to think school's shouldn;t be able to ban certain hairstyles?

[whichwitchisthis]

just wondering really

the headmaster at ds's school has started a new thing saying they can't have spiked hair at all now and is making kids that have gel in wash it in the toilets even though it's minus something outside

Can they do this? now I'm talking short back and sides and no more than an inch of spikes....not a massive mohawk or anything

aibu

ahhhhhhhh, many years ago ds1 went to senior school sporting his new eminem bleached blonde hairstyle.
the very next day a letter was send home to everyone telling us that this wasn't allowed.

DD, had an absolutley lovely do, as an 'EMO' she had her hair dyed black on top with a blood read underneath chopped in IYSWIM - anyway, she was put in isolation [fuck me honestly] for that day and told that she couldn't come back to school unless it was dyed back to a 'natural' colour

so ofcourse she dyed it all black - which is not her natural colour - but mor acceptable - for fuck knows what reason - than what she had.

idon't understand the reasons behind this at all

and ds1 grew his hair long - past his shoulders - which - i could understand them banning quite frankly - or telling him to tie it back or get it cut - for safety reasons - see i could understand that - but his hair was allowed to do what it wanted - becuase it was his 'natural' colour.

bizarro

boys as young as 6 have gelled spiky hair in our (very middle class very rural) school, which i find funny but the ones with tramlines, gross.

the older gelled up lads walk through the gate and check their appearance in the nearest window! they are so vain - just copying their dads though, eh? DH would NEVER use gel, so don't spose DS will (which given he has shoulder length blond cherubic curls and no desire to get it cut is a safe bet)

i taught a 14 yr old who was excluded for getting a haircut that was bald all over except a tarantula thing on top - looked like a Fimble (they were not invented then or I bet he would not have done it!)

Because they are rules, and as such, need to be kept to! as a teacher, it drives me insane when parents blatently ignore school rules on things like uniform - I waste so much of my time chasing kids up about it. As a teacher, i couldn't go in with crazily dyed and cut hair, with piercings all over my face - I'd attract a LOT of complaints from parents(I teach secondary).

Surely the idea is that kids get used to keeping to certain rules for when they leave schoo land get jobs?

I always thought college or uni or your long summer school holidays were the time to be experimental - not when you are aged 7-15!

It's just another sign of the lack of respect society has in general for schools though.

I get really relaxed about hairstyles in senior school because that is child driven. Which becomes fair enough. And I think kids enjoy ( even if we don't) pushing the boundaries with the school over uniform - all part of the fun of teenage rebellion.

But primary should be different. Dressing children up like Paris Hilton or little dudes for school is all about the parent.
And actually if it isn't then that is sadder still.
Small children generally have to be shown how to look cool before they can adopt it. Dressing up for a party is one thing but dressing your small child up like a Guess ad for school is all about the parent want to gain some weird kudos.
And if the child has absorbed these fashion rules at the age of 7 then they are not getting out enough.

It is just the extension ofthe child as a fashion accessory - so beloved of Katie Holmes and others.
Let them be little for fucks sake. They will want to look like pimps and hookers soon enough without having to be started early

see i don't think that is necessarily so. i have seen many an art teacher with styles not exactly usual.

i understand a rule on piercings - for safety.

i understand the rule on jewellery - for safety

i understand the rule on uniform and respect that.

I dont think that a teen with dyed hair means a teen without proper uniform - certainly not with my kids.

one does not pre-suppose the other

I'd have more respect for schools if they kept their oar out of matters which are not their concern.

J.S. Mill will be turning in his grave!

agreed pag - junior school is different - its all the parent not the child - totally agreed.

My DD has gone to school wearing a hairband with a fabric butterfly on it. She is very excited by this. Maybe that is how the gel makes these boys feel, and no more than that.

I love the phrase 'flashy hair' though.

