School Uniform - Love it or hate it.

[GrumpyOldHorsewoman]

Personally loathe uniform, probably because I always had to wear one, even in sixth form. My reasons are this:

1. Strips you of every individuality. Remonds me of old images of communist China - everyone the same.

1. When you realise at 10pm on Sunday evening that DCs have not put their uniform in the washing basket on Friday and you have to stay up late to get it washed (they can't wear it in it's disgusting food-drenched state.

1. Paying £14 (I kid you not) for DD2's logoed school polo shirt (she is in NURSERY school) and £15 for a cardigan made of sweatshirt material.

1. It's always polyester, and girls' school trousers are fucking hideous.

I don't buy that crap about not being able to differentiate between the haves and have nots if they all have to wear the same. Social divide is just as easy to spot in school uniform, and wearing the right trainers/shoes/jacket/bag is an issue even when the rest of them is clad in black and white polyester, so what's the excuse? And what has happened to non-uniform schools - where have they gone? Even all the nursery schools around here have uniforms. Urgh. Hate it.

While nagging teenagers about uniform is a PITA it would be a million timew worse if they didn't wear uniform.

'that isn't smart office wear' 'yes it is' Repeat ad nausiam.

Ask any parent of teenagers!

On non uniform days there are girls who come in dressed like prostitutes, not condusive for concentration in class!

Fromn a teaching point of view I also think uniform helps. If children, especially the teenagers, have uniform rules to break - how many stripes on the tie, style of trousers, trying to get away with trainers, length of skirt, etc. - then they are leaving the bigger rule breaking alone. this does only work if the school is quite strict on the uniform though and picks the kids up on turning up in wrong items/wearing uniform in wrong way. Have seen this work very well.

agree with you totaly Hula.

If they don't have thoserules to push against, they will push at other rules.

pricey uniforms? Look here .

They are made of horrible man made fibres because they are hardwearing and easy care.
At my ds's school, they wear a P.E shirt which is 100% viscose. This is inasne because manmade fibres don't let the skin breathe properly

Re: grants for uniform... I used to run uniform shop at my sons' primary school. I did once accept a voucher, which I seem to remember was enough to buy 2 sweatshirts, several polo shirts and a few other bits.
At the secondary shool they now attend, there is a uniform blazer & tie, plus pe kit, but we buy our own charcoal grey trousers & shirts.
The kids 'assert their individuality' by getting told off for wearing jewellery, leaving their shirts untucked and tying a big fat knot in their tie!

The thing is though, that if uniforms were scarpped there would be even more pressure on parents to come up with £90 for a single pair of trainers. And while £200 for a years school uniform is a lot, other clothes could end up being even more expensive

Yes, TBH I can't think of any children who have had their individuality or assertiveness thwarted by a school uniform! At times in the class I am happy to admit that I really wish it was that simple - would make class management issues so much easier if uniform really did have that level of power!

40+ lol at the 'fat knot' ours do that too!

Moreover they assert their indiviuality by being individuals!

Anyone who thinks that being in school uniform makes them mindless automitons of the state has obviously never met an average teenager

I agree with Hula on the way children use rule breaking over uniform and forget the bigger rules they could break. The worst, most rebellious lads at the school I worked at would focus all their energies on trying to wear their coats in the buildings and forgot generally about the raping and pillaging they were busy doing outside of school hours.

I love the uniform!!

I went to an international school when younger (in Frankfurt) and my sensible mum was not willing to spend a fortune on my clothes. So I wore C&A and other cheap stuff and was horribly bullied because of it. (Well that, plus I was bookish, a bad combination!)

My dc wear uniform at school and nursery. It is cheap - I get the grey stuff from Next as it is a better shape/fit for my ds - polo shirts from Adams (£5 for two, but buy one pack get another one half price), and the logo sweatshirt from the school is £9.
He has two of everything, except poloshirts of which he has , so there is no mad scramble to make sure he has clean uniform in the morning.

