to think suits are inappropriate for sixth formers?

[allsfairin]

I have had children go to several different sixth forms, some require suits and ties for boys / matching tailored skirt and jacket for girls. Some have a much more relaxed dress code.

My niece is now attending a sixth form which requires her to wear the matching tailored jacket and skirt, and she bought quite an expensive one, but the skirt is deemed too short and she needs to buy another. These items of clothing cost a lot especially for girls, and she has to wear the same one every day, as she can't really afford two.

My son attended this school more than 10 years ago, and I was happy enough for him to conform to the suit rules then, particularly as boys can quite often pick up suits in second hand shops, so nothing like the expense. It was, and is, a great school, he did very well, and has gone on to a great career.

However, he has never worn a suit since the day he left school, and nor have my other children. It did seem a bit old fashioned ten years ago, but these days, suits seem to me to quite often be a long way from acceptable business wear, and in fact to denote low status in the work place, whereas successful individuals generally wear smart/casual, or even casual/casual.

Looking at my own adult children and their friends, I know successful young people in music, science, finance, event management, energy, engineering - not one ever wears a suit, or even owns one, I know that by the frantic whats apps about 9pm on the evening before an interview recently when a friend of a friend suddenly wondered if he should be attending his interview in a suit and was messaging everyone he knew to see if he could borrow one, and the answer was no, no one possessed one

So IABU to think the insistence on suits in sixth form is outdated and obsolete, and these days denotes low, rather than high status? I think quite a lot of teachers still wear them, and maybe politicians, but these seem to be the only areas of life where they are still quite common

You obviously don’t know how costumes are adapted for roles that require extreme physicality or dance.

I actually think girls suits are much cheaper than men’s and always felt I had the better deal over hubby! I was always suited for the office but dress codes are now business casual in the city and therefore sixth form should follow suit…..am sure they will get there but just a few years behind!

again...how many of the actors in suits were demonstrating 'extreme physicality or dancing?.'

As someone who took drama (albeit only until AS level) the majority of the time we weren't demonstrating extreme physicality or dancing! And if we did we changed into something else because normal clothes were also not suitable for those things.

As someone who has worn both, your average suit has a lot more freedom of movement than a pair of skinny jeans, a vest top you're worried your boobs might fall out of, flipflops, or whatever students might wear if there wasn't any uniform.

As above I DON'T support suits for sixth formers but the suggestion they are some sort of straight jacket that it's impossible to move in rather than almost exactly the same outfit (in terms of restriction) most pupils already wear from year 7-11, where they also studied drama, art and music is bizarre. If they could study those subjects perfectly well in a shirt, trousers and blazer/jumper until they were 16 why on earth would they turn 17 and suddenly be unable to do so in a shirt, trousers, and jacket?

@Fizbosshoes my GP often has joggers and trainers on in surgery. He really knows his stuff and got to the bottom of some concerning health issues that I was having.

Complete nonsense. No need for it at all.

I have a Big Job and haven’t worn a suit or needed to for about 5 years. Jacket yes, but matching suit with smart shoes and everything? Honestly it’s been years.

Absolutely, suits, ties etc are now almost obsolete in the normal working environment so why insist for sixth form?

All part of the British obsession with school uniforms. The majority of the world doesn’t have a school uniform and manages to educate its students.

Focusing on uniform and suits is low hanging fruit and distracts from all the hard stuff schools struggle to deal with. Parents stupidly are seduced by the “prepping them for work life” nonsense with no thought to the culture within the school that prevents kids from learning responsibility and independence due to a culture of spoon feeding and treating pupils like small children to ensure the school retains and improves its position on the league tables. The league tables need to go! We need to start helping kids to grow up and take responsibility for their actions and newsflash using suits for this purpose does not work!

Parents stupidly are seduced by the “prepping them for work life” nonsense

I don't think it's parents who want stupid uniform rules at all. I think it's more a matter of schools/teachers wanting to retain some kind of perverse power over their pupils. After all, most parents will be working in places where they don't need to wear suits/ties etc, so they know that it's no longer "normal" work attire!

There most definitely are parents who very much buy into the ‘dressing like a young conservative is indicative of a better school’ nonsense.

School uniform threads on MN always feature many people who very clearly believe that putting on a polyester blazer and tie directly results in better behaviour and stronger results. And who have absolutely no intention of examining the truth of that belief.

