Do you agree with school or the parents?

[Watermelon44]

Our high school has made the news because of a uniform dispute between (some) parents and the head who is recently in post.

The gist of it is that the school brought in a new rule in April that they were no longer allowing black leather trainers (eg superstars or nike air force) and instead the kids should be in smart plain black leather office shoes.

This appears to have caused ww3 with some parents, who despite having many months notice, still sent their kids in the banned trainers (100+ children apparently). The school has stuck to its guns and has isolated and then suspended those in the wrong shoes if they refused to comply.

The school has also banned girls from wearing socks, and have enforced a thick tights ruling, although socks are allowed in the summer term and if allowed by the head in any warm spells (eg the past 3 days).

Personally I think the tights ruling is worse and I have mixed views on the trainers rule.

I am interested in the real reasons behind these strict uniform rules as I feel if the real reasons were shared with parents they may be more on board with them, rather than the usual rubbish about dressing professionally eg like in an office, when my dp works in a head office in London and goes in jeans and trainers!

As this seems to have whipped up a storm locally, I am interested in other people’s views on this topic as some of the parents round here seem to have gone totally bats*it over it!!

I think some offices (I know mine does) allows no tights with skirt during hot weather. Officially the uniform policy is to wear tights but it isn't enforced strictly. I'm sure if we were at risk of flashing our pants they would be stricter though! They could perhaps say skirts must be at least knee length rather than insist on tights.
I'm also allowed to wear trousers to work so I hope the school allows this!

The shoes I agree with, lots of people can't wear trainers for work.
Also interesting that people here are saying work dress codes are very relaxed etc, well yes if you work in an office job. Not if you work in a warehouse/factory/shop/production line, try being a prison or police officer and saying you don't want to wear your uniform... FWIW I'm not allowed to wear anything with shoulder straps at work, no skirts above the knee, nothing even a little low cut, nothing bodycon tight etc. I work with sex offenders. There are plenty of jobs with dress codes.

The tights thing is just about skirt length, schools are damned if they measure skirt length, and damned if they say fine wear what you like but we don't want to see your knickers so wear tights. Tuesday last week, I was walking behind some children from my local school one of the girls wearing a very short skirt dropped something and bent to pick it up, I got an eyeful of thong and arse. She couldn't have been more than 14 max. I don't want to see that.

@CecilyP not ridiculous, parents have had especially since the 1980’s a choice. Planning for a child’s education is hardly a shock. And yes parents even have the choice of home schooling if they disagree with uniform rules etc etc… It is ridiculous to suggest they don’t. It is just that some parents don’t like the choices they would have to make in order for their children to attend a school with policies they endorse. If there wasn’t a choice, why in areas like St Albans are the house prices so high around the ‘Outstanding’ schools? Parents can and do move, home school, drive for a long time to get their children into a school of their choosing. No one should be surprised once a baby arrives about the school choices in their area, there are always options. I did have the dubious ‘honour’ of dealing with or having my time wasted by parents over uniform options when they had been published, the parents knew the standard and agreed to it upon enrolment. There is always a choice, even if the choice doesn’t necessarily fit the options for your lifestyle. Every parent who has a child entering Y7 makes a choice about where that happens. And like schools, jobs can be changed …

Can't the girls just wear trousers in winter?

I think uniforms are a good idea but that comfort should be priority. For me uniform is there to make everyone equal so what they wear every day isn't a distraction from their studies and school doesn't become a fashion parade. I don't agree with making them look like little officer workers though and being draconian about what they wear ie wearing shorts and blazers when it's hot or uniforms that aren't warm enough in winter. I had the most uncomfortable school uniform and was often cold in winter, I am really affected by cold and remember finding it as distraction from my work. Also hideous light coloured summer dresses that I remember bleeding through so all could see what I started my period. Why not design uniform for a comfort first?

I think the relaxation in formal office clothing wiil lead to a relaxation in strict school uniform rules which I think would be a very good thing

This is absurd. If you work full time and need to pay the mortgage and buy food you do not have a 'choice' to home educate. Not all parents have enough education themselves to home educate a child through secondary. And not all think home education is a good thing for a child. So in practice most of us do have to suck up stupid uniform rules whether we like it or not. If you mean choice as 'you could do it if you blew your life apart to accommodate it', fine, but that's just pointless semantics. Back in the real world, it's not a choice if you have no realistic or sane alternative options.

@SpanielsMatter Your whole post reeks with such insane entitlement its a joke.

The last people in the country wearing suits and ties on a daily basis will be schoolchildren.

The school is wrong in the OP's case and if it takes being shouted down by irate parents to change a ill-thought (and sexist) policy, then so be it.

The vast majority of UK workers do not wear suits and ties and 'office shoes'. (And why are we making schoolchildren dress like office workers in the first place, as though office work is the only desirable goal?)

The best shoes for children at school are trainers - comfortable, supportive and good for active lives - and specifying that they must be all-black and perhaps unbranded is a perfectly reasonable way to stop children competing for most-expensive-trainers. Office workers are not wearing 'office-shoes'.

