To think that if the school uniform states black shoes the kids should be wearing black shoes?

[Annabella92]

I probably am being unreasonable. I'm just frustrated by a daily battle I have with my child. The school dress code is black shoes with black or white socks. Every quarter the newsletter reiterates this and seeks to remind parents. So I make sure my child has black shoes, two pairs actually, one waterproof more expensive pair as they sometimes have to go through long wet grass to get to school. And every morning is a battle to get them to wear black shoes with black or white socks (which I bought plenty of too). They say everyone just wears their normal coloured trainers and whatever socks and when I go to school pickup, they're not wrong. So it seems this is voluntary in practice and next year i can save £100 on shoes and socks and not have to deal with the drama every morning. I'm.a natural rule follower but feel like an idiot

TLDR: if something is part of school dress code it should be enforced, or just dropped altogether?

It's true that they do- but lets also remember that 83% of secondary schools in the UK wear a blazer. This doesn't mean that 83% of schools are aspirational or even any good. I've taught in a private grammar and I believe that those students would perform the same way in 'tracksuit and polos'. We had great funding, lots of parental support and the students actually believed in the importance of education.
Yes the top schools wear a fancy uniform, but correlation isn't causation!

Most countries ahead of is educationally and in terms of teenage wellbeing do not have a uniform. We are weirdly put of step with the rest of the world on this.

I think it's to do with the class system. There's still a pervasive assumption that posh people are somehow better than others, and therefore that acting like them means we will become better ourselves. Obviously we can't all send our kids to Eton but if we dress them in formal clothes for school that means they look like posh people and will be better behaved and more clever.

I had never thought of that, Ursula. I had a uniform, my son always had a uniform and that idea had never crossed my mind. However thinking of the odd thing that others have said occasionally, there might well be something in it. In which case it's awful!

Its the inconsistency and mixed messaging that would annoy me. You follow the written rules in good faith, little knowing that there's actually another set of informal rules, that the footwear thing isn't actually a rule. And a lot of DC mums know this and their DC are following the 'real' rules of wearing their cool trainers. So your DC feel uncool in their sensible black goody two shoes. So you decide to send them in trainers. And...surprise! The one teacher who thinks the rule applies gives them detention and you get a letter home.