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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To buy school tops in the wrong colour

208 replies

katiestar · 27/07/2009 19:51

Our state primary school stipulates either the school sweatshirt which is bright red or bright red jumper / cardi with grey skirt/ pinafore.
I have bought my DDs dark grey cardigans to go back to school in for the following reasons.
1 They always get stained because the school doesn't have enough whiteboard markers so children have to use their hands , which inevitably ends up on their top.

2 Only buy uniform from M&S and their stocks were decimated , but had grey in every size.

3 Won't look too diffreent colour-wise from those wearing a pinafore.

3 Am really pissed off at the school who have agreed to be my placement school for a course I have been doing , but failed to return some paperwork in time for the deadline so I have wasted £200 and many hours for nothing.Not really relevant to the school tops but indicative of my feelings to the school.

5 MOST IMPORTANTLY looks lovely against their long pale blonde hair

OP posts:
KingCanuteIAm · 28/07/2009 10:38

No Goblinchild, if you had read the thread you would have realised that morloth said this "I don't know if this helps but I actually get Mum to send me Napisan from Australia, you can buy it via the Australia Shop website. It is a Vanish product but seems a million times stronger than what you can buy here."

I thought it may be easier for her to buy it in the UK than have her mother ship it in for her from Australia.

piscesmoon · 28/07/2009 10:42

' I really dislike all the "rules" and people HAVING to "obey" them. All that teaches your child is that they must act like a sheep and do what everyone else does. Thank god not everyone is like that or there wouldn't be much progress in the world. '

Fine-but find a school without uniform or HE!
The DCs are quite happy and in fact it is much better for them to have the clothes sorted. They all end up in a type of uniform-those of you who are 'free spirits' would no doubt go completely against the trend even if there were no uniform-I feel very sorry for your DCs. The clothes are completely unimportant-what they do at school matters. If you really don't like it I would suggest you go down the proper channels to change it, but I expect you would be blocked by the majority of parents who like a uniform.
Your DC should come before your opinions and making a DC stand out as different is very unfair on the DC (unless you have an extrovert who doesn't care what others think). If I was the DC with a strong forceful mother I would have stuffed the 'wrong' cardigan in the bottom of my school bag all day and shivered and just put it on at home time to please my mother.

notsoteenagemum · 28/07/2009 10:45

'The clothes are completely unimportant-what they do at school matters.'
So why bother sticking to the uniform then?

piscesmoon · 28/07/2009 10:50

Do you really want to know notsoteenagemum? I can list all the very good reasons if you like.

notsoteenagemum · 28/07/2009 11:00

No thanks piscesmoon they are probably the reasons why my dc wear uniform,however I am glad I managed to find a school that places learning and having fun higher than clothing.
However I wonder why you have contradicted your point when the right clothes are obviously important to you.

purpleduck · 28/07/2009 11:03

Don't most schools have a "coloured" jumper and a grey jumper option? Maybe not judging by the responses...

I HATE those teflon trouser thingy's, and don't buy them for ds. He generally gets smart cords, or other grey trousers. There is no rule saying what the trousers should be made of.

I didn't realise how passionate people were about uniform!!!!

MillyR · 28/07/2009 11:11

I don't think it matters that much. The uniform is grey and red so to wear a grey cardigan rather than a red one is really a very small variation. It is not as if it is a pink cardigan.

M&S online have run out of red cardigans in my daughter's size and it is annoying. I'll get red from somewhere else because I like the red, but don't think it matters if someone else chose grey.

I think it looks nice that at primary school children look similar rather than identical. At my daughter's school some wear a sweatshirt and some a cardigan. Some wear red tights and some grey. As long as they all look as if they are in the school colours and all belong to the same group, why do they need it to all be exactly the same? It seems a bit uptight.

notsoteenagemum · 28/07/2009 11:11

purpleduck do you not realise you are leaving your ds open to the horrors of wearing something slightly different to other people or worse people might think you are poor

piscesmoon · 28/07/2009 11:12

I haven't contradicted anything. You put on the same clothes everyday-they are completely unimportant-everyone has the same ones so no one is remotely interested/judgemental/envious about what anyone else is wearing and they are free to concentrate on the important things that matter. There are primary schools in my area that have no uniform-the DCs more or less do their own-they want to fit in. A DC would be equally mortified if their mother went completely against the trend.

MillyR · 28/07/2009 11:14

Purpleduck, I agree with you. We get trousers and skirts in non-uniform places but in uniform colours to avoid the teflon.

piscesmoon · 28/07/2009 11:14

They will certainly think you poor if there is no uniform and the DC wears the 'wrong' brand-once a DC gets to about yr 5 (if not before)they know exactly what everything costs!

