To think asking permission to take off a blazer is utterly ridiculous?

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My child's school has just moved into a new trust. Clearly it's one of those trusts as the latest email announces how children will be placed in internal exclusion or be suspended if they dare to wear a coat in the building or take their blazer off without asking permission.

Schools consistently moan about funding, there's a teaching retention crisis, teachers are overworked and leaving in their hoards, TAs are underpaid and in short supply, children's mental health is worse than ever, but somehow there's time and money to dish out internal exclusions if child gets hot and dares takes their blazer off without asking?

Aibu to say schools should try focussing their time, attention and money on the real issues instead of nonsense made up ones?
^

Yet you're here reading said trivial thread. And no doubt the multiple other trivial threads on mumsnet.

Rules for the sake of rules. Blindly following rules. It's so stupid it beggars belief. How is it possible teach independent thought in such hypocrisy?

i can't stand hearing from a Head of Year that they've just fielded 15 phone calls from angry parents about blazers when we know we need to deal with a child scared to go home tonight because dad keeps beating the shit out of mum. It's trivial. Stop taking up our time so we can help the kids who need to be helped.

Maybe not creating an environment where pupils have to follow arbitrary and meaningless rules would give teachers more time to deal with safeguarding.

That’s a hyperbolic interpretation of what I said. 2 + 2 = 5 ?

So why do they even need to ASK to take their blazer off?

That's what I don't understand. I'm not against rules or uniform, but if someone is hot then why ask to remove a blazer?

Not once in my adult life have I had to ask a superior whether I can take off my jacket/cardigan/whatever was the outer layer of uniform.

The problem there lies in your school's response to lost uniform and complaining parents. When my kids were in school they made a big thing about ensuring every item was properly labelled, and made it very clear that if unlabelled stuff was left lying around they were not going to accept any responsibility, and they definitely weren't going to waste time looking. If parents moaned, they simply referred them back to that warning. That seems to me to be a classic example of a sensible rule, properly enforced.

If making the child continue to wear every item of uniform constantly becomes the answer to that problem, the poor things will bake to death, and they will never learn anything, let alone learn to be organised.

For those saying that uniforms make kids behave better in school, I'm in a country where uniforms don't exist and the kids in my children's classes are still somehow well-behaved.

Finland is recognised as having one of the best education systems in the world and nobody wears a uniform. In fact their more relaxed approach is known to help create a better learning atmosphere for the children.

Stupid, invasive rules alienate children and make them less likely to respect adults. Discipline is achieved not by beating kids into submission but by building a positive, mutually respectful relationship with them.

Oh, god. That's obtuse.

I think it's pretty clear that what is being argued for is sensible rules rather than stupid ones, as opposed to rules verses no rules.

The thought just occurred to me that you’re much more likely to be cold in a British school and glad of that extra layer. Why are parents so focussed on that rare 1 or 2 days in the year when it might get toasty?

Eh, yes it does.

My high school in the West of Scotland (I left in the late 90s), did and still does have these rules. (Just double checked their website to be sure it hadn't changed). Blazer (woollen or polyester with school badge) compulsory, as is shirt and tie, school jumper, and plain black formal trousers or skirt/shorts, not above knee length.

Blazer must be worn while moving around the school, and travelling to and from but can be requested to be removed once inside classrooms.

My school wasn't without some issues, but generally behaviour and discipline was to a high standard.

No uniforms in Canada (except for maybe a very rare few private schools).
Kids do fine.

They end up too anxious to attend school whilst the powers that be wonder why we have a MH crisis, they end up suspended and excluded because reasonable adjustments aren't made whilst people sit by and wonder why SEND children are disproportionately represented in exclusion figures. But people don't want to hear about that. They prefer to delude themselves that this only happens when children are violent, persistently disruptive, ruining everyone else's education, because no school would punish/suspend/exclude children just for forgetting a pen or taking off a blazer without permission. Except here we are.

