Sharing shoes at school?

[Favouritefruits]

Just for a bit of context, the primary school my eldest son attends is in a very rough area and one of the poorest towns in the uk.

I’m really unsure if I’m being unreasonable or not, please reply honestly.

Today was school picture day, children and parents are all told to dress smartly and in Correct uniform. My eldest son had his shoes taken off him and given to multiple other children to wear in different classes and different years to wear for their picture as they had trainers on not school shoes.

my son was told he had to give his shoes up and was made to sit in socks all morning and apparently got very upset at this. I feel this was really unfair as he didn’t have an option to say ‘no’ and even though it’s only small it’s kind of an abuse of power. I’ve never heard of sharing shoes and it’s really hot me in two minds. I understand they want all the children dressed correctly but to take a child’s shoes just seems a bit mental, who cares if someone is wearing trainers.

Every school I've worked at asks children if they'd mind lending a jumper to another child.in their class if there isnt one theirnsize in lost property. They rarely say no but we'd only ask the children we felt would be comfortable in the first place.

But I've never known a school lend to children in other year groups/classes because, quite rightly, the owner would be distressed and worried about getting it back.

But shoes? No, I've never heard of that!

Exactly. They're just fine in their trainers, putting them in someone else's shoes is only for appearances and not for the sake of the child.

I'd be fucking raging! The child should have been given the option to help the other kids, not just told.

Don't be silly. I've no time for pronoun nonsense but this is just a ridiculous comment.

And, if it was accurately related to the OP and this is exactly what happened, it will be something that was directed by the HT not on the whim of an individual teacher.

Don't accept a lack of response - send a formal complaint to the governing body.
This is totally totally inappropriate and an abuse of power for a teacher to insist a child gives up their shoes for another child to wear them.

It would be one thing if they had said, does anyone mind lending their shoes for 5 minutes? And he had been under no obligation to say yes. Even then it's not great but less completely horrendous.

But being told he had to? and did not have a choice? Completely inappropriate and should be something a teacher should undergo disciplinary processes for if this is true.

Yeah I take a different view. If that was my sons school and there were kids that couldn’t afford school shoes I would gladly offer my kids shoes or better yet find a way to get the other kids shoes. I have done this with my son’s football team. I have gladly loaned, given and sourced shoes for them. Because that’s what I can do to help. Not complain they are poor, or about hygiene (kids weren’t wearing socks?) or how much it upset my child.

I raise my kids to be kind, generous and help others.

Why wouldn’t your son understand the situation and not want to help? That is what I take from this.

You are not understanding that they had shoes on! They didn't turn up to school in no shoes. It was just decided by some idiot that they didn't think the trainers they had on were suitable for a photo.

It is ridiculous whoever decided this in the school. And if it was such a big deal to them the school should go out and buy shoes for the photos and keep them year after year. But as we all know schools have no money for stuff like this so instead of having photos that show a true representation of the school they have decided to take shoes off other children for the photos. It is pathetic that the school did this.

No I understand that completely. Just because I don’t agree doesn’t mean I don’t understand. I stand by what I said.

But why would you need to lend/give/source shoes to a child who already has shoes? If the kids were walking in to school barefoot I could get your opinion, but these children had shoes, they just were not deemed appropriate for the school photos by an idiot staff member. You can take your sanctimummy stuff and use it where it is actually needed! It was needed in this scenario.

I had this once OP. Not with shoes but with my DS's jumper. Some kid had forgotten his so my DS was made to let him wear his.

Which wouldn't have been so bad, but when when it was time for DS to have his photo taken with his younger sibling, nobody gave a shit that he wasn't wearing the jumper I'd sent him to school in. So in the joint photo, one was in jumper and one was in t-shirt.

To be fair, when I complained, the head teacher did apologise and said they wouldn't do that in future. Not that it helped with my school photo!!

Because it’s not okay to remove part of a child’s clothing for your convenience.

Because it’s embarrassing for a small child to have to sit around in socks in their classroom without having any choice in the matter.

Because kids spread verruccas like wildfire.

Because mum paid for those shoes and hasn’t given anyone else permission to scuff their feet around in them.

I’m sure you’ll be much happier with the unqualified supply teacher who’ll be teaching your child when the teacher decides to resign. Surely it’s not worth making a huge fuss over?

You’re 100% right but you might want to work on your tone when communicating with the school. You’re less likely to achieve what you want with a message like the one you sent.

Take a chill pill. You sound all,worked up and are the one name calling. Rude.

I am a teacher and this is awful. I find on school photo days that children will often volunteer to lend a jumper if they know their friends don't have one but I would never suggest to the children that they do this as it is their property and needs to be their choice.

I agree. We would ask if anyone could lend their jumper to ‘Billy’. It would only be while they were having the photo taken and immediately returned.

Lending shoes is ridiculous, and as others have said, unsanitary. Some fungal infections only have a 4 to 10 incubation period so you may be about to get another present.

Nope, male teacher, no hair and close to retirement.

What has suprised me the most on this thread is how helpful and great other schools seem in comparison. It’s actually made me quite upset.

My sons teacher last year at parents evening said ‘if NAME can survive class ‘4E’ then he will survive anything, it’s like Iraq in here most days’

The choice of high school I have I’ll have to make soon is a failing school with a GCSE pass rate if 19% or one with 17% pass rate.

I’ve come to realise it’s not just about the shoes that’s unfair, it’s the whole school.

Check if it says anything about communication in their complaints policy. Schools have an obligation to respond within a certain timeframe. For ours it’s 48 hours (working days only)