to think people should dress their children in the correct uniform?

[pigsinmud]

The uniform is blue shirts or polo shirts, grey trousers for boys and navy skirt/pinafore for girls. There is a boy who always wears a white shirt and now his sister has started she is wearing a white polo shirt with a grey skirt?!

I mean does the mother not notice that her children are the only ones in white shirts? All other girls are in navy pinafores apart from her dd. Her dd looks like she goes to a different school as she looks so different to the other girls.

It's getting on my nerves. AIBU?

What bugs me is tghe weird combination many primaries have of smart bottoms and casual tops.i mean smart trousers don't go with polo shirt and sweatshirts which are essentially sports wear

I quite like that look. Especially for nursery and Reception a pair of smart trousers with an elastic waist so they are easy to pull up, a polo shirt and a sweat top with a printed logo is cheap, smart and easy to wash.

I don't like polo shirts. Bought DD a lovely John lewis pinafore dress and the polo shirt looks silly under it. Am also not keen on the logoed sweatshirts. A good quality cardigan would look better.

I also think the ties look silly under sweatshirts as the tie doesn't show properly..surely a v neck jumper (boys) or cardigan (girls) would look better?

I should also say that I think that look is also a no excuses uniform that really bugs me when people refuse to adhere to it.

Which look ABetaDad ?

Sorry. I was refering to my post at 10.14. I meant smart trousers/shorts, polo shirt and sweatshirt as a no excuses uniform.

Why does it bother you though ABetaDad ? I am struggling to see how what someone else's kid is wearing could possibly affect you ?

Riven - do they have second hand sales at your school? Our logoed sweatshirts are £11 new but are sold for £1 second hand.

katiestar - well it does not bother me that a child has a pair of white socks when they should be blue but what does bother me to teeth grinding distraction is the attitude of the parents.

My DSs go a Prep school where pretty much every parent turns up in an nice expensive car. There are quiet a few who are very well off, go on ski holidays and summer holidays, big house, etc but send their DCs to school in non standard uniform clothes and often dirty. It is not a matter of not being able to afford it for these people. It is a matter of not caring or even activley sticking two fingers up to the school. Indeed, it is these parents who also typically flout the other school rules like not taking kids out to go on holiday.

My view is if you send DCs to a school you stick to the rules.

Our school changed to v necked sweatshirt for precisely the tie issue Looks so much better.

Polo shirts are for reception, 1 & 2, after that it is shirt and tie.

my Sainsburys uniform used to blow donkeys on a massive scale (the blue polyester fruit-adorned shirts? Polyester blazer & skirt/trews?)

if i'd known before...

the point about all being the same is ridiculous. children are not the same, even if they were kitted out identically the weirdos would be outed sooner or later.

Why on earth do any primary schools have ties? I think that's such an archaic throw back. And unkind with it. Presumably it's because at some point someone decided that's what smart means, and didn't notice that the world had moved on, that women don't wear ties, and that increasingly neither do men. Or maybe they thought the children looked cute. I don't think ties are particularly justified at secondary, but at primary I think they are really quite unkind. My ds seriously struggles with buttons, so the poloshirt worked quite well for him (buttons always left undone enough to go over his head) making him wear a shirt and tie would have been incredibly unhelpful, and I suspect that he would have been in no way alone. Now he wears t-shirts in the summer, with an added hoody in the winter, plus jeans. It's not a uniform, but it is what 90% of all the other children (boys and girls) wear. The children here are, if anything more polite and well behaved than in the UK.

Nooka - It cannot be described as unkind to wear a tie. My DS 7 loves the fact he can now wear a tie to school and enjoys the challenge of doing his tie. I think he feels grown up wearing the tie as the younger children wear polo shirts.

DD wore an elasticated tie at nursery age 3 and was able to do her own shirt buttons up.

What makes you think children in your country (Canada?) are better behaved.

My brother used to wear shorts year round at prep school..maybe that was slightly unkind..although some would say character building!

Observation - I'm English. We've been here less than a year, and it's an often quoted reason to emigrate. Personally I don't think English children are particularly badly behaved, but it's an oft quoted "fact" that children in uniform are better behaved than those that are not, and I just don't think it's true.

I'm glad your children enjoy wearing their ties. However for any child with difficulties with fine motor skills ties and buttons and shoelaces are very difficult. As all these things are quite unnecessary for primary age children (in fact you can minimise them throughout life quite easily) I really can't see the point of making some children struggle for no benefit to anyone that I can see.

I love school here in the winter. The children all go in in snowsuits, and then strip off for lessons, and then at recess they put the snowsuits back on and go and sledge, make snowmen etc. The school even provides small sledges and spades! The temperature went down to -25C last year (unusual for us as we live in a fairly hot part of Canada) and I think on those days many of the children chose not to go out (although they still mostly walked to and from school) but there was never a suggestion the school might not be open, or the children kept in. It's just so different from where we used to live in London (although we were very happy there too).

I wonder if the more uniform obsessed schools came over here they woudl have regulation snow suits

So Nooka are you suggesting that as some children don't have fine motor skills no primary school children should wear uniforms. When I was little boys wore lace up shoes and managed to tie the laces and girls had to do buckles.

My DS doesn't have brilliant motor skills but loves the challenge of doing his tie.

If one has a child with dyspraxia maybe it would be difficult for them but their mothers/the TA could help.. I doubt most primary school classes have more than one child with dyspraxia in them.

I was not defending the use of shorts in the winter just stating it as fact (from when my brother was at school 30 yrs ago). I do not put my son in shorts beyond october half term.

Most primary schools do not have ties in reception (or if they do elastic ones are probably used)..surely by ks2 most children would be able to do a tie..and you can always buy the elastic ones. Top buttons on shirts are probably the hardest thing.

I would say that uniform doesn't build community (apart from maybe within the school) in that children from different schools can be rivals and uniform easily identifies which school you are from.
My ds was attacked on his way home by a group from a different school to him purely by the fact they recognised his uniform.

HEY!!! STEWIE

You callin' me a RED neck??!!!

Why I may just chuck the dog in the back of the half ton and come out and have a WORD with you!