I'm 'against' school uniform is anyone else??

[zazas]

Recently at my DD and DS primary school the majority of parents voted to introduce a uniform. Unfortunately I am in the minority! Is there anyone else who feels strongly about this subject.....I don't want to loose perspective but I really don't want my children wearing a school uniform! Give me your views please.

couldn't agree more custy!

Dh looks utterly lush in his......men in uniform look fab!

I once had a student who complained that it was 'impossible to concentrate while wearing a uniform'

To which I quipped 'I must point out that to dh while he wears his uniform while flying his £100 million aircraft!'

i have seen 8 yer old girls look like god damn sluts. i would not like my dd at 8 years old ( shes 12 btw) comming home thinking that was normal.

we have a dress code.

actually we did have dress down friday - but it was abilished because some airhead fuckwit in the london office decided to wear a bikini top last summer.

the fuckwits of this world astound me. personally i think she should have been electrocuted for having shit for brains. and let the rest of us get on with wearing jeans and trainers

I am okay with trackpants and a polo shirt with the school logo and a sunhat in a matching colour for primary.

I don't like normal state primaries who expect a $200 blazer and specify particular (expensive) shoes for children.

I don't spend $200 on all of ds's clothes for a season so to spend it on a blazer would annoy me.

So my kids have to wear nasty, ugly, nylon dress codes just because some parents are too soft to simply say, 'No' to their 'little princess' who wants shoes for £180? Bugger that! Why don't we get all the boys to shave their heads while we're at it in case some of them cry because their mum gave them a bowl cut while other mums have been forking out for the salon? It would go a long way to solving the nit problem after all.

I thought kids were supposed to learn about society and all its prejudices and likes and dislikes. Anyway, I don't believe for one minute that my kids have even heard of Boden or any other designer. Surely it's not an issue in most primary school playgrounds. If it is, that's their look out. Don't blame the messenger!

The 'social leveller' agrument is a pile of bollocks. Kids will still judge each other on their shoes, coats, ages of uniform, contents of packed lunch boxes, the way they talk, their hair etc etc etc.

Uniform should be optional with no pressure applied. Then everyone wins, surely.

Those of you who love dressing your little ones in bottle green and grey are welcome to it. But the rest of us shouldn't be forced to do the saem.

Not that I feel particularly strongly either way as you'll notice.

children - indeed all of us will judge on whatever information is presented to us, i agree. i can just ...and i mean just... financially cope with buying shoes, coats and bags.

i cannot afford to buy designer anything else - whether i agree with the principle or not makes no mind, my financial inability to buy these things for my children would absolutley make them social pariahs. no doubt. there would be my kids sat with kids whose mums still collect them from school when they are 14.

and what would you do to stop the 'slapper look'?

electrocute the parents for being fuckwits

Tempting, but they will not give me a stun gun!

I have to tell 11 year old little girls to go wash off full face make up ffs!

What would they dress like if they had the chance? And goodness knows their parents don't seem to give them much guidance. Imagine them humilating the other girls for not having 'the look'

The objecters seem to mostly object to lack of "individuality" as well as "ugly" uniforms.

Our family is so odd, anyway, me being a foreigner, us being eco-freaks, we cycle everywhere, me scruffy to the bones. If uniform makes my kids fit it more, and it does, seems like a good thing to me. They get enough individuality just from being my kids, they don't need to particularly express it at school, too.

Frogs - when I say nice clothes really they are are just the usual kids clothing - not party clothes. My kids definitely got messier at nursery than at school! Not that I mind them wearing 'good' clothes I rather they wore them that let them sit in a drawer until they were too small.

Twirlaround - me too about the shoes! Expert on kids non-black shoes - even I try to avoid them!

As for the individuality thing - it is not that I expect the kids to reflect 'themselves' in their choice of outfit (although my 4 all have different ways of doing this). I just feel that wearing their own clothes helps as a visual reinforcement that we are all different. All looking the same in a uniform hides this in a funny way. I want my kids to feel that they belong to their school but I mostly want them to remember that they like anyone else are unique and different.

