise. This was in the late 70s, in Ireland.

CaptainFarrell, I suggest you take a look at the OP's many posts here on this thread, if 'arrogant' and 'condescending' gets on your tits.

Pointless. Additional expense for parents, and waste of teachers' time policing it.
Let everyone wear normal clothes.

So here's a question: Are a lot of those that are anti-uniform in that mindset because of the poor way they were handled with it at school? It seems that many folk who are anti it have a bit of an issue with the way they were treated, and on the contrary many who are for it found uniform helpful or them in the past.

No. I more or less took uniform for granted at school; we had a highly impractical blazer, but fortunately weren't made to wear it in class.

What makes me against uniform is partly the way schools exploit it by requiring stupidly expensive things just for the sake of having something like the school logo embroidered on a bog-standard shirt; partly because I think things like ties are pretty ludicrous garments anyway, and that wearing a stiff, heavy blazer in class isn't conducive to comfort or learning; but mostly because of the sheer amount of good teaching time that schools take up fussing about uniform, to say nothing of the ridiculousness of excluding children from classes because of it.

So here's a question: Are a lot of those that are anti-uniform in that mindset because of the poor way they were handled with it at school? It seems that many folk who are anti it have a bit of an issue with the way they were treated, and on the contrary many who are for it found uniform helpful or them in the past.
I am from Lithuania originally. Started school when it was still old soviet style uniforms. But then independence came and uniforms went bye-bye. Good riddance it was. Then wore normal, regular, everyday clothes for the rest of their school years. Jeans, trainers -- etc. Didn't stop people from going to universities.
Here in UK i get the feeling that its is more of a "tradition" thing, like wrapping fish&chips in a pretend newspaper (as real newspaper would be poisonous)

Well at least a couple if teachers in here have conceded that the unifirm shouldn't be exclusive from one supplier and nit allowing coats is a step to far.

it is however still a shame that the first posts on any thread started " Dds school have sent her home as her skirt is to short except the uniform shop has failed to deliver after a uniorm change and we are having to wear last years" is still to hage a go and come out with nonsense regarding knowing the uniform.rules when choosing the school.

some.of the stories posted make me agree with the PP who said prisoners were treated better. and the absolute shit treatment of children, not only allowed but highly supported by most of you lot, is disgusting.

if your mother in law came out the house, took off your child's coat in the snow, refused to let her wear her wellies even for the journey to the park, and humiliated her regarding skirt length, I doubt you would let her see them.again. however when it happens. in a school it's some how ok.

I do not understand why thus treatment becomes ok just because it's school uniform. it's clothing. .it doesn't have magical.powers.

"So here's a question: Are a lot of those that are anti-uniform in that mindset because of the poor way they were handled with it at school? It seems that many folk who are anti it have a bit of an issue with the way they were treated, and on the contrary many who are for it found uniform helpful or them in the past."

Partially. I had to wear a horrendously ugly (faux 'private school') uniform, complete with petty rules about socks and hairclips and a ban on coats, and as a self-conscious teenager I hated it and eventually used to get changed in the school loos before I got the bus home so that I didn't get teased by kids from other schools. I was ashamed rather than proud of it, and it made me feel inferior and part of a marked 'child' category whereas in my regular clothes I didn't stand out. So I'll admit a certain emotional dimension to my argument - but that doesn't negate all the other practical and philosophical arguments against uniform.

It's contextual. I was made to wear that uniform and hated it. In one of the primary schools I worked in, lots of adults, including myself, wore adult-sized school fleeces with the school logo, just like the kids. They were warm and comfortable and easy to keep clean, and we did feel a sense of community and belonging? The difference? I didn't have to wear it every day, or in the summer(!) - it was my choice to wear it to show I was part of that community.

It's not the uniform that is the problem in itself, it's the way schools choose to have it supplied and how they enforce it.

When I was at school, there was a uniform and some people wore it and some didn't. I can't remember anyone having an issue either way, but this was probably before designer stuff became a big thing. Some clothes were desirable, don't get me wrong, but few people could afford that and those that could were not really permitted by their parents to wear them just for school.

As I've already said, my children's school has a uniform which includes blazer and shirt and tie and they do expect compliance with it but they really don't go overboard about it and hence compliance is high. no one cares if top buttons are done up, how ties are tied, what length skirts are etc etc.

It's not the uniform which is the problem. At the end of the day couldn't care less either way. My sons think that appropriate clothing for any event is Jersey shorts and a t-shirt. Maybe they'd do better if they had to face the entire school with their choice each day, or maybe they'd still choose the same. It would be an interesting experiment. The school has a policy of never having dress down days.

Yes it has git ridiculous now from the sounds of it.

we are going to have very serious problems.of we get stuck with the whole blazer at all times nonsense.

I was relatively pro-uniform until my children changed from a uniform to a non-uniform system.

Sure I had the usual petty niggles when I was at school. Our uniform was fairly nasty (in a standard badly made badly fitting polyester way) and it was very irritating to be told off by scruffy looking teachers, but I think we just accepted it as part of life really.

dh had much bigger issues about hair (his was apparently too long) and confrontations at school led in part to ongoing issues with authority. Made me glad that as our teenagers only have to follow a very simple and easy dress code we donèt have to back (or not back) the school on stupidly petty issues about clothes or appearance.

My impression is that uniform has all sorts of undesired consequences and non uniform is relatively problem free.

YY to 'uniform has all sorts of undesired consequences and non uniform is relatively problem free'

And also to Giles' MIL analogy.

I like my DS having to wear a uniform. His school has very strict rules and where you can buy from. It's good to see all the kids looking smart and it removes the peer pressure.

So here's a question: Are a lot of those that are anti-uniform in that mindset because of the poor way they were handled with it at school? It seems that many folk who are anti it have a bit of an issue with the way they were treated, and on the contrary many who are for it found uniform helpful or them in the past.

No. I went to a uniformed primary and a non uniform secondary. I much preferred the latter because it was comfy and practical.

I have two kids at a uniformed primary and find it much harder than when they were at a non uniform nursery - more stuff to keep track of and have clean at the right time, we go through grey tights like you wouldn't believe (neither likes trousers so it's tights every day at the moment) and a continual faff of trying to find lost cardigans in a sea of identical cardigans.

If they could choose to wear leggings and tops / dresses and trainers, as they do at the weekend, it would all much much easier. But I don't care if they choose stuff that clashes or I think looks awful, I'm just pleased that they're dressed - I wonder if the pro uniform people are more inclined to control what their kids wear? Perhaps that's the looking smarter argument?

Bounced you say I wonder if the pro uniform people are more inclined to control what their kids wear? Perhaps that's the looking smarter argument? - I think you're onto something there actually - perhaps a key point nobody else has really emphasised! That may well actually be the deciding factor!

I'm with you - I really don't want to control what my kids wear, beyond not having things in their wardrobes and drawers that I strongly wouldn't want them to wear (and what would that be - T shirts with sexy slogans or a Playboy bunny icon for a child perhaps, which I wouldn't want them to wear at all, regardless of it being a school or non school day, so wouldn't buy in the first place). Out of seasons stuff is not in the wardrobe/ drawers anyway due to space, and dirty stuff goes straight in the wash. Beyond that I am not remotely interested in having control over their clothes - who cares which T shirt / jumper they wear with which pair of jeans, or whether their socks co-ordinate, really...?)

I don't even care if they wear out of season stuff My 4yo rocks the summer dress with long sleeved top underneath and tights look quite a lot. As long as there are enough layers to keep her warm, I don't care.