Help me word an email to the school that isn't full of expletives please.

[ReanimatedSGB]

I know I can do better that 'For fuck's sake, you petty-minded bunch of cunts', of course...

DS got a day in inclusion (ie isolation) because of his shoes. They are, admittedly, not quite regulation shoes, though they are plain black - but he was wearing them because his normal school shoes were discovered to have a fucking great hole in on Sunday evening. He wore the not-quite-right shoes yesterday and there was no problem - I got home from work too late to take him shoe-shopping as my shift overran - but I got a phone call at work this morning saying they were 'unacceptable' and he would either be sent home or have to spend the day in inclusion. I was halfway up the M4 at the time. I explained the reason and that we were going to buy a new pair tomorrow (because I wouldn't be home till 7pm), but they said if he didn't have proper shoes in the morning it would be the same thing again.
Mercifully our nearest Sainsburys is open till 10pm and is one of those big enough to have a clothing and footwear department, so we have actually got new shoes, but what the fuck is the point of taking a well-behaved kid out of class for the day when he's only wearing not-quite-right shoes for a perfectly good reason.

Isolation is well OTT.

OP, you are out of order for not sending in a note/email the first day. A full explanation of the issue would have sufficed. As it is, you "blame" the school for not spotting it day one.

You should have rung them and explained and sent a note on the first day.

I dont believe an email is necessary.
A Whole in his shoe was noticed so you sent him in non regulation shoes.
just buy the correct shoes.
there is a uniform policy to adhere to, no special treatment required.

i have been through this with dd and the school trousers, in september they had to line up and show their trousers. she was wearing non regulation trousers. Of course I was cross but the policy needed to be adhered to. no argument

Isolation is well OTT.
OP, you are out of order for not sending in a note/email the first day. A full explanation of the issue would have sufficed.
This ^^
A simple note saying 'dc has different shoes on as there is a hole in their school ones. We will be getting a new pair on...' is reasonable. Anyone not sending a simple note in at the start and then being surprised when school follow their behaviour policies confuses me.

Calm down! No one suggested he had wet feet all day, it was suggested he wore other shoes on his way in then got changed into his school,shoes once he arrived.
The hole would not have suddenly appeared, unless he had stood on something to make the hole, so he may already have been having wet feet for a few days. I'm afraid you're making a big deal about something trivial.
And for those of you listing all sorts of horrors your own children have to tolerate in their schools, if yo feel so strongly, then change schools! It's not the bloody schools fault if a child has special needs, particularly mental health issues. Most of these children in particular have mental health needs that stem from early life experiences. Stop blaming schools!

I had this at Infant school. It was summer, DD had 2 weeks left and her black school shoes had fallen apart on the fronts. School said the girls could wear white, non open toed sandals, so I put her in white summer shoes.
I got pulled aside and torn strips off by her (evil, nasty and could not wait to see the back of her before I told her to f off) teacher in front of lots of parents.
The next day a photo was in the paper as the school had received an outstanding from Ofsted. Of the 6 kids in it, not 1 had correct uniform on. One of them literally had a white shirt on, that was as close as he had to the uniform. I cut it out, stuck it to paper, pointed out each and every infraction and how they still appeared in the paper like it, whereas I received grief over a pair of shoes that met their rules.
That shut 'em up.

Honestly its no bloody wonder some kids rebel against school. I'm made up my dd has left.
Do they put bullies in this isolation.
For all the school knows you may not be able to afford the shoes they're wanting him to wear. There fore some might/could/would say They're penalising children due to their parents financial difficulties.
If only that was all there was to worry about 'a child in the 'wrong' pair of shoes.

Sending that email will make you look silly.
He was in the wrong shoes, there is a uniform policy to adhere to. Yes it is unfortunate. From the outside it seems like "just shoes" but actually when you're trying to maintain order and discipline, getting kids to follow the little rules is really important. We relaxed the rule a bit to give kids the benefit of the doubt, and all of a sudden we were overrun with "my shoes broke last night and my mum didn't have time to buy new ones" which I'm sure is often legit, but was happen suspiciously more often once they knew they had a few days grace in trainers!

Schools have to be ‘ obedience factories’ because allowing hundreds of adolescents to make up their own rules would lead to anarchy. I agree that for some DC this is not a suitable environment, these DC are not suited to institutional life and would probably be better home schooled

They arebt obedience factories though are they. Uniform is nothing more than a reason to pick on kids whilst not actually having to deal with anything.

They can spot a red dot on the bottom of the shoe at 100 pages and apparently jave time to send out multiple emails about it.

One kid out of 1500 plus students.

However when the number gets down to 30 and the kids are no more than 10 feet away from you at all times, well you can have your stuff nicked, thrown about, table shoved around, assulted, and nothing is noticed and nothing is done.

At least be consistent. If rules matter so much you get in a flap about an interim shoe for 2 days, them surely the behaviour rules should matter too? But no that's just inconvenient isn't it

Uniform is nothing more than a reason to pick on kids whilst not actually having to deal with anything.
That is such a load of bollocks.
Have you seen in the media how stretched and pushed schools are?
That's a massive over generalisation and not representative of anything I've seen whilst working in schools.

Uniform is nothing more than a reason to pick on kids whilst not actually having to deal with anything

Without exception, it's parents who want uniforms.

They can spot a red dot on the bottom of the shoe at 100 pages and apparently jave time to send out multiple emails about it.One kid out of 1500 plus students

Except it's not, it's the kid in front of the teacher in the classroom.

