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Original poster

Is this a common rule in schools?

46 replies

Takver · 18/01/2010 22:14

Not dd's school, but one of the secondaries that it feeds to - has a rule that boys' hair can't be longer than collar length. I was a bit stunned by it - is this normal in 2010???
The same school also gives detentions to children who speak their home language in the corridors, which again seems a bit OTT. (Its a UK state school, btw.) Is it just me, or have schools got massively stricter since my day?

OP posts:
NoahAndTheWhale · 18/01/2010 22:18

I think at the secondary school I went to, all hair that was longer than a certain length had to be tied back, which I think is fair enough.

Boys couldn't have a certain shortness of hair - maybe they couldn't have a number 1 cut I think.

webwiz · 18/01/2010 22:18

DSs hair isn't supposed to be longer than collar length so he does a weird stretching his neck thing whenever he sees one of the teachers likely to pull him up on it. (I agree with them his hair is a mess and he needs a trip to the barbers). He also has to have 7 stripes showing on his tie. Never heard of the language thing though.

Original poster
Takver · 18/01/2010 22:20

I can see having to tie hair back - which I guess would probably make a lot of boys cut it anyway - but it seems a bit unreasonable to have one rule for boys & another for girls (am wondering now if all the girls have to have short hair too will have to investigate . . . )

OP posts:
Missus84 · 18/01/2010 22:23

Rules about appearance are very common - depends how strict the school is.

A rule against speaking home languages sounds very unusual though - very backward in fact! Can't believe it isn't discriminatory.

janeite · 18/01/2010 22:26

Good Lord to detentions for speaking home languages in the corridors - that is outrageous. You know, tbh it doesn't sound like a school I'd want my children to go to.

CowsGoMoo · 18/01/2010 22:27

The school I went to in the 80's had the rule of boys hair should be sitting on the collar or shorter.Girls whose hair went below the collar had to have it tied back

the school I work in and my childrens school has a similar rule in place now, long hair tied back, boys hair on the collar.

As for speaking your mother tongue, never heard of that one

MollieO · 18/01/2010 22:28

Ds's school has the hair length rule. The first time he had a proper haircut was a couple of weeks before he started in reception there .

cat64 · 18/01/2010 22:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

MadBadandDangerousToKnow · 18/01/2010 22:37

I've heard of similar rules about hair length. And I believe that there is case law to say that the rules on boys' and girls' dress and appearance don't have to be identical, which is why (for example) my friend's son was sent home from school when he tried to make some teenage point by wearing a skirt.

I'm ambivalent about the rule about not speaking other languages in the corridor. Is it being done for the sake of cohesion? I wonder whether groups of students have been using racial identity/language as a means of deciding who's in and who's out, in which case the school may think that insisting on English as a common language will make the gangs/cliques/groupings less powerful.

shallishanti · 18/01/2010 22:42

schools can set what uniform rules they deem appropriate, afaik
BUT not allowing children to speak their own language in the corridors is a breach of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, (unsure right now which article) to which the UK is a signatory.

MadBadandDangerousToKnow · 18/01/2010 22:55

Is it, shallishanti? I'd like to find a resource about that, as I'm a school governor in an area where this could be an issue.

islandofsodor · 18/01/2010 23:02

The hair thing is very common.

With regards to the home langueage though I remember way back some of my fellow pupils taking advantage of the fact that the teachers could not understand what they were saying to laugh at, be abusive towards or similar other pupils and teachers.

Maybe there has been trouble of this kind before.

shallishanti · 18/01/2010 23:12

article 30 every child has the right to learn and use their own language, regardless of whether it is shared by the majority of people in the country they live in.
If you are a governor, you might want to find out about UNICEF's Rights Resepcting Schools Award, it's a very worthwhile programme
www.unicef.org.uk/tz/teacher_support/rrs_award.asp

MadBadandDangerousToKnow · 18/01/2010 23:16

That's exactly what I was wondering about, islandofsodor. Also, I don't (yet) see how saying that pupils in communal areas of the school must converse in English infringes their right to (I guess) self-expression, as long as they are fluent enough to express themselves in English. Otherwise, schools would have to have no rules on (to go back to the OP's examples) uniform, as pupils could argue that dying their hair green and wearing a bin bag to school was also an inalienable right.

