To be glad schools are finally hitting back

[Teachingquestion]

Over the last couple of days I've seen more stories about schools introducing new rules and sending students home who won't comply.
I'm in a really tricky school about to do the same (when we start back) and the staff are so relieved. Teachers on here : are you glad to see it?

There is no correlation between uniform and results. Unless you can provide such data/research, I call bs. Academy CEOs who spent their whole lives in banks wearing suits seem to think so, but there is no base of this in actual education.
I went to school in a country where uniforms are unheard of and did very well at university as did everyone I knew. Schools that struggled did so not because of what kids wore, Most of the world does not wear uniforms and do OK.

I am a teacher and I worked in non uniform schools and preferred them to places I had to stand in the corridor and police ties and tucked in shirts and waste time of lessons on this rather than you know, actually be able to teach. It will blow your mind that learning can happen no matter what kids wear and it has nothing to do with discipline, unless you are so narrow minded to believe that uniform is the same thing as discipline.

Yep, sounds good. The argument people have against this has no value.

Some seem to imagine that allowing disruptive kids to stay in school will somehow help those children. Well, even if that was true (and it's generally not) they are disrupting everyone else's lives, stealing an education from kids who do want to learn, turning schools into a nightmare for those who follow rules, causing depression and misery amongst teachers.

Those children cannot be fixed by teachers. Being at home removes their ability to harass, torment and disrupt those kids who can be taught and make the environment unbearable for everyone else.

If those disruptive kids go on to commit crimes or wander the streets, that's not a gotcha - that's proving the point that they did not ever belong with average kids trying to get an education.

Schools don't exist for safe containment of future criminals or unfixable issues.

Whatever their challenges are it is well beyond the scope of teachers to try to fix whatever is going on with them

The experiment has been a total failure.

Send them home and deal with the consequences of that. A whole new paradigm is needed, and will emerge as a consequence of accepting reality.

You can’t just say Scandinavian children don’t wear uniform and hence perform better at school. It’s a whole attitude from the parents and society.

We are in the UK and right now too many students and their parents think the world revolves around just them, they don’t care how their selfish behaviour effects others and think they can do what they like with consequences for them. And when there are consequences their first reaction is to still blame someone/something else. Entitled and lazy, a far cry from Scandinavian parenting.

There are known kids around here and parents ask among themselves what 6th form is so and so going to. And are happy to learn when their child isn’t going there. Their parents think they are angels obviously.

They make learning difficult - one of the goid things about competitive 6th forms, if you don’t get the grades you don’t get in.

A leveller, not necessarily in price, but visually. I also recall when mine were at school that many schools offered alternatives to buying new. I've witnessed bullying of children by other children just because they're wearing cheaper brands of clothing.

As someone says upthread, all parents have access to policies for each school. Surely you choose the school based on your preferences, and that of your child. If you think a school is too strict, then choose anothet. Dont send your child there, then complain about the rules..

Correlation or causation though?

Does an exclusion cause the child to become involved in crime?

Or is it likely that the child was already on the path to be involved in crime?

Don't get me wrong, exclusions definitely have the potential to lower a child's self-worth and entrench their feelings of "us against them", which might increase their chances of being involved in serious crime in the long run. But the exclusion isn't often going to be the main cause of the risk.

Changes need to be made to the school system. Schools excluding hundreds of pupils each term is not the answer. But ignoring all negative behaviour is also not the answer.

That also happens in schools with uniforms. Despite the uniform being the same , some vulnerable/deprived kids still stand out.Ill fitting uniform(too big or too small), stained or frayed or with holes in (even if clean), someone else’s name in them, faded/grey , clean but smelling if home cooking because the kitchen is the only room warm enough to dry the clothes , shoes with holes in them or soles coming apart etc. Or the tag on the skirt/top/trousers. Or because there’s so little to focus on, the shoes, or school bag or coat. There’s dozens of threads in the holidays from anxious parents asking what the in thing is for these things or affordable alternatives. Or the ridiculous OTT outfits on mufti days because they finally can and the distraction because it’s such a big thing . It’s fucking ridiculous. Uniforms do not solve this issue, I know, I work in a school. We just like to pretend they do.

You seem to believe parents have a choice...how lovely it must be in your bubble.

