To hope schools scrap uniforms

[greengoldfish]

It can’t surely be possible to wash blazers and heavy kilt like skirts on a daily basis.

AIBU to hope this means an end to uniform, or if not, a return to some comfy jogging bottoms, polo shirts and cardis/jumpers?

I spent most of my teaching life in VI forms and FE colleges, the FE colleges didn't seem to have bullying problems.

I think a dress code can work well, one of the local primaries has 'red, white and blue', it can be shorts a skirt or trousers with a shirt, blouse or polo, jumper or cardi. Other than summer dresses I think they have to be plain.

My main reasons for disliking uniform are a) it can be used to discriminate against certain groups making them less likely to apply and b) as a teacher policing the bloody thing.

Uniforms should be more comfortable / practical if they are needed at all.

@MrsAvocet
If he's normally in uniform in y12, surely he has school trousers and a shirt he could have just gone in?

If you like uniform and your school's uniform.is cheap, why not just send your children in wearing it even if they're currently permitted to wear non-uniform?

The local primary has specified clean clothes everyday and said that normal clothes or uniform is allowed. In fact, they specified that if children felt wearing uniform again made the return to school feel more like normal, then they should certainly wear uniform.

So do that, then!

Honestly though, I find the drama around the necessity of uniform on MN excessive. I did GCSEs in a non-uniform state, A-levels in a non-uniform state further education college, and university lectures were also non-uniform.

My head did not drop off because I wasn't wearing business casual to take notes on the nitrogen cycle.

Yes I suppose he could 00100001 but the school has specifically said "don't wear uniform" not "uniform is not compulsory" which makes it a bit difficult. And whilst I don't want my children to grow up feeling they have to bow to peer pressure, nor do I want to deliberately make them targets for bullying. And being the one kid who turns up in uniform is likely to do that, even in a "good" school, whether we like it or not.
We are not in financial hardship, its not the end of the world. I didn't even feel moved to contact the school about it. But it was irritating and inconvenient, particularly given that there were no clothes shops open in our area at the time. And I am sure there are families in our school for whom the extra and unexpected expense of new school clothes at this time of year would be a financial strain. As I have said, I would have no problem with non uniform actually meaning that, but I dislike the "no uniform but multiple restrictions " wttitude that all the schools in my area seem to have. Except ours. Until now.

@pointythings

campion Rugby is also not very representative of the typical demographic in UK schools.

Of course it’s not, nobody said it was but it’s the arguments put forward by a group of teenagers is interesting. Particularly since they’re pretty feminist.

If I was a teen at Rugby, I'd probably love the skirts too. Ankle length? Excellent! Also clear and obviously impractical for some activities which means changing to trousers will be approved of.

I really wouldn't love walking to school wearing the much shorter one-length tartan skirts that are mandatory at some secondaries. One local secondary insists on these skirts so you can't roll them up. As they're from the one school supplier, you also can't get a longer skirt somewhere else, and the building has modern open stairs with gaps between each step. So it's pretty easy for anyone to stand underneath the stairs and take surreptitious photos up skirts.

When it's a free for all many will be here complaining that their child is made to feel inferior to other children whose parents are willing enough/dumb enough to spend a fortune on designer gear. Uniform is a great leveller.

it's pretty easy for anyone to stand underneath the stairs and take surreptitious photos up skirts

It’s also illegal and you can be prosecuted for it. Surely the same applies to any skirt, uniform or not.

Yes, the same does apply to any skirt of that length. Which is why, as an adult who is allowed to dress how she likes, I don't wear them. Pity the same privilege isn't extended to vulnerable teenage girls.

There are a fair few forms of sexual harassment and assault that perpetrators can be prosecuted for. This does not mean that they are. It is a common theme that boys are still not disciplined for physically assaulting their classmates in plain sight. It was ever thus.

The whole point of a uniform is so children from poorer backgrounds etc that maybe can’t afford nicer clothes don’t stick out like sore thumbs.

The whole point of a uniform is so children from poorer backgrounds etc that maybe can’t afford nicer clothes don’t stick out like sore thumbs

or they just don't apply to schools because 35 pound blazers mean they are priced out of an education.