I think we can blow these things a bit out of proportion.

my ds1's best friend had a little mohican at nursery, it looked quite sweet

I don't like tramlines or swirls cut into boys' heads, it looks awful

and sort of agree with pag about gel

BUT making kids rinse their hair under a tap is just pointlessly fascistic IMO

Ds's hair needs cutting. I actually had to brush it this morning.

I don't like sticking up hair personally. We are told that the pupils can't have 'extreme' hairstyles. I asked if that included DS#1's hair which at the time was past his shoulders and was told no. It's only for dramatic mohicans and the like apparently.

gosh not sure where some have got the idea that the kids are actually styling their hair in the loos

I'm on about sticking a small amount in ds's hair in the morning so it looks neat, unfortunately the only style his hair will hold is spikes it's just too thick to do anything else with

I'm just asking if they can actually inforce this rule when it's actually been declared as a rule iynwim

I would also think it pretty sad if my child was styling their hair in the school toilets at dinner time but surely if the school requests the pupils to have a neat and tidy appearance as long as it;s not effecting any work and no product is being taken into school I can't see the harm

DS1 (9) puts a little of DH's wax into his hair in the morning probably once a week if he thinks about it. He likes to spike his hair, he does have teenage half brothers though so I guess there is a little of keeping up with them.

It makes me smile as he does this and then I tell him to put on his hat and it's all gone before school anyway. It isn't a rule in our school although if it was I would enforce it and he wouldn't be allowed to use it. I suspect this would make DH happy as his wax would last longer!

I don't see the difference from little girls requesting different hairstyles for school though.

DS2 on the other hand has riduculously spiking bed hair all of the time and it wouldn't enter my head to put anything on it. It should be driven by the child imo.

"gosh not sure where some have got the idea that the kids are actually styling their hair in the loos"

Personal observation.

My 2 boys have at times had shoulder length hair - and I took the view that if that was how they wanted to rebel against us then it wasn't too bad!

They seem to have outgrown that stage now and have fairly neat haircuts.

So why is long hair ok but bleached/spiked/dyed hair isn't? If they'd wanted to rebel in a different way that - let's face it - doesn't affect either their long term personal well-being or anyone else, why should it get banned?

I'm the most boring old fart imaginable but if kids want to gel and spike their hair then let them! In years to come they'll be embarrassed by how stupid they looked!

YABU.

Children have to learn that sometimes one has to follow rules even though we might not like them. If they do not learn that at school, chances are they will not learn it at home because they will have the kind of parents who always challenge authority. If parents do not support the school, they undermine the authority of the leadership and the message the children get is that they do not have to respect authority.

As a school governor, I see this all the time. Parents do their precious off-spring no favours when they cherry pick the rules they will follow. No wonder so many of these off-spring end up being either unemployable or having problems with working for others when they are older.

But schools have all manner of perfectly justifiable rules to do with conduct, completing work and so on. I can even see the reasoning behind uniforms. But why introduce arbitrary rules about hair on top of all those?

Why do some employers have arbitrary rules about dress code, make up, footwear, etc?

When I joined my organisation, I was provided with a list of what was expected of me in terms of dress, conduct and behaviour.

When parents apply to our school, they are given a list of uniform, rules about not wearing earrings, gel in the hair etc. They choose to apply to the school so why do a stubborn minority contine to flout the rules? What message are they sending their children?

You could argue that employers' rules on sartorial matters are not arbitrary (although in some cases they are, in which case I disagree with those too).

I still don't understand why schools would prohibit shaved heads/no.1 crops. Smart and hygienic, no? Good enough for the army, so surely good enough for school?

Here, here spokette! i agree totally - if you don't like it, find another school for your kids. re the shaved heads - for me it has overtones of skinhead thugs - the hard kids in school would use it to identify themselves as part of a 'gang'. They also use their appearance to intimidate others (including teachers!).

So hairstyle acceptability should be determined by whom? The rules seems to be: working class hair = bad; middle class hair = good.

Yes I agree that schools should be able to this.

This is going to make me sound really old, but I think the flouting of rules and parents defending their children for doing it is what´s wrong in UK.

There´s just no respect anymore.