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?!

‘But the best sort of adjustments for equality is one that is inclusive’

talk to your school. The world isn’t going to bend around 1 child.

I admit some uniform policies are excessive but when you send your child to a school, you agree to follow the rules - including what their uniform policy says.

DT’s went to a non uniform school. Non branded jeans, trainers and hoodies were the norm. Practical affordable clothing suitable for travelling to and from school and for being comfortable during the school day.
No time wasted on policing uniform and no bullying.

Maybe the other children were slimmer, so the trousers were not so tight.

I keep reading things about how horrible mufti days are for poorer or less fashionable kids. Sounds like schools shouldn't do them if they believe in the whole 'uniforms are the great equalizer' thing.

Meh. I’d scrap school uniform altogether. Or at least make it less formal. The whole wearing a shirt and tie thing day to day is so outdated, most people don’t dress like that anymore unless they’re working in somewhere like the city for example so why are we still making kids dress like that? It should be something comfortable and practical. Some of the high schools around here are allowing kids to wear their PE kits in the day. Still branded with logos etc but far more practical and comfortable.

Also interesting to note that the schools who are really fixated on strict uniform and insist on pleated skirts and (cheap polyester) blazers are also the shittest and usually have bad inspection results. You can’t polish a turd.

It would be nice for schools to have the benefit of the doubt rather than this continual implication that they are all draconian prisons

It would be even nicer if schools stopped aping the prison system as a lazy, cheap alternative to effective practice. It would be downright lovely if schools were part of the solution to the mental health crisis in our young people, rather than piling more intimidation and punishment onto vulnerable kids and blaming them for their own trauma. But we can't have everything.

Whilst I’m personally in favour of simple uniforms without ties or blazers, part of a sensible policy is no fancy logos or inappropriate styles.

Some schools have gone too far with specifics. One here locally says lace ups but no Velcro. Imagine being that disabled child - you’d either have to ask for help every time they came undone or feel singled out if it was agreed you’d be allowed to wear Velcro.

I’d pair the whole system back to just school colours, not even school logoed items. No logos on shoes or blanked out with marker pen.

Does it matter? Most secondary schoolgirls have no intention of playing playground games anyway.

what a contemptuous view of children and their parents.

and yes, lets make the parents of the children with additional needs jump through more hoops and do more just to get access to equity. How about making sure these things are inclusive in the first place.

Approach your school headteacher and ask if there is a hardship fund to help with the cost of decent shoes. My school had such a fund and applicant's identities were kept completely confidential. Your DD only has one pair of feet and children should be in width-fitted supportive shoes that will keep feet warm and dry for school.

Exactly. Kids need rules and boundaries.

If you want children to get on in life, they need to know when it's important to conform.

There are so many other ways that schools can inspire creativity and independent thinking. People seem to focus on stupid things like the freedom to wear a particular style of trainers, while being completely unbothered by our schools' and universities' unwillingness to nurture freedom of speech and thought.

My girls wore uniforms and my son had a dress code (chinos and plain polo shirt). As a parent I loved it because we didn’t have battles over clothes every morning. However, they all wore trainers of choice on their feet. No restrictions. Also, the uniform skirts lasted for years so it wasn’t expensive overall. Any shoe rules were related to safety (no open toes, flip flops etc).

I can definitely see both sides of this. I think requiring special expensive uniforms can provide undue hardship for many families. On the other hand, a simple dress code can be cheap and helpful for parents and kids.

Here in the US, most public schools don’t have uniforms or strict dress codes.

But this poster is right. If the school is not taking account of sensory or any other disability issues then they need to be made aware that the Equality Act requires them to make reasonable adjustment. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect the school to adjust the uniform for all to make it more disability inclusive, because no two disabilities are the same. As a child I had unsightly scars from surgery on both legs and my school accommodated me wearing trousers in the uniform colours instead of skirts. I wouldn’t have expected them to change the rules so everyone wore trousers.

Really? you can be all cleavage out, belly button on show and a teeny tiny skirt?
Where do you work exactly?
You can't do what you like - it's a place of work, there are rules to follow.
I bet you can't turn your radio on loud in a shared office doing whatever you please, etc - it's about rules and preparing your children for the real world.

It may not be about dress code alone but there will be rules they need to follow in every establishment

that would hold water if anyone actually had any real say in which school their children attended....

The VW ones are not cheap about as useless but not cheap.

I dislike this argument. Children are legally required to be in school (or provided with an alternative suitable education) and most people don't have a choice where they send their children to school. Therefore, parents' agreement to school uniform policy is in most cases illusory and, in any case, it is the children (who have very little power) not the parents who the school usually punishes for uniform breaches.

Personally, I think that if we're going to have school uniform at all, we should do it properly and schools should issue kit to students, boots and all, without parents having to pay for it. Like the army does.

In the 70’s both the male pupils and teachers had long hair.
Nobody cared.
Why are haircuts such a strict part of uniform policy now?

Imo schools in the UK are all about stifling creativity and heads seem to believe that if the dc all dress the same it will somehow improve discipline.

Genuinely if you have specific recommendations for cheap shoes I’d like to hear it. I tried cheating out on school shoes once. They literally fell apart within two weeks - and my boys hate football (the usual shoe killer) and don’t scoot in school shoes (the other one). An awful lot of school shoes now are outright not fit for purpose.

We have national "This Girl Can" campaigns to try to get women and girls more active and you come out with ignorant tripe like this? Yes, girls' physical activity does matter, we have a national obesity crisis and a sexed sports gap you could drive the Titanic through.

Even with no uniform policy which we had in mainland Europe there are still some rules at times around large and bold labels on clothes etc.
Generally I found people there less materialistic than here and they don't care what you wear or drive etc

But why use pointless rules to teach that lesson? Goodness knows, they'll encounter enough disappointments and challenges during the course of an ordinary school term without adding to them.

Proponents of uniform never seem able to explain how other countries seem to manage so well without them. I suspect the fact that their school staff don't have to spend hours on policing uniform also contributes to the fact that many of those countries' schools do better academically than ours.

YABU if you're trying to suggest the school's footwear policy is justified.

Ballet flats are a terrible choice of footwear. They're flimsy and impractical, and offer little or no arch support or protection from the elements.

The Nike shoes will probably last a lot longer than anything Clarke's has for sale at an exorbitant price.

Shoes with no logos tend to be cheap in every sense.

Shoes with logos that kids will be able to wear outside of school are a sensible thing to spend money on. The alternative is to spend money on both the cheapo school shoes and also the shoes the kids will wear outside of school. Parents are in fact saving money.

As an aside, I've never in all my years both as a student and as a parent experienced schools that didn't have lockers for students, but my years in school and as the parent of students were spent in Ireland and the US. I find it truly baffling that schools do not provide lockers and students end up carrying so much kit of all kinds around with them. It is ridiculous.

Second aside - my DCs went to a uniform-wearing elementary school where the uniform rules were very reasonable (apart from a higher cost for girls' uniforms that bit me hard in the butt) and practical. They attended a non-uniform high school. Amazingly, behaviour and academic progress tended to be pretty good in both schools. Are you sure uniforms are that important in schools?

It isn’t jumping through hoops. The Equality Act was created in respect of the needs of disabled people, and among other things compels schools to make these types of adjustments for disabled children, so there should be no problem with access to equity. All the parent has to do is to make the school aware of their childs’ needs. If the school don’t know, they can’t make the adjustment.