The fact that schools opt for 18 pound skirts and even a tie costs 6 quid and have different coloured trims/piping/stripes etc for houses so you can't even pass on or borrow uniform is a deliberate attempt to stop poor people applying in the first place.

Yy. There are so many stories of people who passed the 11+ or had full scholarships to secondary school and couldn't take their place because of uniform costs.

At some point, you can no longer believe that these uniform policies came about through anything else but intentional gatekeeping.

Blazers washed every term/half term depending on the state of it.
I dont see why they cant wear cargo trousers and polo shirt. Comfy and cheap and available almost everywhere

I'm sure at one point a percentage of places at grammar schools were meant to go to children who were on fsm.

If I remember correctly and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but although they still had to pass the 11 plus, where scores were a deciding factor, and you could in fact miss out even though you passed, that is where it came in.

So on one hand they recognise the struggles those from less privileged back grounds faced. On the other thwy make the uniform unobtainable for them.

@SarahTancredi

Grammar schools are designed to prepare bright DC for a successful career. Which is why they are directed to dress professionally.

DC wearing tracksuits and polo shirts to school sends a message that they're preparing to work in sports direct.

Why? If you were enrolled on an evening course in A-level History, Geography or whatever, would you only retain information if you attended the classes in a suit?

[quote FishyDuck]@SarahTancredi

Grammar schools are designed to prepare bright DC for a successful career. Which is why they are directed to dress professionally.

DC wearing tracksuits and polo shirts to school sends a message that they're preparing to work in sports direct. [/quote]
Again... Obviously there's no one that has a successful career abroad.... And obviously the only reason that little Tyler didn't make it as a lawyer is because they wore tracksuits and a polo to school.

Nothing else came into play there. Nope.

[quote FishyDuck]@SarahTancredi

Grammar schools are designed to prepare bright DC for a successful career. Which is why they are directed to dress professionally.

DC wearing tracksuits and polo shirts to school sends a message that they're preparing to work in sports direct. [/quote]
Should all university students then wear a uniform? And heck, why not make it compulsory to wear some sort of uniform on training courses.

Because obviously if I do my degree in a suit, rather than joggers, I'll get a first...

Actually, let's take this a leetle further. Should children in schools that offer Latin (or have parents that can teach it) wear togas to do Latin?*

Surely it will stop them aspiring to study classics if they wear blazers?

*I am fully aware that Roman dress extended beyond the toga and I even have volumes on Roman household affairs and culture. But talking about women's chitons or carefully defining which period of the Roman empire I might mean would entirely ruin the joke.

I wish they would. Or at least make them more practical and not insist that kids need a stupid tie, ugly blazer and shirt that crumples as soon as it is looked at to be ready to learn. The pretence that it somehow prepares them for the world of work seemed as silly to me 20 odd years ago when I was at school as it does now. The teachers walking around in clothes totally unlike the uniform yet managing to do their jobs makes a mockery of that argument.

@SarahTancredi

I'm sure at one point a percentage of places at grammar schools were meant to go to children who were on fsm.

If I remember correctly and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but although they still had to pass the 11 plus, where scores were a deciding factor, and you could in fact miss out even though you passed, that is where it came in.

So on one hand they recognise the struggles those from less privileged back grounds faced. On the other thwy make the uniform unobtainable for them.

I’ll correct you. Access to a grammar school where I lived was solely dependent on passing the 11+, some people had a straight pass, others who were borderline had an interview afterwards. Means tested grants were available for uniform. The secondary modern pupils also wore uniform and were also eligible for those grants.

Most schools have relaxed the uniform until September. When things are back to normal, there's no reason why the uniform policies can't be adhered to as normal.

Yes of course YABU

fishy

Do you not think there's a middle ground between turning up in a shell suit and 50 pound grammar school blazers ?

also thanks for the up to date info I was only vaguely recalling from years ago

I am absolutely pro uniform as a direct result of having spent 5 years in a non uniform school. The kids, parents and staff ended up voting to introduce a uniform years later. I would avoid non uniform schools for my kids.