Just read the bloody uniform policy!!!

[flingoringo]

I've just read an article about a school in Gateshead where lots of kids were sent home or out in isolation on day one of term because they were wearing the wrong shoes. The offending shoes seem to be mainly a Vivienne Westwood ballet flat (with a big silver VW emblem on the front) and a Nike walking boots. Lots of kids wearing the same, from yr7 to yr11.
Parents are up in arms, obviously. One mentions the CoL crisis so the need to scrimp and save to spend A HUNDRED QUID on the Nike shoes. One mum said her yr7 daughter won't be going back she's finding her a new school.

The school (taken over by an academy in 2019) says the policy is clear, plain black shoes with no logos. That they have done their best to help yr6 parents understand what was to be expected once on yr7.

Now I don't necessarily agree with schools being overly strict with uniform policy. But I do accept that I have to agree to follow the rules at the schools that I chose to send my kids to and if we chose not to then of course they'll be consequences.

AIBU to think it's it's completely ridiculous that this happens every bloody year?!

I completely agree

It's a reliving of their rebellious years that they're craving. Their school days are long gone and this is the parents way of "fighting the man".

There are also countless ones on EBay and Vinted that are gently used that you can get for under £15. I’ve gotten some pairs for my children for £5-£7 pounds and sometimes two pairs for that much.

I really hope that is a typo for something completely innocuous

My favourite part of that story was DM saying she wouldn’t buy a new pair of shoes and would be sending her DD to a different school.

Because buying an entire new uniform instead makes economic sense 🤣

The labelled and designer ' school' shoes , the hybrid trainer shoes, are all chavvy in my honest opinion.

The DC’s school has a very strict uniform policy and it is enforced. Smart black school shoes, blazer on at all times unless a classroom is exceptionally warm, top button done up, shirt tucked in.

DC who don’t comply are rightly sent home.

Which IMO, is all ridiculous. Sorry.

The DC’s school has a very strict uniform policy and it is enforced. Smart black school shoes, blazer on at all times unless a classroom is exceptionally warm, top button done up, shirt tucked in.

Because that prepares them for ... what, exactly?

Life in the Navy, circa 1805?

Next year get the Nike courts from Deichmans. Other than the little silver plate they look identical and they’re under half the price.

Half my son’s school seem to have them

Seriously, solicitor's letter pointing out the appalling sexist double standard there and requesting that the policy be revised by a certain date or you will be taking further legal action. Even though it wasn't your DD sent home, the worry that she might be next causes her stress and distracts her from her learning.

why though? for whose benefit? not the childrens'

@Sueveneers

Thankfully much of civilised society doesn't have the low standards Canada and particularly America has. To me it's just more proof how tacky, trashy and low standards America is. It's nothing to boast about. It's something to be ashamed about.

Let me get this straight - there are no teens in the UK who are currently sporting any piercings, tattoos, or coloured hair?

And no doubt you disapprove of all the members of the royal family who sport tattoos and various piercings?

People's offspring will learn to cope with authority fine by means of enforcing sensible rules around being in the right lessons at the right time, behaving during lessons, being polite, etc etc. There is no need to force them to keep to pointless rules.

Uniform clearly doesn't correlate with good results. St Paul's Girls' School manages to get absolutely outstanding results despite having no uniform.

I wear an orthotic in one shoe and I struggle to get shoes that fasten over it.

Whaddayaknow, not everyone with orthotics has the same shaped feet.

@Livinginanotherworld

If everyone stuck to the uniform list properly there would be no bullying and showing off with clothes and shoes, they’d all be wearing the same.

I think if you spent time in a country where uniforms are not worn you'd realise your mistake there. The fact is, wearing mufti all day every day of your school life completely nullifies the importance of brands and styles. Showing off with clothes and shoes just doesn't happen.

What required uniforms do is heighten the importance of standing out in tiny details, and magnify the idea of non-school clothing as forbidden fruit, desirable, exciting, and special, and therefore worth paying attention to and putting effort and expense into.

And FYI, bullies bully because the bullies have problems, not because their victims have cheap shoes.

It’s not really difficult is it ? God help all these little darlings in the real world of work ?

Again, a surprise is in order - young people all over the US and Canada and continental Europe who have lived their entire lives in mufti manage to turn up at work in whatever clothes are appropriate for their workplaces.

You can buy the metal swoosh plates on Etsy for a couple of pound. I know because chavvy little middle-aged me bought some sparkly ones to replace the boring plain ones on her own AF1s 😄

Uncomfortable clothing and being too hot are not conducive to learning.

I struggle to understand the problem with that. People in your village have signalled that most of them don't agree with these restrictions. Why should they have to? They are validly expressing an opinion and the school would do well to pay attention. If no-one could ever dissent from what goes on in the local school, we would still have corporal punishment and would be teaching creationism.

Surely it's entirely helpful for teenagers to learn that it's OK to question rules and dissent? Any good school will be teaching them about people like Galileo, Luther, the Pankhursts, Mandela, and I would certainly hope that they will not be teaching them that they were all irresponsible dissenters and rule-breakers.

Saw on FB today a few schools not even allowing kids to take their blazers off today, absolutely ridiculous, it was high 20s today.

Wow, the whole of America is tacky, trashy and has low standards? How do they manage to turn out all those Nobel Prize winners, all those great writers, artists and musicians, all those inventors?

No-one with any claim to basic standards of logical thinking could come up with such ludicrous generalisations.

Totally agree but many parents seem to want to go against schools rules as much as the children and then you see more and more children who feel they are entitled to do whatever they want.
Edit - I forgot to quote!

Whenever one of these threads comes up, people produce these arguments about needing uniform rules so people can cope in the workplace. And every time, someone asks them how come people in other countries where schools don't have uniform seem to have absolutely no problem in coping with work. And they never, ever answer.

Go on, @GraysPapaya, indulge us and provide an answer.

"Uniform is there for a reason".

What reason would that be? Why doesn't it apply in the majority of schools around the world?

School is the place to learn you need to wear what you’re told. It helps make everyone equal, and is a good foundation for broader discipline.

Kool Aid...

How do Americans and Canadians in their millions learn to wear appropriate clothing?

How do American and Canadian schools cope?

What could schools in those countries possibly use as an alternative to magical clothing as a foundation for discipline?
Answer:

1 - The consent of the governed.
2 - Fairness in enforcement.
3 - Practicality and reasonableness of the rules around clothing.
Radical, I know...