Not read every post sorry!
Teacher's point of view - children behave better in uniform. They do. Not sure why but they do.
It's true that uniform is not a complete social leveller - there are and will always be some parents who send their children to school in clothes not washed for weeks and others who seem to have new shoes every week!
But the advantages outweigh the disadvantages for me.

my dd 24 months just started nursery where they wear uniform even the babies have jogging bottoms and sweatshirts and she loves it she would wear it everyday if she could yes it was expensive as you can only get it direct through school but it does stop her own clothes getting wrecked and i think she looks really smart. i had a really strict school when it came to uniform and i used to work in a job where uniform regulations were stricter than the army i now have my own business and chose to wear a uniform and anyone who works for me is expected to wear one to

sure, you can recognise children on the street from which school they are. Very good thing.."This one is from an expensive private school and that one is from a "cheap" states school". All about equality etc.

Yes, and you can also say 'Mr X, you are the Head of Y school and one of your little cherubs trashed my garden on their way home from school yesterday'

One of the Junior schools I went too didn't have a uniform, my mother was hard up and bought my clothes at jumble sales. Imagine the horror of being bullied by kids telling you you've bought their cast offs.

Worst thing ever.

Most of the schools around do polo shirts and sweatshirts which I hate. The school DD was at previously and may go back to (school dilemma post) has a full uniform which can only be bought through the school, everyone is identical in clothing and no bullying takes place which is the way it should be.

Bring on the uniform I say.

I am very pro-uniform. There is plenty enough individuality in children's personalities without them having to compete with clothes too.
I am grateful for the fact it saves me a fortune in clothing costs, as you only need two of the main items and they wear it all the time.
I was teased mercilessly at school despite having uniform about my hair, my shoes, my accent, my name etc etc. I can hardly bear to think how much worse it could have been if I'd been sent to school in my mother's choice of clothes too!

Agree with Hula ? uniform gives teenagers something 'safe' to rebel against. I'd rather teenagers concentrated on creative ways around the dress code than on other, potentiallly more damaging forms of rebellion.

Mind you, I would strongly counsel anyone against sending their teenage daughter to a school whose uniform consists of a chocolate brown, yellow and beige tartan kilt, brown jumper and blazer (the gym kit was even worse - orange aertex shirts and brown knickers). God, it was awful.

zazas, you asked a question about what should be the uniform if you had to choose one. IMHO I would look at what is easily available - all the major supermarkets etc, and then choose. You need to choose a colour that is OK for both boys and girls. Sounds really naff, but although I like the idea of purple kilts and lilac blouses it forces parents to buy from limited places.

A simple uniform is more easy to control, so I would suggest a sheatshirt/cardigan in red or blue, plus polo shirts in white plus red/blue and trs/skirt/pinefore/shorts in black, grey or navy.

The other option if you like bright colours is to suggest a school uniform like a sheatshirt that could come in a range of colours with teh school badge. Then the kids could wear any colour they like, provided it had the logo. They could then wear any bottom they want - suggest uniform of jeans. This is a halfway house for those who want uniform and those who don't.

Rhubarb, I've just sorted out a load of dd2's clothes - she's 6.5. Nothing even slightly designer, not even Next, but would be happy to pass on to you if you want anything. I'm going away next week until the beginning of March, so CAT me before then and let me know if you're interested, otherwise it will have to wait until after my hols.

there was no money-related clothes snobbery at my uniformed school when I was a kid (and I was v. skint and at a posh school on a scholarship) there was, however, lots of scope for earning credibility by pushing the boundaries as far as you could - nothing to do with money - purely based on nerve, and I was pretty good at that.

School uniform makes a hectic life a little easier

Then you are indeed a sheep, notasheep.