Silly worrying?

[nivvy]

Hello everyone. Just joined here so I may get a few things wrong, but hey!

My daughter is starting school in Sept. She's been at nursery until now, bu it's all pretty informal there. Weel I've received the uniform list for school, and no real problems. BUT for PE it says "no uniform is required as the children do lessons in their vests and knickers".

I'm probably ought to be happy with this as it means I have to buy and more importantly wash less! But I was pretty surpised when I read it, and wonder what other people think about this? Would you worry or not?

I don't know how common it is these days - unusual I would have thought - DS has polo shirt & shorts.

Would they object if you sent in plain shorts & T shirt ?? Is it a small school & they do it to keep down costs for parents ??

I'd find it unusual but not worrying. At ds1's school they wear shorts and a T-shirt. Vest and pants seems to be the reserve option for those with no PE kit.

Is it for the entire school, or just the younger children? At my dd's school the reception children do PE in their vest and knickers, but year 1 and 2 have PE kit. They do it that was as it's far easier for the younger children not to have to struggle to get changed before and after PE - some of them can't manage to get dressed and undressed properly on their own. It's not a problem; the children don't worry about it at all, although if they did it for the older children it might concern them.

That said, I did PE in my underwear until I was 11, and it doesn't seem to have harmed me all that much

when my ds2 started school he was requred to have a p.e. kit. we moved house half way through the school yr and ds went to a new school. at the new school they wore vest/pants for p.e. but my ds got a bit upset about it so i spoke to the teacher and she said it was fine for him to have a p.e. kit. it was just to save time so that all the children didnt spend ages getting dressed.

Thanks for all the replies! It is a pretty small school, 7 classes of about 22 each. I don't know whether it's for all years, or just the young ones, but I'll find out. I suppose it does make sense for the younger classes, since they'd probably spend ages getting dressed at the beginning and end of the lessons.

I think if it's just for a few years I probably won't mind, but any older than 7/8 and I might.

I've spoken to someone I know with a child there, and she told me that all the years do lessons in their underwear. I've also thought that my daughter doesn't wear a vest at the moment; should I send her in one on PE days?

This has come up before, and I think most people agreed that the vest and knickers scenario, along with communal mixed changing is fine for tinies but progressively less fine as they go up the school.

By Y5 or Y6 quite a lot of the girls have proper boobs. Some are wearing bras and a few will have even started their periods. Vest and knickers not on for that age IMO, and I would make a fuss and withdraw my child from PE until they changed the policy. I wouldn't start by making a fuss when my child was tiny, though, but would def. keep an eye on it as they went up the years.

In my area it is the norm for school policy to be vest and knickers for PE for the tinies. I too thought this a bit odd until I started teaching PE to reception aged children! It is for several reasons - mainly time it takes to change 30 children (twice - out of clothes into kit, out of kit into clothes), also it elimates the palava of remembering to bring kit home/ washed / back to school, it is cheaper for the majority of parents in my area who are on low income, and also littlies don't sweat so much!
I do think that children should have some sort of kit after they hit Y3 or so (and separated changing area).

I would not worry about them - let them be children! I did PE in my vests and pants (not a pretty site)

With regards to the older ones - I am suprised too but they are still little - keep them as little as possible. If they had seperate changing areas jennifersofia who would supervise them changing? Where would they get changed - most primary schools do not have the space or adults!

I guess it's silly worrying by me, for now anyway. I know I always did PE lssons in my undies, but I just thought it'd died out.

For those of you who've got children who do this, does it matter if they wear a vest or not? Would she be frowned wearing just her knickers (or get too cold in winter)?