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?

@HerNeighbourTotoro

There's absolutely no need for DC to remove blazers on the vast majority of days in the UK.

Of course headteachers can and do give permission if it's exceptionally warm.

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

A but when I do need a change/exception - SEN/medcial - I'd expect to be treated politely and constructively - and last few years that's not happend t's immediately defensive your causing problems being stupid etc.

Did worry it was just us but no talking to other parents it's not - and many then get combative in reponse and it takes so much time.

Sometimes they also just don't listen and seem deliberately obtuse - getting though that no they can't e-mail current Y11 on Y11 e-mail next year post setpember - as next school year that will get year below - this actually did this last year so why don't they get it and actually tell us arrangments now.

However do get the pen/pencil issue - my kids complained bitterly about this - and teacher gather up lost pens and provide ie bought from own pockets their own to hand out but 5 minutes is lost to it every lesson even if kids were given pens last lesson.

Bog standard doesn’t mean they’re not ridiculous. What benefit or difference to the lesson it makes having to change into specifically white PE socks? (Nevermind the impracticality of them) . Why does she need her French dictionary /apron/safety goggles on a day she doesn’t have French/other lessons that require them? Why does she need calculator, geometry kit and 2 types of rulers on a day she has Drama, Art, French, English , History and PE? And all the other stuff. Attendance, punctuality, behaviour, effort etc are all things I care about and support the school with. This other stuff? I can’t bring myself to care , even if I wanted to.

Why do they even have to sit in blazers, can you explain? Are you privy to any research that states that wearing a blazer makes you more intelligent or have better grades?
It's like talking to a flock of sheep, you do stuff only because other people did it in the past, but there is no reason or whatsoever to wear specific items of clothing to school. It has zero impact on learning- and learning is why kids are in school to begin with.

I just don’t see an issue if kids are allowed to wear/remove their blazer when they like.
as I mentioned previously the better secondary school in my area, that significantly outperforms the other local schools, is also the only one that doesn’t have ties or blazers in the uniform. Just basic polo tops and sweatshirts.

Why can’t we allow students to use their own judgement on whether or not to wear their blazer, @BeachLife2? We expect them to take responsibility for having all the equipment they need, and for doing their homework and revision - but they aren’t sensible enough to know whether or not they feel too hot? When they are babies, we decide whether or not they wear a coat, but by the time they are in senior school, they are surely old enough to decide this for themselves!

As I said yesterday, I know it is anecdotal, but I have seen accounts on here from parents whose children have been refused permission to take off thick blazers during a heatwave - as if the school is prioritising how the students look over them being best able to learn - and a child who is feeling faint due to the heat, or is dripping with sweat and uncomfortable, is not going to be as effective a learner as a comfortable child - within reason, of course. I’m not advocating for kids in swimwear or nude - but taking off a blazer is surely the sort of sensible action we should be allowing children to make.

My dses went to a senior school (comprehensive) where the uniform was flexible and sensible. The students still look pretty smart, but the uniform is affordable, easy to launder and replace, and allows the children to make sensible choices of what to wear. And when we moved here, and ds1 and ds2 started at the school, it was number 7 in the Scottish league tables, so the academic performance is good too.

Unfortunately most people in charge of Academies are dickheads. This is why the idiotic rules so many people are describing on these threads have gained such traction.

If you look at the websites of secondary academies, you will see their Headteachers are largely white men in their very early thirties.

Many of them will have been P.E. teachers. I've got nothing against P.E. teachers and I've had plenty of lovely P.E. teacher colleagues. But the type of P.E. teacher who becomes a Headteacher very quickly is the type who has become a teacher because they enjoy power and control. They are also - and I mean no disrespect to P.E. teachers - usually not very academic.

As such, many of these schools are led by blokes who a) are not very bright b) are not very experienced and c) love having power and control over others.

This type of Head loves having nonsensical rules and they love dishing out punishments.

They do not give two shits about education or children.

All they want is an easy audience of people over whom they can wield power. In the world outside of education - in business, for example - they would not have the intellectual capacity to rise to any type of leadership position, and neither would they have the right background or people skills. In education, however, you can quickly and easily move to the top of the chain even if you're not very talented, if you are in the type of school that rewards mediocrity. They know this, which is why they become teachers. They do not become teachers for the children. In fact, I'm convinced many of them don't even like children. They just like punishing them.

Academies love hiring these mediocre mini Hitlers as Heads because Academy chains are largely owned by right wing megalomaniacs looking to make a quick buck out of education and indoctrinate a new generation of children with their right wing views. They want someone who will act as their puppet at the helm of their schools and not have the critical thinking skills to ask questions.

And so here we are, in an educational landscape where teachers are leaving education like rats off a sinking ship because we're forced to work under morons whose motivation is to control rather than educate. And students are forced to sit in rows wearing wool blazers in 30 degree heat, doing lessons from powerpoint slides created by someone in a Head Office 100 miles away, wishing they could be anywhere else and totally disengaged from their education.

100% agree.

The thing is the relaxed uniform guidelines apply to all state schools in scotland. Even our local secondary which is widely regarded as one of the best in the country doesn’t enforce strict policy. Yes there’s a school tie/blazer but there’s no requirement to wear them. And if you do chose too lots of swaps/hand me downs to keep costs reasonable.