As for normal clothes - my dc still get a chance to wear all their normal clothes, I just don't have to buy as much of it, ds has 3 pairs of trousers, 3 sweatshirts, and an assortment of t-shirts.

My ds is 7 now and is expressing his 'originality' through his hairstyle and personality.
Uniform does not strip children of identity - they just find other (more original) ways of expressing themselves rather than clothes.

Hulababy - How about school uniform with electrodes at strategic points?! If they're staring out of the window... 80 volts...talking to a mate...100 volts...texting under the desk 120 volts...

There was an article this weekend in the Guardian comparing the UK and the Netherlands childhood experience, following on from the Unicef report last week that UK children are having the worst childhood and Dutch children the best out of 17 countries. The Dutch children interviewed in the article attributed it to not having to wear uniforms. They saw it as symbolic of the restrictions placed on a British childhood

www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2015252,00.html

Am sure not everyone will agree but I think it is interesting that the UK is quite unusual in having school uniforms in nearly every school. The arguments about it improving discipine and motivation don't really hold up in a cross-national comparison.

peegeeweegee, was that FIS you went to?

40+ and MB the fat tie must be a regional thing, ours pull it up so the know is so small they look like they are not wearing a tie, although year 10 girls like a fat tie that is almost at their waist.

fennel, that's the one!! Did you go there?

Love it!

Don't think much of the Dutch argument especially as so many English schools don't have a uniform. And also... all the children that I know in school uniform are pretty individual. Still... takes a bit of something special to be defined by more than the clothes you wear don't you think?

I think it goes thru phases - we did fat ties at secondary school 35 years ago, then it seemed to go the other way - skinny ones as you describe. It's been back to fat for a few years now.

fennel - that's very interesting. Two of our local secondaries used to have 'casual' uniform with sweatshirts, but never did as well as the other one where blazers were compulsory. Then the 2 casual ones had new heads who reintroduced blazers and the results have apparently improved dramatically. Maybe the children feel more proud of the school if it has a smart identity?

peegeeweegee, I was a teaching assistant, very briefly at the Wiesbaden branch, I have a friend who's a teacher there.

Marsciento, I agree. Defining people by the clothes they wear (as in you wear cool trainers, you can be my friend) is as daft as judging a book by its cover.

At least with uniform, children will befriend one-another (or not as the case may be) because of behaviour/personality. Much more honest than the superficial clothing method.

I don't think much of the Dutch comments either (and I am Dutch), when interviewed the Dutch children said that they thought English children were less happy because so many of them went to boarding schools....

It is a stereotype of British schooling that I had whilst growing up - posh boarding schools in imposing old buildings, very strict matrons and very strict uniform complete with hats!

The reality is much different for the majority. But is is this stereotype that appears in books/tv (or at least it did when I grew up in Holland)

We went to De Efteling at October half term and I thought it was noticeable that there were lots of unaccompanied Dutch teenagers in groups, larking around and being silly, but not behaving like some of the yobs you see at British theme parks.

But is that a uniform issue fortyplus? Or do they have a different/better upbringing?

I am not saying this to criticize (can't even spell the bl**dy word) but visiting Holland often and living in the UK it strikes me as the Dutch parents seem less 'rough' then the UK ones. There seem to be less people with shell suits/huge earrings/tattoos, threatening to hit their children/shouting at them/ignoring them.
Parents seem to make more time for their children, parents seem to have more self-respect (dress better/behave better) so it follows that they instill this respect into their children.

I don't know what causes that, but I find it hard to believe it all stems from wearing uniform in school...

Some of your points make sense, Peegeeweegee, and in the end the NL has far less poverty and income disparity than the UK, which is a lot of the reason it does well in the Unicef survey.

But I think the uniform issue is part of the having respect for children issue. In some ways it is an imposing of institutional behaviour onto children, rather than giving them the freedom to make even a fairly simple decision such as deciding what they are going to wear.

don't mean the other points don't make sense, sorry I just meant I was particularly focusing on some of them...

But many jobs in real life have uniforms or dress codes and restrictions, so I don't see why children are any different from that. They get to chose their own clothing outside of school afterall.