School has banned Kickers shoes! I have bought them for DS. AIBU to to let him wear them and start a fight with them if they try to sanction him?

[CarefulDriver]

DS is starting secondary school next week. The school uniform regulations on the school website dictate that they wear black shoes (no trainer like shoes). Fine.

I bought him a pair of Kickers as I wanted comfy shoes which will last him most of the year. I know from previous experience with DS1 and 2 that the ‘businessman’ style shoes don’t last if they’re playing footie at break! Most of the DCs at their school wore Kickers and so did they once I caught on.

Chatting to friend who’s DC is also going to the same school yesterday and apparently the school has banned shoes with visible branding on which Kickers have. This is not on the main school uniform webpage which is what I checked to get his uniform but on a sub page for new Yr7s which I had read but only skimmed over the uniform bit as assumed it was the same as the main page.

I spent £68 on shoes, which IMO are common school shoes, he may not now be able to wear. He won’t be wearing out of school either obviously! I got them online direct from Kickers with a 14 day return policy which has runout now.

WIBU to just send him in on his first day in them?

The fact is that the current generation of young people are more literate than mine.

I don't think that is true at all. "Could of" and other similar horrors being prime examples.

I disagree @MadameMinimes as well. Blossomtoes is right.
The school leaving age was earlier but they learned how to spell correctly and how to use grammar correctly. Adding up money was harder pre decimal currency as well.

School children 100 years ago might not have had the breadth of education that our children have but what they learned was very thorough.

How many times have I seen "could of" instead of "could have", borrowed instead of lent, apostrophes used for plurals on mumsnet and elsewhere? This kind of grammar was drummed into us as children (I went to primary school in the 1960s, and secondary school in the 1970s).

I am not so rude to point these grammatical errors to posters, but I admit to cringing inwardly.

I also disagree @MadameMinimes - I am talking about present day graduates and their basic literacy and numeracy are woeful - even if they have a 2:1 from a post 92. Our DC went to an outstanding primary, cofe, leafy suburb. Crackers were:

At Christmas there was a 100 extra dinners served
Guage as a spelling which when I corrected it to gauge was marked wrong
x on the vertical access
The children going into year three will need a small pencil case, containing a 12 inch ruler

Do not ask me to detail some of the comments written in reading records by TA's dinner ladies who seemed to have disproportionate authority in the classroom.

Similar to Blossomtoes my grandma was never expected to work but wrote beautifully, was a human calculator, spoke reasonable French and perfect horse. My grandfather arrived in the UK in 1921 as a Russian refugee and wrote and spoke perfect English.

DH's side were working class. His grandad went down the mine on his 14th birthday; his grandma trained as a nurse. Both wrote perfect English and had excellent mental arithmetic.

None of our grandparents had any formal qualifications but they were significantly better educated than many of today's graduates. Recalls young chap who temped for me a few years ago having just graduated. "What did you read at university" I asked. "Oh, I'm not a big reader"

My grandmother was born in 1940. Perhaps standards declined significantly between 1896 and 1954 when my Nan left school.

In all seriousness, you just cannot compare the standard of education that she left school with to what kids get now.

I use “could have”, my grandmother uses “could of”. Make of that what you will.

In all seriousness, you just cannot compare the standard of education that she left school with to what kids get now

You’re right. It was far better. My friends and I discussed this recently. We all think we were the last properly educated generation. Some of us left school in 1969 after O levels, the rest in 1971.

Well, No. Young people today do not speak like Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson in 'Brief Encounter.' And they surely cannot write letters like people used to write letters when people wrote letters. But today we no more need to write letters than we need to draw an oroc on a cave wall.

And I checked the internet, where one 'correct grammar' page solemly intoned that 'could of' was, quote, "A error." (Sic)

@MadameMinimes. Indeed not. My grandmother, mother nor I had kids either. I'm trying not to cringe too much at your notion that there has been no dumbing down.

Grandma: 1912
Mother: 1936
Me: 1960
My DC: 90s. They received superb educations but not wholly state I'm afraid

Had no kids . We all had children.

But today we no more need to write letters than we need to draw an oroc on a cave wall

Don’t we? No businesses send letters any more? We don’t need correct spelling and grammar for reports? We’re not judged on the correct use of language on our CVs?

But today we no more need to write letters than we need to draw an oroc on a cave wall.

No, but many people have to write literate and professional emails for work. I'm in Yorkshire, and one of my colleagues writes as she speaks - "we was", not "we were". I cringe with embarrassment as these emails go out to customers and suppliers

You really are scraping the barrel if you’re taking issue with the word “kid”.
Weirdly, I bet you’d have no issue with “tute”, “plodge” or “bop”.

I’ve attached an example of a World War One letter to a soldier serving on the front line. You’ll note that the English is far from perfect.

The Royal Mail will confirm that alomost nobody writes letters anymore. Formal documents are typed on computers that come with spelling and grammar checkers as standard if you want that sort of thing.

This "Golden Age" has always been a moving feast. It wasn't in the 70s when the Black Papers were claiming that the children who had only an elementary education were nearly 100% lieterate. This 'fact,' it transpired, was the product of parish marriage registers, which proved that nearly everyone could sign there name.

Nor was it in the 50s when the military complained that there wasn't enough time to get the many illiterate recruits functionally capable of reading and understanding Queen's Regulations, as in two world wars and the Anglo-Boer War when the first post 1870 schooled recruits were as illiterate as ever.

Now many of your grannies can master Zoom, Instagram or Twitter?

The Royal Mail will confirm that alomost nobody writes letters anymore

Letters may not be sent through the mail, they’re still written as or attached to emails.

Now many of your grannies can master Zoom, Instagram or Twitter?

None of mine because they’re long dead. Since when have Insta or Twitter required or been an indication of a high level of literacy? I can master them and I’m old - it’s hardly rocket science.

I've no idea what "tute" or "plodge" mean. A "bop" is a dance I believe. A kid is a baby goat and I'd have been displeased if any of my children's teachers had referred to kids.

My mother, who is nearly 85, whilst not keen on technology has been having her coffee mornings and playing bridge on zoom. MIL a former deputy head of the same age, won't use a computer.

I regularly have to write letters about complex issues as part of my role. Emails are expected to be grammatically correct.

@MadameMinimes I think you are cherry picking with that letter. Rupert Brooke wrote beautifully. Not sure if he was state educated though.

@Blossomtoes How convenient, that you just happened to be educated at exactly the historical moment at which educational standards peaked. 😂

It’s a very common cognitive bias. We tend to assume that what we don’t know and can’t do is not important, because we get by perfectly fine without it. Whilst we tend to judge others for not knowing what we do, because we think it is more important and easier than what we can’t. Someone, somewhere will always be cringing at something you don’t know that they do.

@RosesAndHellebores they are all commonly used terms at the university of Cambridge. Tute= tutorial, plodge= porters’ lodge, bop is indeed a dance or social.

@RosesAndHellebores You say I’m cherry-picking and then named a Cambridge educated poet. Of course poets wrote beautiful letters. The point up for discussion is whether the standards of literacy were better among the working classes.

Ah, I see, I didn't go to university but I'll check with the DC who both went to Cambridge although plodge and tute don't seem to be part of their common parlance. DH had bedders though 😅

But I'm not working class @MadameMinimes

Actually “tute” is Oxford slang, but the point is broadly the same.

@user1471447863 You know teachers pax tax too, right?

That probably explains why you don’t think literacy standards are improving. If the previous generations of your family were middle class, then they were probably more literate than the average youngster today. If, like me and most other people, the previous generations of your family were farm labourers, factory workers or dockers, you might be better able to spot the historical trends.