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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

648 replies

ShowJumpSally · 07/01/2025 16:00

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?
^

OP posts:
MereDintofPandiculation · 07/01/2025 21:19

SockFluffInTheBath · 07/01/2025 20:18

It’s not difficult to imagine the schools with blazer rules will likely have rules about skirt length and hair colour.

Or indeed to imagine that there are schools with rules about skirt length and hair colour that do not find a need to also have blazer rules.

PlanetJungle · 07/01/2025 21:30

I agree with you op but schools lack the resources and the solutions to come up with anything else to encourage the kids to apply themselves in lessons - it’s quite pathetic really but they’ll cling to the silly rules as they are cheap for the school and it makes them and some parents feel they are doing something to encourage compliance - it doesn’t really matter whether it achieves the goal or not - the adults need to believe in something.

Mumtobabyhavoc · 07/01/2025 21:41

Yes and other formal events, exams, certain lectures... just making the point that there is a dress code, but, yes, not strictly for day to day. (And followed willingly).

Chef64 · 07/01/2025 22:16

Phthia · 07/01/2025 18:44

Every single one of you grew up fine? You still know all your contemporaries and you know exactly what happened to them after they left school, and none of them have every had any problems whatsoever?

I don't believe you ...

You are being ridiculous. Of course some had problems but I am pretty sure it wasn’t because they had to ask permission to take off their blazer.

Tootiredmummyof3 · 07/01/2025 22:19

ShowJumpSally · 07/01/2025 19:39

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.

Does MH mean you can't ask to take a blazer off? I've heard it all now. Just for the record I have two children with additional needs. DD has managed to get through secondary school okay. If the school isn't making reasonable adjustments that's one thing but most children are capable of asking a question if they're in mainstream secondary school.

MMXXV · 07/01/2025 22:33

I have an issue with kids not being able to remove blazers without asking in summer especially. A couple of years ago it was in the mid - high 30s, they still had to ask and a couple of teachers said no! That’s madness. If they have to ask at other times, I don’t really care but I do think the answer should generally be yes. A lot of people who wear a jacket for work take it off as it’s more comfortable without it.

Things like no coats in the building or being strict on shoes are fine with me. Having rules and discipline on things like that has apparently improved behaviour and rule following in other areas according to my teacher friends, which makes sense I suppose. It’s like at home, if your kids are used to following smaller rules, they follow the bigger rules more ime anyway.

ShowJumpSally · 07/01/2025 23:04

Tootiredmummyof3 · 07/01/2025 22:19

Does MH mean you can't ask to take a blazer off? I've heard it all now. Just for the record I have two children with additional needs. DD has managed to get through secondary school okay. If the school isn't making reasonable adjustments that's one thing but most children are capable of asking a question if they're in mainstream secondary school.

Lucky you?

Yes, there's this thing called selective (or situational) mutism and yes it is a MH condition. So clearly you 'haven't heard it all' so much as just being totally ignorant about MH needs.

OP posts:
kattaduck · 07/01/2025 23:20

Pickledpoppetpickle · 07/01/2025 20:24

Really not my job to be imaginative as to blue hair and arses hanging out. My job is to teach. Let me teach. What people are not understanding is just how difficult that can be - and how rules, however ridiculous you might find them, are needed to help us get the bloody teaching done.

Ah those pesky Europeans with their crazy haircolors and their asses hanging out. Thank good we have the british schoolchildren to show us how it's done.
The UK still has a bigger bullying problem than most European countries so clearly some things are not working.

Pottedpalm · 07/01/2025 23:23

Phthia · 07/01/2025 17:56

How does imposing new and totally pointless rules constitute a "method of discipline"? Why should children have to follow rules which may adversely affect their health if they're allowed to overheat or get too cold because they're not permitted to use their own judgement on that?

You are being overly dramatic. The rule is ‘asking permission’ not ‘wearing blazer until you combust’. As others have said, most teachers ( myself included) will suggest removal of blazers and opening of windows.

MMXXV · 08/01/2025 00:06

ShowJumpSally · 07/01/2025 23:04

Lucky you?

Yes, there's this thing called selective (or situational) mutism and yes it is a MH condition. So clearly you 'haven't heard it all' so much as just being totally ignorant about MH needs.

I also know a couple of autistic child at mainstream who wouldn’t ask as they would find it difficult. Agree there is so much ignorance as to the challenges some children face.

ViolinsPlayGentlyOn · 08/01/2025 00:09

Pottedpalm · 07/01/2025 23:23

You are being overly dramatic. The rule is ‘asking permission’ not ‘wearing blazer until you combust’. As others have said, most teachers ( myself included) will suggest removal of blazers and opening of windows.

And if the teacher refuses permission, what then? The kids just bake?

Pottedpalm · 08/01/2025 00:27

ViolinsPlayGentlyOn · 08/01/2025 00:09

And if the teacher refuses permission, what then? The kids just bake?

Honestly, does it ever come to that? Child asks, teacher says yes. Or if it’s that hot, teacher will have already suggested/agreed. People will tie themselves in knots claiming their child was left to boil, but I’m not convinced. (Teacher with decades of experience in state & private.)

Mumtobabyhavoc · 08/01/2025 00:51

People tying themselves in knots defending having to ask to remove one's own blazer from one's own body is astounding. There really is no correlation between authoritarian and fear-based/punishment environments and learning outcomes that I'm aware of. That's what it is. However, structure is crucial to a child's sense of safety as is routine and this does contribute to a positive environment. There's a vast chasm of difference, though and authoritarianism is often confused with and implemented as the latter.

Nanny0gg · 08/01/2025 00:54

BIossomtoes · 07/01/2025 18:09

If there’s nobody around to ask the rule doesn’t apply. Some of the arguments here are asinine.