Uniform should be affordable, comfortable and practical and should involve only rare and necessary rules changes.

The short skirt issue is largely sexist, but having simple rules that apply to all bodies of both sexes is sensible. No visible underwear at any time, bodies covered from knees to neck, etc.

All schools should have warm weather options allowed in Autumn 1 and both Summer terms. School shorts, polo shirts, skirts.

It's not difficult and does not require constant tweaking and changing. Just sensible policies consistently enforced.

@SpanielsMatter I am concerned that you said you are ex slt but don’t know admissions law. Read section 86 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. You are allowed to state “preferences”. That you have bought into lax journalism and loose terms about admissions is regrettable.

@SpareHeirOverThere Most schools achieve this. I would say that for growing feet, shoes that support the feet well are preferable. Trainers don’t always do that but there are so many options now for decent shoes, they don’t need to be lace up Oxfords.

I really don’t see why schools can say grey socks. It’s so simple to get grey socks! White shirts!!! What’s so hard about white cotton shirts? Coloured pullover with a logo. No tie. Or optional. Blazers? Unnecessary. Local comp isn’t Harrow. Make it easy to enforce and clear to parents. I’m not sure where all these complaining Dc came from? We just got on with it. Didn’t always like uniform but we had boaters and berets in winter. State grammar. Special raincoats trimmed with school colours. Huge expense for ordinary parents. Why have Dc become so much in control over what they wear to school? I am so glad my DDs just wore what they had to. As in fact DD1 does at work.

Times change

And not always for the better.

No one should be surprised once a baby arrives about the school choices in their area, there are always options.

Things can change an awful lot between the birth of a child and secondary school. In the part of west London where I grew up, most of the secondary schools no longer exist; taken over be academy chains with different names and different ethos. Lists of rules as long as a book. All past history erased.

Though you could say I moved to avoid all this having moved to Scotland. Though schools were not the reason I definitely avoided a lot of hassle by having done so!

try being a prison or police officer and saying you don't want to wear your uniform..

Those are literally uniformed services along with the armed forces. It’s something people choose to join!

FWIW I'm not allowed to wear anything with shoulder straps at work, no skirts above the knee, nothing even a little low cut, nothing bodycon tight etc. I work with sex offenders. There are plenty of jobs with dress codes.

Would you really choose to wear any of those things? Especially given your client base. There is still a huge amount of choice in what you are allowed. I don’t wear any of those either though I have a free rein.

It doesn’t seem to have happened that way.As office clothes have become more casual, school uniforms in many areas have become stricter and more prescriptive,

Strange isn’t it.
It’s a clamping down in control over kids as schools are becoming a bit irrelevant in this modern age. kids (particularly at secondary schools) are finding school increasingly outdated in this modern world we inhabit as what they’re taught can largely be googled on their phone in seconds. Essays can now be written on AI (not saying this last one is a good thing btw but it’s the reality). I think a lot of teens are jaded and bored at school theses days and so following these petty rules on blazers, shoes etc is hard for them and their parents. They become a bit meaningless.

Oh we’ve taken a turn now, comparing school uniform to working with sex offenders!

@picturethispatsy If children are bored the school is useless. Learning is not just about gathering facts or even looking them up. You have to know when to use them. Plus what is “fact”? You need critical thinking skills. Dc should have a range of opportunities to learn new things. Heads have made some schools boring places but some kids like being regimented and some parents clearly like it. It’s not a regime that produces true enquiring minds and the focus to way to narrow. In these schools, uniform is used for control purposes.

I found your post really thought provoking with you having lived experience.
I was confused though - you said t
’we got a Head who didn’t believe in it, or in fact any rules’ and then went on to describe a rule about nose piercings.

Either way, there were new rules or Head didn’t believe in them sounds unhelpful.
with the 1st, complicated rules are doomed to failure and if the 2nd moving from strict to radically nothing without whole school culture change programme is daft.

plenty of schools cope without a uniform here and worldwide . Loads of 6th forms too. So why do you think they aren’t falling apart at the seams without the social glue of a nylon skirt, and shoulder hunching blazer?

Ha love the idea of teachers modelling the uniform.

As a parent I would tell the school to get to feck. They are legally obliged to educate my child and if they don’t like the particular black trainers I sent my kid to school in that’s tough shit. The thing with the tights is even worse. Deranged.

I would send them how I see fit and if they penalised my child in any way I would have them up in judicial review immediately and I would take all practical steps to make them wish very quickly that they had never messed with my kids’ education over trivialities.

I agree. School definitely doesn’t teach critical thinking skills. Quite the opposite sadly.
And I agree it’s about control.

WTF? I'm happy to say I've never worked in an office that thought it appropriate to prescribe when people could or could not wear tights, and it's never occurred to me to ask for permission.

Do they also tell men when they are allowed to do without socks and vests?

@ZadocPDederick What’s a vest? Haven’t seen one for decades!

I think punishing a child for the shoes their parents brought them is messed up.