Perfectly acceptable to wear a supermarket bought jumper. And like i say in theory they can’t enforce it anyway…..but interestingly you only ever see a small handful of kids not wearing something not in line with uniform.

Lots of countries with very relaxed uniform policies with much better education systems than Scotland/England

The rules are stupid and they are insignificant, and they are only powerful in a society that hates to think for itself, and who thinks that obedience and lack of critical thinking are the highest values to strive for (is Stalin your idol by any chance?). You want a society where everyone does as they are told, which you admit. I want a society where everyone is respected and respects others. And you can respect people wearing jeans and a tee shirt. You dont need a buttoned up shirt and ironed trousers to be respectful.

Thank you for writing this!

This ^

I agree that uniform is unnecessary and an anachronism, and that strict and petty uniform rules are infuriating and counterproductive.

However, I'm intrigued by people saying that teachers prefer to just carry on punishing kids for petty stuff because they're too lazy to bother with trying to deal with the serious stuff. That isn't true and makes no sense.

Having to enforce petty uniform rules is an absolute and utter pain in the arse and wastes hours of teachers' time week-in week-out. It's not fun for anyone. It's not 'light relief' from the serious stuff. We hate it. I don't personally give a shit what colour socks students wear, or whether they have mascara on!

And as for the serious stuff - what is it that you actually think teachers can do about it? We follow school behaviour policy. Kids get detentions (which parents sometimes encourage them not to turn up for). Sometimes they get internal exclusions or suspensions. The more hardened the kids, the less they care about the punishments. What other weapons do you think we have in our arsenal against serious bad behaviour? Expulsion? That's a last resort, hard to actually achieve, often gets overturned on appeal, and the kid just gets put in another school to cause the same problems. It's not teachers being lazy ffs. It's a lack of actual workable solutions!

As such, many of these schools are led by blokes who a) are not very bright b) are not very experienced and c) love having power and control over others.

This type of Head loves having nonsensical rules and they love dishing out punishments.

Totally agree. We have one of these. Fortunately even he realises that our nice grammar school doesn't need draconian rules. The first thing he did was introduce a blazer though

I vote @EnidSpyton for Education Secretary. I have nodded vigorously in agreement while reading everything she has written. Unfortunately what she is saying is too sensible for those currently in charge.

The thing I find crazy is parents who lap up the silly uniform rules as it prepares children for the world of work. Where on earth are you hoping your children end up? Butlins? I can't even think of a job for women that involves a tie. Oh maybe an Avril Lavigne impersonator?

I’ve been pushed out of the way numerous times on door duty, had food thrown at me on lunch duty, called a c*t countless times, told I clearly can’t teach by a 15 year old, had my phone smashed to something unrecognisable as a phone, and none *of these students were sent home. I left after 26 years. I’m now receiving emails from the DfE asking me to train as a teacher. They go in the 🗑️ to be deleted.

There’s a certain school of thought (no idea where it came from or how it gained traction) that uniform/petty rules are needed to give kids something to rebel against, rather than the bigger stuff.

Count my vote in too.

Nobody has managed to explain how that works with countries where there's no uniform. I mean, British teenagers are absolutely not that different.

One of the main differences is that teachers, schools and education have the respect of the parents, government, SM and MSM, who haven't spent years undermining the profession and pass that on to their children.

the children are also made aware that if they fail (a word that is not liked in the UK) it is there fault and not that of the teachers.

When a child gets suspended for forgetting a pen but can also be suspended for telling a teacher to fuck off, the sanctions for the more serious stuff becomes meaningless. You may as well tell a teacher to fuck off.

From what I have seen professionally, the use of internal isolation is going to end up a scandal one day.

And they actually can fail, rather than automatically getting passed onto to the next school year despite not having grasped even the basics of what they were supposed to learn that year. In many countries you actually have to pass the year to progress to the next grade so students can't fuck around too much or they end up doing the same year 3 times (like one boy in my DD's school).

That was why I referenced the UK.

A place where the pupil can mess around and disrupt lessons for 3 years and can then take it as an option because they 'promise to be good', and not because their mates are in the lesson.

I don’t care if the Head of our academy was a PE teacher with a power trip he keeps the disruptive kids out of the classrooms, education is hard enough for teens at the moment the very least they need is a room they can learn in without being exposed to flying chairs and misogynistic, homophobia and racist viewpoints (which are learnt at home so hopefully he gets rid of the parents as well).

My teen is in a well controlled, well taught classroom, with excellent extra curricular activities and competitive academic opportunities his friends are lovely so go Mr Ex PE Teacher Head you are doing better than some Heads locally.

I thought secondary was going to be a battle but it’s not for our youngster (and wasn’t too bad for eldest but he had a weird pandemic start another academy ex PE teacher on a power trip no doubt Head), youngster comes home happy, thriving, all whilst wearing a blazer and a tie! It’s not the blazer that stops people learning, or having to have a purple pen (which he does didn’t ask why just got a packet of 6 he can restock when he needs to not a big deal), what stops learning is weak heads who let the dreadful kids and the dreadful parents take way more than their fair share of resources.

So well done ex PE teacher Heads on power trips of Academies you are doing great work round here (for the majority at least).