For school leadership, it very much is the highly visible low hanging fruit type
of intervention. Come in and announce change with a hideous new blazer and daily sock inspection policy. Because it’s easy to measure compliance with stupid rules about uniform and you can very easily kid yourself that is the same as measuring the ‘quality’ of education.

There most definitely are parents who very much buy into the ‘dressing like a young conservative is indicative of a better school’ nonsense.

School uniform threads on MN always feature many people who very clearly believe that putting on a polyester blazer and tie directly results in better behaviour and stronger results. And who have absolutely no intention of examining the truth of that belief
I agree with you on the first point. There is a bit of aspirational dress like Jacob Rees Mogg is a great thing. It's odd.

There's also a bit of nuance in the second position though.
For example I can take or leave uniform as a concept, hate single supplier uniforms and poor quality garments, but I also know from working in schools with a lot of issues that having a clear and set uniform standard has made a difference. It's not because a blazer improves behaviour, but because the school leaders are battling a community culture and home culture that doesn't value education, doesn't like rules, where parents regularly shrug their shoulders and say "what can you do" to any issue regarding their child's behaviour. I don't envy my colleagues trying to turn those schools around because there's very different short and long term goals. I have every sympathy for schools who start with a very simple uniform, and because the culture at home is to pick a fight on everything and "my DC doesn't have to follow rules they don't like" the school ends up tightening up.

For school leadership, it very much is the highly visible low hanging fruit type
of intervention. Come in and announce change with a hideous new blazer and daily sock inspection policy. Because it’s easy to measure compliance with stupid rules about uniform and you can very easily kid yourself that is the same as measuring the ‘quality’ of education.

My school has a big “uniform focus” every so often and every time it feels like SLT trying to look like they’re doing something useful: they said something about well-being last week, did an assembly about bullying the week before, must be time for a crackdown on uniform. It just means us lesser teachers waste a lot of time (and create a lot of resentment) telling them to take their earrings out or wear a different-coloured hairband…

ZebraDanios
That would annoy me too. At least the leadership who made the changes at my school walked the walk and took the grunt work on. I didn't always agree with their decisions but they definitely wanted to make the school a calm and settled place.

Nope, I’m so glad this nonsense didn’t exist when I was at sixth form attached to my school 16 years ago! It’s absolute nonsense. I have never once worn a suit in my life, nor do I want to! They introduced it at said school after I left and as far as I know still do it and it’s absolutely stupid!

Why do you conform?! If I was a teacher and it wasn’t completely inappropriate, I’d let the kids be! So many megalomaniacs running schools these days!

100% agree, but then I feel the same way about school uniform.
I hope my kids aim higher than a uniform and I don't know anybody who still wears a suit to work.

But what's inappropriate and who decides this?
If it's safe and comfortable that's as far as it should go, and if somebody's son wants to assault my daughter because she's wearing a vest top of crop top then he very much needs a reeducation.

When girls wear skirts/ dresses so short you can see their vaginas... who said anything about assault? What about the children who have a right not to be exposed to this or for cultural reasons feel uncomfortable. If there is no uniform or on smart casual people dress like they are going to a nightclub.

Having put two DC through a non uniform 6th form, I can honestly say that no, they don't. The normal mode of dress at our local 6th form was (and still is, friends' teens go there) jeans, hoodies/T-shirts, the odd mad Goth outfit from that particular group, shorts in summer. Skirts sometimes short in winter but worn with very thick tights, not so short in summer.

As for seeing vaginas - really, not anatomically possible even if they weren't wearing underwear. And we absolutely should not pander to the 'cultural modest dress for women' brigade - that way lies madness.

Talking of assault, I believe the statistics say that one in three secondary-school age girls have been sexually harassed while wearing school uniform. One in eight reported experiencing this before they were 12.

DT’s went to a non uniform school from age 4-18z. They dressed in jeans, hoodies and trainers or in warmer weather, T-shirt and shorts. Nothing inappropriate. No one was interested in what you wore - it’s was just normal clothes. Same as they wore after school, at weekends and holidays.

Do you folks not wear uniforms? When I was doing A-levels (at the same school where I did GCSEs) everyone in the school wore the uniform.

@rmcc1983 lots of different schools, lots of different policies. Our local (very good) 6th form does not have a uniform on the grounds that wearing their own clothes prepares them for real life.