Schools insistence on uniform rules are behind the times

[spanieleyes22]

I know I will be slated for saying this but just reading a thread from a poster who is disappointed that there is not a more formal dress code at work and so many people saying everyone is more casual in offices all over the place and suits are more worn by older people in the city. Yet schools seem to put so much faith in whether a boy keeps his shirt tucked in or how short a girls skirt is. God forbid they dye their hair or have more than 1 stud earring. Isn't it time for schools to loosen up wrt dress code? In the Scandinavian countries there is no uniform. Does this mean their teenagers are wild and don't learn anything. Why are we so hung up on not allowing teenagers to express themselves.

Much easier to have a uniform and stops kids, wearing inappropriate clothes to school and avoids comments like "oh my god you wore that two days ago. Don't you have any different clothes?"
Virtually every job I've had has involved uniform of some sort. All the adults I worked with seemed to cope with uniform so I'm sure kids can manage it too.

I don't think so.

DD was at a non-uniform primary that acquired uniform after she had been there for a bit. Then she went to a non-uniform secondary. The only time she's been fussed about wearing the 'right' clothes was on mufti days while she had a uniform. Uniforms tell people that what they are wearing matters. Non-uniform doesn't.

Did you have to buy your uniform for work though? Shell out £500 for it before you started?

That's the difference if you didn't have to pay for it. It also isn't practical in a school setting most of the time. Kids sweltering in blazers etc..... I'm sure if yoy get hot you don't have to wait for your boss to come around and say you can take off your jacket/cardigan etc.....

But kids need different outfits every day of the 13 weeks of school holidays so they have those clothes anyway.

I dont think parents overwhelmingly choose schools with uniform. In a 20 mile radius of us (barring SEN schools) there is not a single school that doesn't have uniform so parents are not given the choice! I would love to open a non uniform school and see how it goes. I think it would surprise a lot of academies.

There is a non uniform secondary in our town. Judging by the photos, it does seem to be just jeans, sports leggings, t shirts, hoodies sort of thing. They use it as a selling point...

It is however part of their wider alternative curriculum (which Unfortunately doesn't appear to be working.... and felt a bit cult-luke)

I wonder what research has been done on this internationally. Are children in schools without uniforms in other countries systematically bullied for ‘wearing that same thing 2 days ago’ or do parents in general dread arguments each morning with an, ‘you’re not wearing that!’ conversation each morning. What are the school rules like about what they can/can’t wear?

I went to quite an old fashioned girls’ grammar in the 80s and whilst there was a uniform, it’s not strictly enforced in the same way my own DC is. There was a colour that you had to wear, and a blazer, jumper, school skirt and tie-but you didn’t actually have to wear many ‘specific’ ones. The blazer and jumper weren’t compulsory, and you just had to wear the tie in the winter and could wear an open necked blouse in the summer. As long as the skirt was the right colour and sort of length, it was ok, and you couldn’t wear boots. It all seemed fairly sensible, but maybe that allowed too much boundary pushing from some which is why they tightened it up?!

In the sixth form, we could wear our own clothes which I loved. It felt far more like college and the novelty about ‘what are you going to wear tomorrow’ wore off after about the first week and everyone just wore jeans!

My kids went to the same school as me years later and they have become draconian about their rules-particular clothes only from set shops, uniform in the sixth form, not leaving the site in the sixth form when you don’t have a lesson for the rest of the day etc. it seems unnecessarily strict to me.

I've supported many families who have found the cost of uniform absolutely crippling. And I've been horrified by the cost of it in relation to the quality: cheap and nasty acrylic jumpers for a price I could buy a pure lambswool one in M&S, but you have to buy the one with an embroidered logo from the only "approved" supplier.

I worked with a family who were in temporary accommodation because they were homeless. They had to move 3 times in 4 years, each move involved a change of schools and the poor woman had to replace all the uniform for 3 children. It cost her an absolute fortune. The day her teenage son came home from school with the sole hanging off his school shoes, she broke down and cried. I took her to a charity shop to get a second hand pair.

Why can’t schools offer to just buy the badge for those parents (or other relatives living nearby) to sew on a sweatshirt? Then you can buy a standard sweatshirt (doesn’t matter if a small logo is where the school badge sits). Probably saves you about £15 a top.

@Sashikocheck yes primary but also very aware of what the local secondary school kids wear. A black hoodie and black leggings. What you're describing re needing leotards and all the branded sports equipment bears no resemblance to the secondary schools around here. I'm in Scotland though. What you're describing would be what private school children need up here.

