Enforced wearing of blazer (wool) in hot weather

[Sweatingcobbles]

I know in the grand scheme of things this week it isn't a massive crisis but aibu to think it's stupid that in 29 degree weather today school refused to let the children take their fairly thick wool blazer off.
They said it is to maintain smartness and an office like uniform.
I'd rather kids could concentrate on learning and exams rather than feeling sick or ill.
Ironically I was in the office today with sandals and a short sleeve top.

Maisy do you honestly believe though that in a school where teachers can wear just a shirt or blouse it's reasonable to expect pupils to sweat in cheap blazers?

• just for the sake of having "rules".

I'm all for rules and my ds is expected by me to wear uniform properly - he wears proper school trousers rather than this drainpipe ankle length stuff and black socks rather than the white. (It's reminds me of happy days what some of them wear )
But I just don't get the rationale of he's a pupil so should sweat in a blazer and the teachers are teachers so don't have to.

There is no positive lesson to be taken from that. However it can affect a child's education.

Two kids fainted at dds school today, admittedly in a food tech lesson with the ovens on, and one doing sport yesterday. But they were allowed their blazers off all week.

youarenotkiddingme
Every school I've worked in that has blazers the students are fine to have them off at break and lunch. Staff can decide in their own classrooms. I've not worked with a teacher who says they can't take blazers off in class.
Equally, staff wear jackets. Male staff are in suits. I put my jacket on my chair but am still in business dress. My male colleagues take or leave their suit jacket as and when.

People on here are going on about overheating (which is an issue) but the biggest issue I've had this week has been students wearing the OPTIONAL winter jumper and no blazer. School rules are jumpers are optional. Blazers are compulsory so they should be on, or on the back of your chair.
If students are cold enough to need a jumper on (how in this weather is beyond me!) then they are cold enough to put the jumper away and wear their blazer. But what's I've had this week is about a dozen students arguing about blazers, whilst sat in their optional winter jumpers complaining about how hot the classroom is and why don't I have air con!

Any 'take your jumper off' has been met with "I don't want to though". Fine. Then stop complaining and get your blazer out your bag.
It's almost like the very clear rule 'jumpers optional. Blazers compulsory' doesn't apply to a group of them. We don't insist on them wearing them in class. But I find it irritating as hell having teenagers try to argue about blazers whilst wearing the winter jumper, not having their blazer with them and complaining they're too hot to think and do their work.

Maisy obviously one of the reasons uniform is very useful to teenagers is that arguing about it is a fantastic way to derail a lesson, that's probably the reason a lot of them refuse to take off their jumpers.

However could they be self conscious in thin white school shirts? Sweaty arm pits - sweat stains? If you know your shirt is see through or has stains or is wet from sweat and you are a teenager you will accept death from heat exhaustion before you will take your jumper off and expose that.

I also spent a whole summer wearing my school jumper aged almost 12 when my mother informed me with disgust one breakfast time that I was indecent in my white school blouse (puberty had struck, she hadn't thought to buy me bras...)

5moreminutes, exactly. We are back to the white shirt ridiculousness. Feel very sorry for teenagers sometimes.

I am glad that my DD3's school is sensible about blazers in hot weather. It is a compulsory piece of the uniform, but nobody bats an eyelid when the kids take them off in hot weather.

I was a secondary school child during the late seventies and early eighties. We were allowed striped or gingham summer dresses for girls in the summer. It was optional, but most people wore it. They do seem to have largely disappeared from secondary schools, as others have also observed. That is a shame perhaps, though primary schools round here still have them.

Yes, summer dresses, like pinafores, are very much viewed as "little girl" wear in schools now.

I agree the issue isn't the blazer itself.
It's when teachers take off their jacket and hang it on the back of the chair because .... well it's hot and they are hot.
Yet students aren't afforded the same luxury because ... well they are the rules aren't they?

Pupils are still human and still get too hot and rule enforcement won't change that - and it is rule enforcement over common sense!

Like I said my ds is lucky enough to go to a sensible school that allows them to remove them during lessons if it's hot.

Utter madness and cruelty to make kids where jumpers and blazers in hot weather... i can't believe the stupidity of it.... it's like we're in the 1930s or something.

As far as I'm aware, no office, however formal, requires staff to wear a jacket at all times, and if a school needs to enforce this madness to maintain discipline there's something seriously wrong. I went to a private school that was hot on discipline, but even they never made us wear blazers when it's hot.

coconut
It's our kids CHOOSING to wear jumpers that's our issue in the heat.
Staff are saying to take them off.
Even if they were embarrassed about sweat, our blazers are thinner than the jumper so could hide the sweat.

This has been one of my bug bears on the thread.
I'm in a school where we've been telling kids to take off blazers and jumpers (but they should have blazer in school) and we're getting students choosing to wear multiple.layers and then try to spend lesson time complaining that it's too hot to work.

Maisy, do the blazers do up high enough / come up high enough to hide bras on girls if shirts are see through? Wondering if that's a reason.

I've not noticed bras. And I'm the first to have a diplomatic word with students I get on well with if I think they don't realise.

I'll be honest we don't seem to have an issue with particularly see through shirts. Most girls will either wear a plain white or nude bra. (But I've had some diplomatic conversations about white with coloured polka dot ones when I've know the student and they'd want to know. Before anyone shouts at me for body shaming, it's a very much know the student thing).

dd3 goes to a school with a strict uniform code.

Summer time they have a summer dress for the girls (secondary so this is rare) and for those who choose to wear the winter kilt and shirt no need to wear the blazer or the woolen jumper. Shirts are short sleeved all year for girls boys have a choice of short or long.

