Why did schools change and wear sweatshirts and cheap blazers?

[Neweternal]

I'm curious when I was at school you had wool blazer (expensive yes in the 1980s they were £50) tie shirt etc. Now I see kids going to school in those hideous cheap polyester ones, are the days of school exchanges gone? Also I've seen sweatshirts and polo shirts in primary and secondary and it doesn't look smart at all and after the first term their sweatshirt and polo shirts are bobbled and discoloured. White cotton shirts can be bleached out in the sun. Surely no one thinks that looks better than a shirt and tie? Also children learning to buttons shirts up, tie you ties, they're life skills. What are the pros of sweatshirts, non wool blazers? Yes more ironing is involved with a clean shirt everyday, but my child takes pride in being smart. Poor kids in the 1960s managed school uniform, so I'm not convinced this is purely a financial argument. Should state schools not be competing with private on uniforms? Wearing polo shirts and sweatshirts to secondary if like an acceptance they're going into the trades and not going to need to tie a tie for work, (nothing wrong with trades I have one) but its about aspirations and dressing raises aspirations too. I know private schools still have the school exchange. What's the thinking behind all this?

Copper, blueskies ditto, DD is at a non-uniform primary and she's in t shirt and leggings or shorts every day, like most of the others. No clothes related bullying.

And how are you expecting all parents to fund these expensive uniforms

buttons shirts up, tie you ties, they're life skills

I have not tied a tie since I left secondary school. I haven't needed to. Is my life incomplete? Is it proof I'm a loser?
Seriously how many women wear ties??

And DS has coats, tops etc with buttons. He'll get practise and when he needs a tie for work he can learn how to tie it!

I left a private girls’ school in the 1980s & we didn’t wear ties. At only the local free school and recently established private school do girls wear ties. DS went to a major public school - polyester washable blazer.

On every thread I've ever been on about school uniforms, children who don't have to wear uniforms are perfectly happy was are their parents and children that do have uniforms complain as do most of the parents. I wish they would just do away with them completly.

That's a good point raised by a pp - many jobs these days don't require a uniform, or even have a formally set out dress code. I know I took a little while to gauge what was appropriate when I was setting out in my career, and I've seen many young colleagues go through the same - is wearing a strictly enforced and micro-managed uniform helping or hindering when schoolchildren grow up and have to work out what to wear? We all surely know what a minefield things like smart casual can be, after all. Are we doing children any favours by taking away an opportunity for them to learn these sorts of life skills?

Wow. I go in lots of schools and honestly find that the polo shirts and jumpers look smarter than the white shirts and blazers. For a start the year 7s tend to be in enormous blazers that look really silly and the year 11s in ones that are half way up their arms. They may start on Monday morning with a neat shirt and tie but It doesn't last long and by the end of the week the shirts are hanging out and the ties akimbo.
Polos and jumpers on the other hand loom respectable all week.

Actually I went onto two things after school one was I attended a prestigious private beauty school where we stood inline having our hair, nails, make up and uniform checked. For our oral exams we had to wear a suit. I loved it. In my early 20s I worked for a airline based in the Middle East again presentation was a big thing and the discipline for keeping my weight down too. I like the discipline of rules.

My DDs school has blazers made from recycled plastic. Machine washable and eco. Plus, unlike wool ones, they don't smell like old Labradors when they get wet!

I like the discipline of rules.
I like to be served drinks by folks like you at 36,000 feet

I'll pay the fare without wearing a tie thank you very much

Business Class passengers were the scruffiest when I went through Dubai airport last week

3 teens

Non care for their uniform, skirts rolled up, ties loosely knotted, jackets thrown on the floor - hair whipped up in a messy bun or pony tail

Now outside school they have prestige hair and makeup, they take pride in their outfits and spend a fair amount on individual items shoes jeans hoodies and take far more care of these than the enforced uniform.

Uniform sucks - it makes not different to equality or poverty (kids know who's rich and who isn't)

Just another stick to beat them with! Detention for a shirt untucked? Wouldn't happen at work would it!