But I'm going to look for more about the Convention and its application in schools.

ArcticFox · 18/01/2010 23:22

I can see why they do the language thing actually, especially in a very multicultural school. Isn't it to encourage social unity amongst pupils rather than them fragmenting into little groups during breaks based on home language? I can see the temptation for kids whose English isnt very good to do that (I know I would), which means that their English is likely to remain poor and they are limiting themselves to their own cultural group socially.

shallishanti · 18/01/2010 23:30

I don't know much about teaching English as an Adittional Language, but I doubt that kids learn better if they are not allowed to communicate in a language they are fluent in. I would imagine they are learning/hearing speaking English in lessons. The convention is about their right to a cultural identity. Imagine if you went to live in a country where English was not commonly spoken, and your dcs were punished for speaking english to other english kids at playtime.

LittlePushka · 18/01/2010 23:31

bravo shallishanti,.....

I'd have a MASSIVE barney, with the school over the language thing,... right here! right now!...(and DC and I only speak one language.) That is shocking policy.

Neither would I cut my childs hair if he wanted to wear it long - it is discriminatory, whilst making him tie it back is socially unacceptable.

No no no, wrong wrong wrong.

TheFallenMadonna · 18/01/2010 23:39

Well, I would make him tie it back in my lessons, as I do girls with long hair, because long loose hair and practicals are not a great idea.

I'm surprised about the language rule. In my classroom I have key words in three languages and dictionaries in five languages. We do encourage our EAL students to speak in English in class, although they are quite welcome to grab the dictionaries and translate things between them. I discourage speaking in their own language when in a group with other students, except for the purpose of translation, because we have had "they're talking about me" issues - from all parties concerned But we don;t ban the other languages. We make quite a big deal of celebrating our diversty actaully. It's our Thing.

LittlePushka · 18/01/2010 23:50

oh I absolutely agree to the extent that it may in specific lessons be unsafe: if there is a risk of it going up in a bunsen burner/falling in the cake mix/getting soaked with formulin etc - but outside those circumstances or around school generally it is just wrong and against cultural and social diversity. And I would take issue with it.

Vive la difference! (Suddenly bilingual, contrary to my last post!)

MadBadandDangerousToKnow · 18/01/2010 23:54

I couldn't open your link, shallishanti, but I've found some useful stuff about Article 30 online. What I haven't found yet - and what I most want to find - is something which discusses how the child's right to a cultural life fits (if it does) with the state's or the school's rights to introduce law or rules which are designed for the general good. Is this akin to the Human Rights Act where some rights are set against the state's right to introduce laws which regulate how those rights are exercised? Would the interference of insisting on English being spoken in the corridor be considered proportionate?

Anyway, I'm still amibivalent about whether it's sensible to try to police what languages are spoken in the corridors - I don't see any suggestion in the OP that the rule applies to conversations in the playground - and a detention does not sound like the best remedy for whatever problem the rules is trying to solve.

Quattrocento · 18/01/2010 23:57

I think both are reasonable tbh. In my dim and distant past I went to a non-English school in another country and got into bother for speaking english at break. I think that was reasonable - you do have to be adept in the language ...

As to the hair - that seems okay to me

You would be horrified by my dcs schools

TheFallenMadonna · 18/01/2010 23:59

Not as horrifed as you'd be by mine Quat

shallishanti · 19/01/2010 00:01

not sure of the answer to that I suppose it would be tested in a court ultimately. If you keep looking you'll find the report by the comittee which monitors UK's adherence to the Convention, which will give you some idea of how it works out in practice, for example UK is heavily criticised over child poverty, treatment of refugee and asylun seeking children, traveller children. Children's Services are supposed to provide services for children and young people in accordance with the convention.

coldtits · 19/01/2010 00:02

I'm assuming they are trying to ensure that Sihk parents don't try to send their boys to school there.

shallishanti · 19/01/2010 00:03

sorry for shocking spelling tis past my bedtime!