MillyR · 28/07/2009 11:17

Pisces - that isn't true everywhere. My DS has finished year six and his friends are still pretty clueless about brands. It really depends where you live.

notsoteenagemum · 28/07/2009 11:36

The being different point would be valid if every child at the school wore exactly the same brand and style of uniform, but they don't. As MillyR said they look similar rather than identical.
So katiestars dd will not stand out any more than someone who wears a plain red cardigan in a class of children where a majority wear school logo cardigan.
I think it's a shame that so many parents have so little faith in the rest of society they beleive they're child will be bullied for being ever so slightly different.
My dd is going in to Yr5 in Sept and at her class disco over half of the girls were wearing black leggings with neon leg-warmers and neon tutu's, DD certainly didn't feel left out for wearing skinny jeans nor was she bullied or teased. Similarly she doesn't tease her friend who has a knitted cardigan when dd has a school one.

notsoteenagemum · 28/07/2009 11:39

MillyR I don't think it depends where you live I think it depends on whether the parents of the dc are brand conscious, and put appearance before other issues.

notquitenormal · 28/07/2009 11:40

I still remember the girl who turned up on the first day of term in a royal blue uniform instead of the slightly darker blue than everyone else had.

We took the piss. Her name was Suzanne and she carried the nickname Royal Sue till secondary school even though she only wore it for about a week.

Looking back...we were a right bunch of dumbasses.

FimbleHobbs · 28/07/2009 11:46

Does it really matter if people think you are poor?

I don't understand why people are bothered about this. I want my children to look clean and cared for (at the start of the day at least, hopefully they come home with paint and mud and food all over them to demonstrate they have had fun) but I don't care if they look 'poor'.

KingCanuteIAm · 28/07/2009 11:49

Exactly NQN, teenagemum, it is not always that they will be bullied, it is also that people will think it is funny, make jokes and so on. Not realising that the jokes and the good laugh become very old very fast for the person they are aimed at!

notsoteenagemum · 28/07/2009 11:53

I don't know either FimbleHobbs but it obviously matters to lots of people here.
The sad thing is if it matters to the parents it probably matters to the children, and if it matters to the children, they may very well end up being the ones who are teasing and picking on the ones who are different.

Morloth · 28/07/2009 12:01

The stuff in the little box KingCanute? It is rubbish.

Sorry, going OTT. Aussie Napisan is made by Vanish and comes in a tub pretty similar to the ones you get here, but it just seems heaps stronger (like get it on your skin and you will PAY) stronger.

There is probably a HUGE psychological element in my love of the stuff, Mum swears by it, all my sisters do so I have been raised to view it as the holy grail of stain removal . But it works for getting ANYTHING out of red jumpers without effecting the colour so thought it might be helpful for the OP.

KingCanuteIAm · 28/07/2009 12:12

Ahh, you mean the napisan you buy there is better than the napisan you buy here?

Sorry I thought you meant Napisan in general was better than other vanish products you can get IYSWIM.

I am not quite sure why that deserved such a rude response from Goblin though

Morloth · 28/07/2009 12:15

I think possibly Goblinchild missed my post, so yours looked a bit odd in response to the OP.

When in fact it was MY post that was odd!

LIZS · 28/07/2009 12:19

Not read all the way but yabu , you will not be making a statement just look as if you got it wrong ! No chance of the placement now either as if you carry it through you will look as if you disrespect the school and rules.

Stayingsunnygirl · 28/07/2009 12:20

For me, the issue isn't the uniform per se, it's the attitude it demonstrates - I feel as if katiestar is telling her dd1 that she's too special and quirky to have to obey the school rules that the rest have to obey.

To my mind, that's not a good message to give a child, and her reasons are too feeble to make any difference. She could get the right cardigans from M&S online, M&S will refund or exchange without the receipt, she could buy cheaper cardigans so it wasn't such an issue when they got stained and send her girls in with their own whiteboard rubbers, and lastly, her issue re. the the paperwork for her placement is between herself and the school, not her girls and the school, and she should know better than to conflate those two issues.

Original poster
katiestar · 28/07/2009 12:29

To clarify I Have done the placement.i have done a couple of assignments which were marked by my tutor and not the school.The school just needed to sign a form to say I had been attendance on such and such dates for so many hours.the annoying thing is that the school regularly rang me when they were short staffed on the TA front,to see if I could cover.And I did this on a voluntary basis willingly.I don't think it would have been too much to ask to sign my form and get it back to me on time.
However that is neither here nor there as regards the school tops.Just had to get it off my chest !

OP posts:
piscesmoon · 28/07/2009 12:35

Exactly Stayingsunnygirl.

I was a very shy DC who wanted to fit into the background; I can't say that I was teased and I wasn't bullied, but it was hard having a mother who had fixed views on clothing. I was very grateful for uniform. I am on the side of the DC -your views aren't important, just be kind to the DC and get the correct uniform. The DC is the one to live with your decisions-not you.