I don't know the answer to that, but have recently found that clothing a child for state school is increasingly becoming more expensive than some private schools.
Quite a few schools are dropping uniform completely, I read the GSA are campaigning for the removal in all girls schools.

Greentulips thank you, you completely summed up what I was thinking!

There is a gap between suit and trackies you know!

Wool blazers are too hot to wear in school. I wore ones in school 40 years ago but we hung it up during the schoolday. It was an outside jacket. We wore shirts and ties and an optional jumper in the cold weather . In DSs school they have to wear blazers in school as they wear polo shirts instead of shirts. I think this is to make it look reasonably smart but still affordable. I had to wash DSs blazer almost every day in the hotbweather. Post pubescent boys and polyester blazers over polo shirts in 30deg+ heat make for very smelly clothes without daily Washing.

I think the idea is the kids dress the same but it is not an extreme financial burden on the parents. I think a wool blazer at DSs school would be a nightmare

100s if not 1000s of children would of had to turn down a Secondary School Scholarship (pre 1944 education act) because their family could not afford the uniforms and sports equipment. Post 1944 many would of passed the 11+ but again family could not afford the uniform so they went to the Secondary Modern instead. These children ended up leaving school at 15. Or even 13 or 14 pre 1944. How many children's lives could of gone down a different path had they gone to a Grammar school? Who knows? Every child should have an education that matches their needs - not being denied one due to the fact their family cannot afford some over priced clothes. Some families will purposely not apply to specific Secondary schools because the uniform and sports and other equipment needed costs so much. Essentailly for some families the education they can give their children has almost gone back a 100 years to 1918 .

I agree op re polo shirts horrible scruffy things. My dc primary is shirt and tie with wool cardigan /jumper. They look much smarter than other primaries.

When I was at school it was wool blazers all round
they STANK by the end of term
especially at the boys' school

OP you are so right. I am currently in the process of dismantling a deckchair to facilitate my daughter's stringent uniform code. Seat for the blazer, wood for the boater, what ho. None of these scruffy modern fads like drip dry clothing and indoor loos. Wet dog, Windsor knot and a thumbed nose to the idiots in Brussels who try to lower our standards with suspect polo shirts. Let's make Britain great again, one deckchair at a time. Pip pip!

In my early 20s I worked for a airline based in the Middle East again presentation was a big thing

Yes because you were doing a customer facing service role. You were representing your company. Additionally on an airplane it’s important for passengers to be able to instantly identify staff for both service and safety reasons.

Those things don’t apply to engineers, bankers, research scientists, programmers or a million other highly paid but non-customer facing professions.

You are very out of date OP if you think school uniform, or in fact the school environment generally is representative of the modern working world.

As far as I’m concerned it’s my job as a parent to teach my D.C. how to dress appropriately for their environment and activity- not the schools.

“Is there no studies on dressing well and success?”

Your wool blazer and dress codes didn’t do much to help you with your written English did they?

Nowadays written electronic communication is more likely to be a potential employer’s first impression of you, so i’d concentrate more on helping your dc with that tbh

You missed the point pp made .

Uniform is supposed to be the equaliser so making the “poor “ children wearing second hand blazers, often ill fitting as they would have to take what ever they can get .

My Ds has sensory processing issues , wear s no school uniform I can guarantee his learning would go down if forced into a woollen blazer

Wool blazers stink after three days at school or so but not as much as the stench of snobbery

You are right, I think most school uniforms look cheap and scruffy. I agree that ties are outdated, but summer blazers, winter coats and smart shirts look so much nicer. It definitely marks state school students out from private. To think I wore tweed uniform and straw boaters at boarding school!

“As far as I’m concerned it’s my job as a parent to teach my D.C. how to dress appropriately for their environment and activity- not the schools”

Yy

Most NT adults are able to adapt their presentation skills according to their environment - eg typing informally on the internet vs a formal letter for work, dressing for a funeral vs walking the dog

Not ironing a shirt every day doesn’t suddenly render you incapable of doing it when the occasion demands - it’s hardly rocket science is it?