To think we should do away with girls/ boys uniforms?

[MerryMarigold]

Can't we just have a gender neutral uniform? Trousers, jumper, shirt, maybe tie
My daughter literally NEVER wears skirts outside of school but obviously ALL the girls wear skirts to school even though trousers are permitted.

A. It would help those struggling with what they identify as wouldn't need to make any massive statements via uniform.

B. The cost of girls uniform (usually) is ridiculous and much higher than boys. My daughter's school has a specific skirt and specific blouse (skirt is 30.00 alone!) where whereas boys have generic grey trousers and generic white shirts.

It seems schools have bought into/ contribute to/ emphasise this very distinct boys/ girls gendered clothing. I hate it!

I appreciate the concerns about uniforms, butt I found them a great leveller.
Some children - driven by parents- strive for the best/ latest label often costing ££££ Shoes or hoodies costing a great deal of money. I think fashion and clothing is a great distraction for teenagers and can make for competition to see who has the latest and best gear.
Implimenting uniform takes away all that competition and bad feeling, at least while the children are in school time.

I appreciate the concerns about uniforms, butt I found them a great leveller.

Are you saying that kids don’t know who the rich kids are and who the poor kids are?

They know who goes skiing every winter and who has the latest backpack and smart watch! They also know who have extra curricular and who’s on free school meals!

Uniform is irrelevant.

I appreciate the concerns about uniforms, butt I found them a great leveller.
Some children - driven by parents- strive for the best/ latest label often costing ££££ Shoes or hoodies costing a great deal of money

Thing is you can no longer claim that. Wheb it costs hundreds of pounds to get your kid through the door in clothes that cant be worn anywhere else , nor can they be handed down when it gets to high school becuase of house colours and names being printed/stitched onto the outside.

There's nothing levelling abkut being financially excluded from even.being able to apply.

When you can buy a skirt in asda fir a fiver there's no excuse for the ones that cost 20 plus quid. That's not being a leveller.

And people work bloody hard fir their money this idea they cant enjoy anything or buy something nice incase the other kids are jealous is nuts. I mean I'm.happy for anyone who can afford to have nice things and I'd come down like a ton.of bricks on my lids if they picked on anyone for not having alot of money. But nor do I think its fair those who do have money are meant to send their kids in in cheap crap scruffy polyester shit just because someone else can't afford something. You don't get rich by letting yourself be ripped off by purchasing false economy items.

Surely the key is a sensible dress code and to deal with bullying

Especially when those people who can't afford expensive clothes cant afford the uniform either and as a result can afford afford less In the way of clothing than before

@JazzerMcCreary

I think skirts/dresses are fine but there shouldn’t be a ‘boys’ list and a ‘girls’ list of uniform. Just ‘these are the accepted uniform items’.

I agree

Op, your idea is not gender neutral, it’s making girls wear boys clothes. Why when anyone says gender neutral it’s trousers ? So girls yet again conforming to male ideas

Gender neutral would mean trousers or skirts and girls and boys could chose either …

I don’t think they should do away with skirts, just do away with stupid branded or highly specific school uniform that bleeds parents dry. And I think all children should be able to wear whatever type of clothes they find most comfortable.

In my ideal world we'd scrap uniform all together but that wasn't the question.

I would definitely bin ties though. Hated wearing them. Still can't tie it properly after all these years.

@JazzerMcCreary

I think skirts/dresses are fine but there shouldn’t be a ‘boys’ list and a ‘girls’ list of uniform. Just ‘these are the accepted uniform items’.

Exactly this!

@BluebellsGreenbells

I appreciate the concerns about uniforms, butt I found them a great leveller.

Are you saying that kids don’t know who the rich kids are and who the poor kids are?

They know who goes skiing every winter and who has the latest backpack and smart watch! They also know who have extra curricular and who’s on free school meals!

Uniform is irrelevant.

Absolutely this. There was a uniform at my school but there was also a huge wealth gap between students as our school had merged with a school in a much poorer area. So we had the kids who's parents were doctors and lawyers and who posted hundreds of photos of their foreign holidays on Facebook and drove Minis to school when they hit 17, and the others whose parents struggled to make ends meet and could barely afford lunch. The uniform didn't prevent us knowing who was rich and who wasn't.

So you're idea to end gendered uniform is to reduce the girls' choices. Why not just say that any pupil can wear either a skirt or trousers or shorts?

I rarely wear trousers. I'm not very tall and it's difficult to get trousers that fit me well. I can't just buy standard trousers and there isn't always the option for petite, which would mean me having to pay to have them shortened. For a number of leg styles this then makes the trousers not hang properly and they look quite wrong. This was/has been the same since my teenage years.

So your removal of skirts would end up costing someone like me more money and restricting my choices to wear something I find more comfortable.

@maddening

I agree, trousers for everyone would sort a lot of issues imo (and I am someone who no longer wears trousers)

But cause more issues for others.

We need to stop with the nonsense about confusing kids about sexuality and gender and get them back to being kids again.

Let boys be boys and girls be girls.

At my DC's school, the uniform (incl Blazers) is the same for boys and girls (no skirts). They can wear any style of black trouser providing it's not 'skinny'. The girls still manage to look feminine.

@Walkingalot

At my DC's school, the uniform (incl Blazers) is the same for boys and girls (no skirts). They can wear any style of black trouser providing it's not 'skinny'. The girls still manage to look feminine.