OK.
Let's say you have no choice of school
The school that's yours has rules that seem a bit daft to you but it's your only choice
Do you
A tell the kids we know it's silly but go with it, making sure they are dressed okay nd have equipment and do homework
B fight with the school over every tiny thing for 5 years

I personally hate designated bus lanes in my busy city, have lots of reasons why
Do I
A drive up then and get a fine every single time that then escalates
B moan about them in my head and avoid the fine

Also not every naughty child has SEND
It's disingenuous to posit that all poor behaviour in school is teachers 'not understanding' their child.
Teenagers are moody, in a family situation, you may have time to do 20 minutes of cajoling. We don't, we have 28 kids in front of us.
They need to shape up or ship out

C. Bemoan the silly , little rules , tell her if she gets in trouble for flaunting them that’s her problem, but fight on the big things or at least the ones I deem important enough.

In 10 years of schooling I only contacted the school 7 times. I’d say it’s a pretty decent balance.

Do you think all parents have the choice of several different schools, @Livelovebehappy?

Some areas do have several schools, but not all those schools will be a reasonable journey away for every child - and if you go outside your catchment school, the Local Authority does not have to pay for the travel. Some schools will be heavily oversubscribed, so if you are outside catchment, your chances of getting your child in there are slim to none.

Genuinely curious about what you would consider to be a ridiculous rule.
I worked in schools for 25 years. Strict rules were pushed out with vigour every September, but gradually they started to slide…..

The best state secondary in my area only has polo tops and jumpers for uniform, similar to a typical primary school really.

My DS goes to a different school with a lot of issues and below average results (as good school is always oversubscribed) with blazers, ties etc. They always try and make a huge deal of uniform, down to tiny details, particularly when a new head comes in and tries to make a point.

It just feels like they do this because it’s an easy way to make a statement without actually addressing and trying to change the bigger problems the school faces 😔

Sometimes rules change midway, or new ones get brought in, or parents agree with the rules overall bar one or two (honestly, why does sock colour matter?!?) , or a teacher misinterprets (not necessarily maliciously) a rule. I teach DD not to sweat the small stuff , that doesn’t mean it isn’t annoying . Like when she got told off her hair was properly up in a clip (by school regs)but she didn’t also have a hair tie in it.

As someone says upthread, all parents have access to policies for each school. Surely you choose the school based on your preferences, and that of your child. If you think a school is too strict, then choose anothet. Dont send your child there, then complain about the rules

I wish I had a choice of schools! Do most people? In my area they are all very over subscribed.

Colour of socks, even more so when they’re specific colours for PE and normal school day, branded school PE kit (winter and summer), hair up at all times (I get the health and safety aspect in PE/DT/science), having full equipment and equipment checks every day when you don’t even have those subjects, asking permission to take a blazer off , not allowed a coat on , even on the corridors when it’s cold (and teachers are wearing theirs), that kind of stuff.

Same! There is no choice!

And yes the obsession with blazers! And whether you’re allowed to take them off or on, carry them around, put them in locker in warmer days etc etc.. just get rid of them. They seem to create more problems than they solve.

I get that there's not a lot of choice out there but some parents seem to feel so strongly about the uniform policy that I would imagine a school that strictly adheres to it would be a deal breaker and they would be prepared to compromise on distance etc.

I bloody hate blazers. In my work place they are removed unless meeting clients or in court. Polo shirt and sweatshirt, that children can be given the independence to decided whether they are hot or cold is much better IMO.

It’s interesting that you find those rules ridiculous, I’d say they were bog standard 🤷‍♀️

I have been doing supply for 5 years now.
We had weird rules surrounding what colour pens kids should write with (and which colours teachers can use to mark, which included pink or whatever and which we had to buy ourselves).
In my previous school I had to spend 10 minutes of my first lesson checking equipment and then emailing all the parents of kids who didnt bring the correct number of pens/pensils etc- and to log this aas a sanction on the system, this to be done after school in my free time as I used my PPA to .. plan my lessons, as I would. Kids who could not afford equipment and those who were disorganised still didnt bring them and parents just put school emails straight in SPAM as they were so fed up with the daily communications.

In another school we had to spend breaktimes in corridors 'being visible' and asking students to sort out their uniform. 4 months of that and I didnt see any improvement, but I felt stressed as everytime I sat down I felt like an SLT will come in ans us us to go out and radiate visibility. Results were not proportionate to the tidiness of the uniform either.

One school I worked in overhauled behaviour policy halfway through the year making workload so excessive that I resigned from my long term supply role as all it created was conflict between students and their parents and teachers, and all staff knew the rules were unreasomable but had to grind out teeth and defend them in front of parents and unhappy kids. It was one of the militaristic approach of "give a detention for everything" and totally silent corridors and it made no one happy.

This was mostly an experience in the big trust academies where you have more heads and executive heads than one can imagie is necessary. I found that the few LA schools I got jobs in were far more pleasant but also less rigirous and prison-like.

In your workplace, do you seek your manager to ask if you can take a blazer off when it's hot?