Aibu-Allowing d's to wear knee high boots for school

[Shippers87]

Posting here for opinions as I'm annoyed at the attitude of the teachers at my dd's school.

She is 6 years old and we bought her some black flat boots that sit just under the knee for school on days where it is cold/wet/windy as frankly the Mary Jane style shoes that are normally sold for girls are not suitable for this weather.

School assistant has kept asking my dd where her shoes are and went on to say she can't wear her boots.

It does not say this in the school uniform rules. Nor are they not practical as she is comfier in them than normal school shoes.

So I said next time they ask for my dd to tell the teacher that I let her wear them.

They have now told her that she has to wear her pe pumps inside. Which has made her feel sad.

Can they do this ?

I know there is no legislation saying that UK school children have to wear uniform but I feel this is a bit petty seeing as in this day and age you can wear knee high boots in certain workplaces

I don't pick her up/drop her off due to working full time so am thinking of writing a letter as I am unable to speak to them after school

It's not about being 'down with the kids'. It's about fostering a respectful relationship on both sides. There's nothing pathetic about that - no good comes of creating constant areas of conflict. Schools might benefit from having fewer rules and confining themselves to the truly important ones.

It's about fostering a respectful relationship on both sides.

I can’t see how it’s respectful for a teacher to decide which of the school rules they choose to enforce and which they don’t. The “respectful” approach would be to have a mature discussion with their line manager if they feel unable to stick to the contract they signed up to.

*Personally I’m not bothered whether a six year old is wearing boots or your teenager has half pink half shaved hair. I’m not setting the rules.

But school, the work place and many other scenarios have rules that aren’t necessarily logically consistent or you feel wholly vital to their stated aim. So you have to decide what hills you’re willing to die on because you can’t fight it all, all of the time. Im not suggesting you should be a mindless sheep and accep the status quo all the time (I certainly haven’t) but equally pretending to your kids that authority always has to justify rules to their satisfaction does them no favours in the long run.*

^ This is one of the more sensible posts on this subject.

Although, I do think allowing a 6 year old to dictate which shoes she will or won't "entertain wearing" is unwise and can set up issues for the future. I'm not saying it's the worst thing you can do as a parent, but I don't think it does them any favours to make them believe they get a big say in the rules and decision-making. I really do believe that sometimes children (and especially young children who are unlikely to have all the knowledge and experience needed to make sensible decisions) just need to do as they are told, when they are told to do it and without debate or the parent/adult justifying their reasons. At that age my DC wore the shoes I told them to, and would not be dictating to me what they would or would not wear. They would get to express a preference but if that preference was impractical/too expensive/some other reason that made them unsuitable, then my decision goes. It doesn't mean you end up raising sheep or timid children with no sense of individuality.

I would not have bought knee high boots as I think they'd be a bit warm in the classroom and I'm not surprised that it's not considered school uniform TBH.

My DCs school has a very strict uniform policy, made known when we went to look round the school and it is well documented in the school handbook too and they don't allow knee high boots for classroom. If it is cold/wet/snowing children can arrive in wellies/snow boots or whatever and then change into school shoes for the school day (and can wear boots for playtime). I don't really see the issue with that, but if I was against uniform policy in general, or wanted to pick and chose which uniform rules I followed, then I would either chose a school with lax or no school uniform rules.

Like other posters, I think you have to pick your battles or you're going to be constantly getting annoyed and arguing with the school. You're never going to be 100% happy with everything the school does, so you need to decide which things are worth kicking up a real fuss about- for your own sanity, if nothing else. And if you are frequently up at the school/writing to the school/complaining in one way or another, I think it may well make it harder for you when you have a bigger problem you want sorted. Not because I think the teachers will "punish" your daughter because you have annoyed them/complained a lot, but because human nature does tend to mean that people who complain a lot (especially if much of it is petty) end up with people thinking "here we go again" and less attention can be paid to them.

My DCs school has a very strict uniform policy, made known when we went to look round the school and it is well documented in the school handbook too and they don't allow knee high boots for classroom. If it is cold/wet/snowing children can arrive in wellies/snow boots or whatever and then change into school shoes for the school day (and can wear boots for playtime). I don't really see the issue with that, but if I was against uniform policy in general, or wanted to pick and chose which uniform rules I followed, then I would either chose a school with lax or no school uniform rules. Just to point out - all the schools around where we live have strict uniform policies - permission needs to be sought to wear non-uniform compliant items to and from school (only issued when we have extreme weather) and we have no choice of school with a less that utterly obsessive uniform policy! This bollocks of choice - what fucking choice?...we have no choice!