But I don't wear a skirt to look feminine. I wear a skirt as I find them far more comfortable than trousers. And for someone who is short having a trouser only uniform would make buying uniform more difficult and often more expensive - fewer brands sell petite in teen ranges, often petite range is much more restricted and can be more expensive. Or you have the issue of needing to pay to have them shortened.

The cost difference is a major drip feed OP.
10 times more for your dd is scandalous
Are they at the same school ?
My teens went to the same school and the cost was similar. A pair of trousers equalled a skirt/tights and there was no difference in shirt, tie, blazer. They wore school shoes that cost similar.

@MerryMarigold

Some misunderstanding on my OP I think. This was sparked by a message sent by school.

Girls Uniform (or those identifying as female)
Boys Uniform (or those identifying as male)

It made me think about why does a child need to choose to make such a strong statement as the boys and girls uniforms are very different? The shirt is different. Girls have no tie etc.

For those of you with kids still in Primary, it is done much better there, I agree. For those of you who don't need to buy school branded differentiated uniform, that's great for you.

Not suggesting it so my daughter can wear trousers! She's perfectly happy in her very girly, very differentiated uniform. It's me that has the issue with it being so differentiated. The point about the trousers was that many/ most 11+ girls will wear trousers/ leggings outside school but not to school because 'everyone else wears skirts'. To me trousers are gender neutral, not boys clothing, but each to their own.

And yes, ideally there would be no uniform at all let alone such strict rules (no knee socks at my daughter's Secondary school. This is a comp in quite a deprived area!).

I like the New Zealand gender neutral uniform ideas. I think that's what I was getting at. Why does it need to be so segregated?

See with this my issues still remains that the uniform is very different but is for

Boys (or those who identify as male) or
Girls (or those who identify as female)

Why can it's be girl - who prefers trousers shirt and tie but still identifies as female?

We are to totally confusing children but reinforcing gender stereotypes or needing to label themselves as a gender or as identifying as a gender due to their personal clothing preferences.

Me and my son actually had a giggle one day this summer after looking at some photos of a day out.

He loves purple and we spent ages finding a suitable purple t shirt for him (he's autistic and very specific). It's a polo t shirt from Tesco. They also had pink ones and I love pink and being tall prefer male t shirts as they fit better.

Without even noticing we both went out wearing black chino shirts and each in our polos. I then had on a pullover pink fleece and ds had his green one on that's slightly different style but they are both very similar.

And I'm pretty girly in many ways and he's a very masculine and a performance athlete.

But it did open a fantastic conversation about how clothing actually doesn't define gender at all and how gender or gender identification shouldn't define clothing.

I do think it should be gender neutral.

One shirt colour/style
One tie
One blazer
One jumper
Range of bottom-half options in same colour

That’s all. Differentiating what the boys and girls can choose is mad.

@Angel2702

I wouldn’t want to get rid of skirts but certainly the gendered PE kits, why do the girls need a different Polo shirt and shorts for PE?

Girls and boys have totally different body shapes. Generic PE kit would mean the boys' was adopted and the girls would have to wear clothes that didn't fit properly.

@SirenSays

I get rid of all uniforms if it were up to me.

Me too. I'm a teacher and I feel petty policing uniform tbh. Feels like a waste of my time and a stupid battle to have. Trivial compared to more pressing matters.

100% yes. This is the school uniform list...jumper/shirt/skirt/trousers/dress/shorts, etc, and you can wherever you like from it. My little girl starts school on Monday and she'll be wearing trousers as she hates skirts. I wouldn't be very happy if she "had" to wear a skirt or dress.

YABU! because gender neutral is not when traditional feminine clothes are replaced with traditional male items.

DDs school has removed the gender specified uniform policy and all children can now choose from skirt or trousers. Some of the boys think it's hilarious to rock up to school in a skirt but teachers can't put a stop to the joke because of the policy- just hope the novelty soon wears off!

Our uniform just says a list of the possible options, it doesn't say "girls" and "boys" just blue jumper, grey trousers, grey skirt, white shirt. So you can choose. I'm putting my daughter in trousers because its far more practical for a 4YO

See with this my issues still remains that the uniform is very different but is for

Boys (or those who identify as male) or
Girls (or those who identify as female)

Why can it's be girl - who prefers trousers shirt and tie but still identifies as female?

Thats awful. If my daughter wants to wear trousers it doesn't make her transgender!

The same with shirts and ties, we have a co-ed school in our area where girls have to wear a tie. Some of them are "blessed" with a larger bust and it just looks absolutely awful. Having G-cup breast myself I wouldn't be seen dead in anything up to the neck.

I was just going to post something similar. The 'male' item I would get rid of is ties. As you say very few adult women wear ties - unless it's part of a uniform like the Police or Military where they started as male organisations only. Increasingly adult men don't wear ties either.

This seems to be an area where secondary schools have gone backwards over the years. My DD never had to wear a tie, at any stage - now the Secondary she went to has ties for girls also. Except strangely enough, they have introduced a polo shirt option for the summer, (which is unisex and popular.)

As for sixth formers having to wear smart business wear - no, some people aspire to other things that working in an estate agents or bank.

daisypond
Coincidently this is a New Zealand school. I do agree with other posters that such sporty look probably isn't as accepted in British schools but NZ is a much more sporty nation.
Off topic but I think this is what the UK should aspire to, getting children more active.

A uniform that can be worn for both sport and academics is more cost effective.