However when the number gets down to 30 and the kids are no more than 10 feet away from you at all times, well you can have your stuff nicked, thrown about, table shoved around, assulted, and nothing is noticed and nothing is done

Not sure how you can conflate the uniform and behaviour issues. Better to deal with these in a separate thread.

YANBU. It was explained that the shoes were temporary as there was no alternative. Putting him in inclusion over it is ridiculous.

Why did nobody notice such a bloody great hole before Sunday evening?
Daft uniform rules are a total PITA. I would’ve sent a note explaining and expected to hear nothing more about it.
That’s clearly not the case in this school. Either campaign for a les stupid approach or be vigilant/organised and try and prevent further problems.

It’s just a bit petty though really isn’t it. In the workplace dress codes have become much more casual over the past decade but some schools seem to have gone the other way. I’d rather teachers were spending their time supporting and educating children than telling them off for a pair of shoes that are outside of their direct control.

I can get how a hole wouldn't be noticed until Sunday evening, after all, who goes looking at the soles of shoes as a matter of course?
Actually I do, as DD has destroyed DMs. :o

What matters is the OP knew the school rules and sent her DS in without an explanation, then pisses and moans on here about how unfair it is.

Dear School,

I am writing to express my deep concern about the implementation of your school uniform policy. Whilst I understand that the uniform rules are important as children must be sensibly dressed at school, I am appalled that my child spent yesterday in isolation because of a small, and unavoidable rule infraction. My son's regulation school shoes have a hole in them. This was discovered on Sunday night. I found a pair of sensible black shoes for him to wear until I could take him to the shops to purchase regulation shoes. The alternatives to my solution were to:-

1. Take a day off work (I work very long days so shopping after school is not an option some days)
2. Keep my child off school
3. Send my child to school in damaged shoes

For future reference, which of the above options would you prefer?

Keeping my well-behaved child in isolation yesterday only served to make him feel stigmatised. This is an inclusion issue as the only parents who could have resolved the issue and purchased new shoes at such short notice are those who have enough disposable income and time on a Monday morning to do so. Do you think that it is right that the children of working parents are penalised?

I look forward to discussing this with your further and sharing my ideas for a revised uniform policy, perhaps one with a 2 day grace period in which parents can replace damaged items.

Regards,

I’d rather teachers were spending their time supporting and educating children than telling them off for a pair of shoes that are outside of their direct control

Tell the parents who buy into this shit and send their children to such schools. I can assure you, no teacher wants spend any time at all enforcing uniform rules.

Yep. Petty and pointless. I think uniform can look smart and be a good thing but this isn’t a child turning up in jeans and a hoody.
Ex teacher who would rather actually teach and engage with my students as people rather than uniformed clones!
This is the daft policy of this school. So campaign to get it changed or comply. I can’t believe this kid walked home in these shoes on Friday and didn’t think to mention the problem.

@Soontobe60

What a vile post. Schools aren't to blame for Sen or mental health issues just like parents aren't.

To suggest it's parents fault that children have mental health issues is disgusting.

Dobbinsveil, the guidance you quote on sending home for uniform infringements is non-statutory, and doesn't in fact reflect what the law says. It does also suggest that if a child is sent home, it is only for a brief period, i.e. to pick up whatever piece of uniform is missing, whereas in OP's case the school was proposing to send the child home at least for the rest of the day and potentially for longer.

Most parents can organise new shoes within a week or so?

Bloody hell, some families can't afford the fare to a town with a shoe shop more than once a month.

An awful lot of people have no concept of how hard life is for a family struggling to survive on £384 a week, out of which they have to pay rent, which in this area is a minimum of £229 a week for 3-bed place. And if you can't afford Clarks, it's £5.20 return to the nearest town with a shoe shop and our supermarkets aren't big enough to sell shoes.

Uniform fascisim on the part of schools is reaching ridiculous levels.

I think uniforms are largely stupid and the way they are implemented by state schools mad.
But, in future, I'd write a note to the school in advance explaining the situation and asking for extraordinary leniency until you could go shopping on the weekend.

Schools have to be ‘ obedience factories’ because allowing hundreds of adolescents to make up their own rules would lead to anarchy

That only works when the rules are sensible: you need rules that pupils can respect. Where they are petty and pointless, and are enforced in a draconian manner, they just waste time and lead to a fairly toxic culture where neither the rules nor the staff are respected. Witness the fact that so many schools with no uniforms, or with a relaxed uniform policy, are in no way anarchic and get excellent results - whereas a number of academies with extremely strict rules and policies have failed.

Bloody hell, some families can't afford the fare to a town with a shoe shop more than once a month. An awful lot of people have no concept of how hard life is for a family struggling to survive on £384 a week, out of which they have to pay rent, which in this area is a minimum of £229 a week for 3-bed place. And if you can't afford Clarks, it's £5.20 return to the nearest town with a shoe shop and our supermarkets aren't big enough to sell shoes

None of this applies to this thread.

Uniform fascisim on the part of schools is reaching ridiculous levels

It's the parents who want this. Overwhelmingly. Not the fascism, just the uniform. As long as none of it affects exceptions they wish to be applied to their child.

I very much doubt most parents have the time to get their kids to line up every evening, so they can do a full kit inspection. Yes, the child should have mentioned the hole on Friday, if they were aware of it. It is conceivable they weren't, though, if it was a dry day, and it wasn't until they picked them up on the Sunday that they noticed.

I'm really dreading being subject to all this silly shit when my DD starts school next year.

Whichever pp mentioned sending children to a school without a uniform policy, how many of those do you know of? They are as rare as hen's teeth, as far as I am aware. Certainly none in the whole of my London borough, nor any that I am aware of. There is no choice in this.