Yes it does

You need actual permission to remove blazer/jumper

Nanny0gg · 08/01/2025 00:58

Sunnysidesoon · 07/01/2025 17:55

This thread, and threads like it, explain quite clearly why school standards are slipping quickly, the schools have zero support from parents

They have support over important issues

Like turning up. Paying attention. Behaving in class. Etc etc

trunch · 08/01/2025 02:05

I thought this was the case at all schools

Hame · 08/01/2025 02:36

dermalermalurd · 07/01/2025 20:47

It's a hackneyed old argument to claim that uniform gets people ready for work. There is zero evidence for this. There is no uniform at college or university. There is no evidence to suggest that uniform helps with attention or grades. It's all conformist rubbish.

This.

I've never heard one argument that persuades me about school uniform, never mind batshit rules like this one.

sashh · 08/01/2025 07:28

HPandthelastwish · 07/01/2025 16:12

I just used to tell students when I first started teaching them that they could take their blazers off and they didn't need to ask me once inside my classroom.

The vast majority of students always keep their blazers on (even in heat waves) because it is a glorified pencil case and if they take it off they lose their pens / phones fall out etc.

Me too.

Sevenwondersofthewoo · 08/01/2025 08:03

MereDintofPandiculation · 07/01/2025 21:19

Or indeed to imagine that there are schools with rules about skirt length and hair colour that do not find a need to also have blazer rules.

We had the skirt length one and I told them that the length has nowt to do with their education or distract the male teachers (yup had that said too)and who the hell are they employing and they need checking out not the kids skirt length.

PlanetJungle · 08/01/2025 08:10

As a parent I found it hard to respect teachers and the school when it obsessed over uniform. All our local schools were the same - there was no escape from the stupidity of it. Spent energy improving the teaching quality? That’s too hard - easier to harass parents and kids over daft stuff.
It was always a certain type of teacher who harassed kids over uniform - I still remember who they were from my school days - they weren’t great at teaching - might have been better suited to the army.

BeAzureAnt · 08/01/2025 08:20

I'm often bemused at the insistence on uniforms. Maybe it is a holdover from the British empire...militarisation of everything? Schools increasingly seem to be about teaching conformity to rules and tick box exercises rather than teaching kids how to think. If you need uniforms to enforce discipline, you are in trouble as a teacher. You instill enthusiasm for learning and have an imaginative curriculum, and the students are so busy enjoying learning that discipline is not much of an issue. Look at small children...how eager they are to participate, put their hands up to answer questions...and then how that enthusiasm has been suppressed as they get older.

I taught university here and many students didn't seem to be able to think for themselves...they were more obsessed and anxious about font sizes and margins and the cover sheet than about the content of the essay they were writing. Open ended assignments where there wasn't necessarily a "right" answer or they had to choose what to write about terrifed them. They wanted to be told what to do.

scalt · 08/01/2025 08:33

LoopyLoo1991 · 07/01/2025 16:17

It wasn't a hard and fast rule at my comprehensive, but certain teachers would bitch about it. Half my school was in an older building with inadequate heating and no air conditioning. Hot summer of 2006 was the crunch point when the Psycho head of Year decided that 'proper uniforms' had to be worn despite several classrooms being sweltering hot.
It came to the crunch when one guy brought in a thermometer and a health and safety at work manual and stated that the Maths & Geography classrooms were to hot to work in, he was going to change into shorts and the local newspapers had already been contacted over the wearing uniforms in hot classrooms. Head Psycho spluttered like a boiling kettle but kept her stupid mouth shut after that. All the grass on the playing field died and they wanted us to write stuff in 94°F heat??? F*ck no!

I like that guy's style. If I was more daring at that age, I would have done it.

Grammarnut · 08/01/2025 08:34

Phthia · 07/01/2025 18:30

Andrew Old is notoriously intolerant of silly little things like making adjustments for disability in schools. I wouldn't follow his advice on anything.

I think it depends on the adjustments. He doesn't tolerate bending rules for ADHD, I suspect. The point of a school is to impart knowledge and how to use it, so anything which disrupts that is going to cause problems.
IMHO children with special needs are better catered for and prosper more in schools designated for them, where they get small classes (six per class in my DN's school) and a lot of 1 to 1 attention. Many current problems are caused by the 'inclusion' policies of the 90s and 00s which has meant when it became obvious inclusion did not work (and parents of SEN children were the ones to complain) the provision was not there and private providers were used, who charge what they like because LAs have no money to provide schools. A mess - meant to save money and actually costing far more for much less.
NB What parents may think are 'silly little things' can become major discipline problems in schools.

Grammarnut · 08/01/2025 08:37

Phthia · 07/01/2025 18:35

The school claims there is no bullying. That isn't what the pupils say.

According to Greg Ashman it is what the students say.

Grammarnut · 08/01/2025 08:40

Runnersandtoms · 07/01/2025 18:43

Offices generally are more and more casual these days. My DH is a relatively senior civil servant and never wears a tie. Shirt and chinos is as smart as it gets. And everyone including the top bosses is on first name terms. People are still wearing ties and calling each other Mr and Mrs somebody in courts and schools and hardly anywhere else.

Re your daughter's office, I'd suggest that it is probably illegal now to specify different dress codes for women and men, and definitely illegal to require high heels or make up for women.

It's a US company. I don't think it's specified, it's 'expected'. Her DP works for his father's company.
When I was a civil servant we were mostly on first-name terms - 70s. Men did wear suits, though.
Sloppy dress codes are not a good example to children, IMHO. And courts are meant to intimidate both the accused and any witness who may be thinking of committing perjury.