Last year when we had a heat wave we got a letter from the head stating they had told all students to NOT wear blazers that day so students who had put them on had been told to not wear them.

DS goes to a school with a less strict uniform code (but still got a uniform code) Summer time they can hang blazers over the back of their chairs in class but they need to carry them neatly from room to room and have them with them to school. Ties on all the time

DD1 and 2 were in the school with the most slack uniform code. Weirdly they were the worst about heat and summer. So teachers insisting they had to wear their jumpers in the heat. Teachers insisting they could not keep jackets on inside when the heating was broken and they could see their breath in the air. That sort of stuff. However no uniform cards no detentions ever for not having their uniform right and none of them have ever had teacher complain about how they are wearing uniform (both dd3 and ds have had this happen)

So just shows simply because there is a strict uniform it doesnt automatically mean they can not use common sense.

Strange this idea that enforcing draconian uniform rules is emulating private schools. There are 3 independent schools in my town and none of them do this. DS school allowed short sleeves, tie and no blazer in the summer term, girls up to yr 13 in cotton dresses. Pretty relaxed but everyone still respectably uniformed. How can kids work if they're sweating and uncomfortable?

Thanks Maisy, perhaps that's not the reason then.

I teach adults as part of my job. One of the first things I do is check the environment. If it is too hot I am expected to alter that (open windows etc). If I can't improve the temperature I am expected to mention this in my introduction to my session, apologise (perhaps not appropriate in school) and explain that if people need to get water, dress appropriately then that is fine. If I was being assessed and didn't do this on a very hot day I would quite rightly be pulled up on it. I might fail the assessment. If I was assessing someone who didn't do this I would have stern words with them afterwards. I do try to realise that it must be completely different in secondary schools but I suspect I would have been one of the awkward students who pissed about with a jumper (actually I was a pretty good student but my school didn't have such rules).

On the flip side of this, I once got sent to "remove" (naughty classroom with 1 hr detention after school) for refusing to take my coat off in winter. Proper old buildings at school and these particular classrooms were more like barns with doors that had about a foot gap before reaching the floor. It was bloody freezing with the wind blowing through, we could see our own breaths - I told the teacher I would take my coat off if he would take his off - he didn't.

Kids potentially getting ill for the sake of "looking smart" is utterly ridiculous. They're way less likely to learn if they're uncomfortable and that's way more important

Just out of interest - are all the staff wearing thick jackets too?

It might be worth contacting the HSE to see if there is anything they could say that would help to sway the minds of the school...

The place I've just finished working in I had to have a Dr's note to not wear my jacket while moving around the school, all staff had to wear their jacket when not in an office or a classroom - stupid, stupid rule.

I was asked by one child if he could take his blazer off, my response was yes, and no one needs to ask again, in my class take your blazer off if you want.

There is no maximum temperature for people in HASAW but if you dig deep enough in the amendments there is a max temperature for computers.

Mind you the place I was at 12 months ago when we had wweather like this I had to actually remove an electric heater because an adult students had switched it on, I'd switched it off, she put it back on again.

I did tell her that yes she might be cold but she had arrived in college in a sleeveless dress with no jacket/cardigan and no tights so if she was genuinely cold she should consider wearing more appropriate clothing.

Do they also think bank managers wear bowler hats and carry umbrellas and a rolled up copy of The Times under their arm? grin

I don't think wearing a shirt, tie and blazer equates to dressing like Mr Banks out of Mary Poppins. I worked in the City for about ten years before I became a teacher and pretty much everyone I saw was wearing a suit and a tie, or a tailored dress and jacket, or skirt and shirt. It is pretty standard to wear business dress at the office. Not everyone works for an internet start-up and gets to wear plimsolls and take their dog to work. Many of these children will eventually have to conform to what someone else wants them to wear, whether that's a McDonalds uniform (yep - I've worn that too) or a pinstriped suit and cufflinks.

Yes but even when you work at McDonalds or Tesco or somewhere with uniform they don't expect you to wear a jacket if it's 30° heat.

It's about common sense.

It's also about realising those who work and have to wear full dress are often wearing cool cotton and decent made suits and not the cheap ones they have at school.

youarenotkiddingme

When I worked at McDonalds it was 36 degrees in the kitchen. Hat, shirt buttoned up, stupid bow tie, the lot.

Oh and cheap material as well, naturally

...and offices are often airconditioned, unlike most schools

I told my students they could remove blazers and ties while in my lessons this week. Sensible concession in hot weather and i would have happily justified it to anyone who challenged. But I work in a school (academy, btw) with a sensible SMT and they would have been fine with me saying that.

Maisy. Sorry I wasn't referring to you, it's Trifle and her attitude that I find utterly bizarre.

Trifle I frequently have meetings at all types of firms in the City and can assure you that in the heat of summer no one insists on keeping a jacket on. You would be regarded as an oddball if you did.

As for your point earlier that discipline would disintegrate if pupils were allowed to take off their jackets in hot weather, this is madness... as I posted earlier, I went to a pretty strict private school and even they didn't have such a rule (though we did have to continue wearing ties, but undoing the top button on a hot day was overlooked), and discipline was never an issue.

Surely learning must be adversely impacted by this? And she for making pupils wear them who are taking their GCSEs... it's stressful enough for young people, let alone forcing them to do it in a sweat box. I would be looking to remove my children from a school where such madness existed.

When I worked at McDonalds it was 36 degrees in the kitchen. Hat, shirt buttoned up, stupid bow tie, the lot.

Yes, but even McDs wouldn't have made you wear a jacket!