I like uniform, but don't see why they can't stick with the dark trousers, polo & school coloured jumper, like they have at primary.

I agree with this - because when I was at school in Sheffield in the early 80s when David Blunkett’s authority abolished compulsory school uniform it very quickly became a fashion parade and kids who didn’t have the latest trainers had a hard time.

What I don’t accept is that uniform leads to higher educational attainment- utter nonsense. I lived in Austria in the 80s - no school uniform but significantly better pupil behaviour and higher educational standards.

Have you seen how teenagers dress these days? A uniform creates a level playing field.

I live about 300m away from the local college. In September it is a fashion parade.
By October they dress like normal humans. Then in the summer... a few days of ridiculously short shorts and strappy crop tops... then they come to their senses.

There is a balance though isn’t there. I quite like the concept of uniform but I think blazers are stupid - totally impractical and expensive.

I think it is interesting though that half the time I see the older girls at the private schools locally, they’re in a tracksuit or the pe kit. I actually very rarely see them in the proper uniform.

The thing with insisting on the children being super smart is that the schools themselves often don’t uphold their end of the deal. I remember being given a hard time for wearing pink socks (they introduced a white socks only policy in September after all the school stuff had been bought).

At least a third of my lessons were in shabby huts (freezing in winter, boiling in summer, a nuisance to get to on time). When our exercise books ran out, we’d be given sheets of paper because they’d run out of new exercise books. Assemblies were awful because there wasn’t enough space for everyone to sit cross legged on the floor. There weren’t enough rounders bats and some were broken. The toilets were disgusting.

Quite a few of these things were down to budget issues but kicking off at someone for wearing black shoes with yellow stitching when you expect them to learn in shabby conditions is weird. One friend with very large feet had to carry a note from her mum because the Doc Martins shoes really were the only school shoes she could get in her size.

I remember reading a book by the old High Mistress of St Paul’s School for Girls (a really terrifyingly high achieving independent school with no uniform). She said that, provided it wasn’t offensive and didn’t stop them learning, she couldn’t care less what they wore. There would be the odd outlier (one girl dressed like a panda) but nearly all the girls wore jeans and a hoody.

I had a rotten time at school, not school uniform related (I toed the line there) but the allied topic of personal appearance.
Schools with a strict uniform policy often try to also dictate other aspects of your appearance like hair style/colour jewellery tattoos etc.
This is over reach because they are trying to dictate how you look in your own time away from school.
Appearance should be a matter between the child and his/her parents, not the school.
In my view, schools should be trying to prepare kids for adult life, not press unreasonable rules upon them.
Although I did not get into trouble over uniform issues, at the I thought the head and staff were hypocrites, if they love uniforms so much, why don’t they wear one?

I think the argument for school uniform being a leveller for kids who can't afford nice clothes is hampered by the fact that it's often so expensive.

Maybe without having to buy uniform that would be social suicide to wear on the weekend, the kids could afford slightly nicer clothes and shoes that they could wear to school and on the weekend?

I'm a supporter of uniforms at school. Non-uniform days were a source of massive stress when I was at school because the bullies used to target the children who didn't wear the "right" clothing. i.e. designer names.

There are plenty of opportunities for children to "express their personalities" outside of school. In school, everyone should be equal.

At DT’s non uniform school, no one was interested in what you wore - no bullying. Seems to be an issue in uniform schools when non uniform days are treated as a fashion parade - fault of the schools for not managing it properly.

I work in a secondary school. We spend a ridiculous amount of time enforcing the uniform policy. This said, the alternative would be far worse as has been witnessed on non uniform days. The boys emulate the “road man” look which is not appropriate for a learning environment. The girls wear skin tight leggings or all in ones with crop tops - also not appropriate for a learning environment. We would spend more time enforcing appropriate dress than if it was a uniform.

Amazing that children at non uniform schools in the Uk and around the world can manage to dress appropriately and not waste time with bullying and teachers having to enforce a uniform policy.

Our school only allows logo jumpers and pe shirts which are only available from one specific independent tailors in town at almost £20 each. It's not a leveller, it's a massive pain in the arse when you cant afford it. Logos on uniform should be banned.

The secondary uniform is only available from the same shop so god only knows that we are going to do when we have two of them in secondary with the added skirts, ties, blazers etc.

But it isn't a problem in FE colleges and VI forms that don't have uniforms.