AIBU Schools making pupils wear blazers and jumpers in this heat

[plomh]

Every time it’s hot during school time, you hear of schools still insisting that their pupils wear blazers or just their jumpers. https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/kingswood-academy-send-home-defiant-121507.amp

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19462070.wearing-school-blazers-heatwave---readers-say/

What do schools think they are going to achieve from not relaxing the rules? Nothing. More pupils becoming ill, parents keeping their DC away.

It’s barbaric behaviour. Yet I doubt that they make the teachers, non teachers staff wear blazers and wear summer clothes with short sleeves.

If our school was enforcing blazers shirts and ties in a school building without aircon I’d be keeping them off. And my kids have 100% attendance so it’s not something I’d normally do but that’s ridiculous. I work in a traditionally stuffy environment and even my company has relaxed their stance on ties a few years ago.

Our school seems to be the only one in the area not allowing PE kits!

Most of the schools have been really sensible and it’s PE kit.

The nearest secondary school has caused a lot of angst though as they’ve said PE kit with black trainers. But the PE kit doesn’t specify black trainers so a lot of kids (including mine) wear white trainers for PE.

The HT is relatively new and very unpopular for a lot of reasons. He’s very petty about various things (and I say that as someone who worked in schools for 20+ years) and is very adamant today that children who don’t have black trainers should wear their usual black school shoes with their PE kit.

it’s just needless grief for everyone. DS has black trainers, but a lot of kids only have their PE trainers.

The schools with the strictest school uniform near us is th one with the worst behaviour and results. The smart uniform doesn’t appear to have made any positive impact.

The thing with summer uniform is schools enforce it based on the calendar, not the weather.

There was a girl who was kept in isolation for a week after returning back from Easter holidays. As she wore her jumper as it was cold. School uniform after Easter meant no jumper. The school was in Leicestershire or Northamptonshire.

Yet some schools insist summer uniforms are worn from the beginning of the school year to Oct half term too. There have been some very cold September and October weather in the past

In general I support schools having discipline and uniform code - but this is just barbaric and ridiculous.

I would love a headteacher to provide a strong coherent reason as to why a child has to wear a blazer in this scorching heat - because it is just so unnecessary and I can’t see any purpose to them being so draconian over.

where is the common sense?

It’s only Monday. Give it to Thursday for more recent stories

Have you contacted the school that it’s not practical in the hot weather or are you just accepting it and your DC’s will struggle?
Send them in shorts and T-shirt and tell the school to contact you if they have a problem!

Exactly! DT’s school was non uniform. They didn’t have the behavioural and bullying issues reported in some many strict uniform schools.

Jeans and hoodies were the norm with shorts and T-shirt in the warmer weather

Sad that they're still like that in the 21st century, mine was like that 40 years ago but aircon wasn't so common then, nor did we have blazers or any rules about whether you had to keep a jumper/cardigan on or off. The only thing they were really strict about was wearing your tie. You'd have thought things would have moved on, especially with the climate changes making heat waves more and more common as time progresses.

She should've been allowed the option of shorts though....

You need at least 30 students to do this. As they don’t have the space for 30 students sitting in sole isolation.

It’s very hard to ‘move on’ and pay for every classroom to have air conditioning with the budgets most schools have.

Just be sensible and them in shorts and T-shirt

I still remember the post from a mum in summer 2018 who confiscated her DD's wool blazer, because the school was insisting the kids should still wear blazers, and sent a stiff note to the school saying if they had a problem with her DD not wearing said blazer to take it up with her. Thought that was pretty epic.

Complete silence from dd's secondary school. No emails, no social media posts and no answer to the phones yet.

She's just had to go in full blazer and tie, we have driven past some very hot and bothered looking students trudging to school.

She will be 'ill' on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Highs of 37/38 predicted here.

If the school are that inflexible, I don't trust them to use their common sense at all to keep the children safe.

Its unlawful as boys and girls are being treated differently

YANBU. We had an email from the head yesterday saying that DC can wear games kit this week if they want to, plus they need to take in a hat and sunscreen. Safety and comfort are essential when it's going to be in the upper 30s, which it is here.

Back in the day, at my DC’s school where blazers were obligatory, if the weather became too hot, a sun symbol was posted in the library window which meant no blazers and short sleeves. In weather like this, I have no doubt a letter would be sent home saying that pupils need not wear blazers to and from school.

Oh, yes, I know it's not the fault of the school administration. But there should be funding for this, increasing temperatures are making aircon more and more of a need rather than a nice to have, especially in environments where people can't wear skimpy clothes.

It's v unfair, I work in a place with a fairly strict dress code/uniform and even we are allowed some relaxation of rules. There should be a proper summer uniform.

Our school has said PE kit from now until the end of term. They did this last year too.

PE lessons will be adapted to ensure they are in the shade and safe. After school sports clubs cancelled this week.

The school don't get everything right but mostly they seem to make sensible decisions and the welfare of their students is always a priority.

I went to a school and didn’t have blazers - introduced about 15 years after I left. I still had to get out of my PE kit into my uniform, on the last lesson of the week. It was pointless for me as I lived 10 minutes away from the school. I then got out of the uniform as soon as I got home.

A few of us found a gap in the hedge behind the mobile classroom which backed onto the road. Never got caught

The cost of fitting air-conditioning to every classroom in every school in the country would be billions and would only be needed for a few weeks a year so it's just not practical, nor is it going to happen!

Dcs school is usually very strict but this week is PE kit and they’ve even relaxed it as far as “plain black/navy/white” shorts and t-shirt so you don’t have to wash your sweaty pe kit every night. Blazers not required. They’ve been talking about introducing uniform shorts since before ds1 started there in 2012 but still haven’t.