I think a lot of the non teachers on this thread significantly underestimate quite how disruptive the average secondary school class room can be. Even just low level fidgeting, chatting, rustling, moving, hair being redone, phones buzzing, blazers on and off, swinging on chairs, clicking pens etc.

Any seemingly "daft" rules like this a school needs to implement, in order to enable the teacher to teach and the students to learn, should be left to the school to decide.

Of course I’m reading it. And commenting on it because it’s trivial. I read the title and thought there must be more to it. There wasn’t….

I can still say "est-ce je peux enlever ma veste", 30 years later

How are parents free to choose uniform-free schools if there are no schools in their area that are uniform-free?

I don't think anyone on here is against school rules. They are simply against rigid enforcement of stupid rules. What is wrong with that?

Yes, educational standards have undeniably declined, and the wearing of silly blazers has done nothing whatsoever to reverse that downward trend.

This is a better argument for more emphasis on educational standards and less on fripperies like blazers, than it is for the instilling of 'discipline' (how?) via the wearing of uniform.

They could start with a complete overhaul of the very tired National Curriculum, and some new research and new attitudes to the teaching of literacy and numeracy at primary level. The use of the crackpot teaching method of phonics (I've yet to hear a teacher have a good word for these) has resulted in little discernible improvement. They have a detrimental impact on dyslexic children, and as the strategic releases indicate, the same demographics are being failed by this system of learning as they were by the last.

The Rose report was based on one tiny study and an insufficient sample, yet Gove decided that the whole country's curriculum could be overhauled on the basis of one slim, flimsy study. And we are still stuck here, now.

I don't know of one educator with a good word to say about Gove, either. Central government needs to stop interfering with what it doesn't understand and stop turning education into a political football. If there had been a calculated strategy to screw up standards at every level from kindergarten to university, they couldn't have made a better job at it.

Oh well. I'll live 😂

Surely the fact that every secondary available to you not only has a uniform but has ridid enforcement of it, demonstrate that it is necessary? They aren't going to do it if it's not been established that it's worth it.

I would rather teach my child to look after his things properly than have him uncomfortably hot in school and unable to learn.

If you believe that your sons school is refusing the children from removing their blazers on hot days then your efforts are better spent speaking directly with the school about why the teachers are saying no to the requests.

Surely the fact that every secondary available to you not only has a uniform but has ridid enforcement of it, demonstrate that it is necessary? They aren't going to do it if it's not been established that it's worth it.

Oh if only...

I hate the lack of autonomy.
Kids are treated like second class citizens.
Imagine if adults were treated like this

It’s horrible being too hot or too cold. Neither is conducive to learning.

Teachers on here saying that they tell pupils at the start of the lesson that they can remove their blazers if they want - great.

But what about the teachers that don’t do that? I’ve seen teachers refuse children permission because the teacher - in their shirt-sleeves - didn’t consider that it was sufficiently hot. For all the reasonable teachers out there, unfortunately there’s also a considerable number of controlling, unreasonable teachers too. So what happens when they say no? Presumably the child just has to comply?

And also, if you have to ask permission, that’s potentially problematic for SEN children. Many neurodivergent children struggle to speak up in class. So if there’s no blanket permission then they probably won’t be able to ask and will just sit in discomfort.

And just pre-empting the responses, neurodivergent children can’t just “learn to speak up”.

(For reference - I’m autistic with autistic DC, including one who has selective mutism).

We tell our children they have bodily autonomy but we don’t allow them to decide when they’re too hot. It doesn’t make any sense.

I don’t disagree with school rules - I was a school governor for 5+ years. But I do think they have to be fair and make sense. I don’t think teaching children that they have to follow rules mindlessly is helpful.

One of the biggest criticisms that’s often made of this generation is that they lack critical thinking skills. I don’t think expecting them to blindly follow rules that are unfair and don’t make sense really helps with that.

Chikdren don’t need to agree with the rules to have to follow them, but I do think we should be able to explain why a rule is in place. And I think the rule should be reasonable and fair. That’s really not much to ask, surely?!