Can somebody please remind me again about state primary school uniforms being enforced.

[LynetteScavo]

DS's school is changing their uniform and school logo (junior and infants are combining to be a primary) we've been told we should provide one logoed polo- shirt and one logoed sweatshirt, but can replace the other uniform as and when our children out grow it.

Some mums I've spoken to are refusing to buy the new logoed polo shirts, as they cost £10 each, and have bought polo shirts in the new colour, but without the logo from M&S/supermarket. I really don't blame them, for those with more than one child at the school there is a massive difference in the total price when buying a few shirts.

I had already bought the requested one of each, and went back to the school wear shop today (pay day! ) to buy some more. But of course the shop is sold out, and there is a huge waiting list for the new uniform.

So I bought some plain polo in the new colour from Sainsburys. (DS had grown out of his old ones, so I had to buy something).

On the one hand I feel the school are being quite cheeky to introduce a uniform which includes a "compulsory" £10 polo shirt, and think other mums who have bought the cheep ones are doing the right thing to make a stand...on the other hand I like to conform, and am scared of DS being told off for not having a logoed shirt.

Where do we stand on this?

[ImNotaCelebrity]

Summer dresses for our local state junior school are £18
They are very distinctive and there is nothing remotely similar in regular shops, not even colour-wise. It's a relatively wealthy area, but even so ...
My dd will be wearing second hand all the way when the time comes!

[dolphin84]

Our school have just changed polo shirt provider. They are not overly expensive £7 I think but the quality is horrible. I have got plain ones which are just as good. Surely it can't matter this time of the year as jumpers are worn over the top.

[mrz]

update

he sent a letter to say his ex wife will pay

[mrz]

He wanted to (and indeed did) buy FIVE logoed polo shirts although the school uniform policy is happy for children to wear school colours... so the face is a [can't win]

[caughtinanet]

mrz - why the face about wanting to buy a top with a school logo?

I wouldn't buy a supermarket top when there's a uniform alternative and I wouldn't be very happy to think school staff were judging my choice before my child had even crossed the threshold.

[crazymum53]

When my child's primary school changed the uniform sweatshirts the school ordered sew-on labels with the new logo so that parents could modify existing uniform.
Have the governors considered this option ?

[GloriaVanderbilt]

our governors ignored this guidance even when a complaint was submitted.

They still demand we buy from an expensive sole supplier.

Nor did they take a blind bit of notice of the joke 'consultation' in which everyone wanted to stay the same.

Shower of b*stards

[startail]

No one wears our logo polos here either.
Expensive and the collars go beige on washing.

[limetrees]

Lynette - you have done the right thing IMO. You were asked to buy one polo, you did this. I would not get involved any further.

I would say that you can manage with one polo through the winter months - it is under the jumper usually and so it won't get too dirty. You can wash and dry for the next day if necessary anyway. My DS had 2 logoed polos for reception year and it was totally fine. He's going to wear them for Y1 as well, so actually, even though they were logoed they have been very good value IMO.

[mrz]

On the final day of term the father of a child joining us in September came into order uniform and both I and the secretary tried to persuade him that he could buy polo shirts from the supermarket in school colours quite cheaply rather than buy five with the embroidered logo as he intended. We failed to persuade him

[prh47bridge]

I have to agree with PanelMember regarding enforcement. Contrary to what some posters seem to think, primary schools are entitled to have a uniform and to enforce it. The child can only be excluded if breaches of uniform policy are persistent and defiant - unlikely for a primary school pupil. A pupil who is wearing an incorrect uniform can be sent home to correct the issue. That counts as an authorised absence and would be entirely lawful, although I would expect a primary school to call the parents to come and collect the child rather than sending them home on their own. If the pupil continues to breach uniform rules and is sent home as a result it becomes an unauthorised absence - again, entirely lawful. I was going to link to the current guidance from the DfE but I see PanelMember has already done so.

Note that the guidance says a lot about keeping costs low. Indeed, insisting on an expensive uniform can be a breach of the Admissions Code.

[pointythings]

Colour me cynical, panelmember but I expect that schools know the OFT guidance very well indeed and are sticking two fingers up at it, and taking on a school is a lot to ask of a parent - the point I am making is that parents shouldn't have to take on the governors of a school and all the powers that be in order to get a fair deal.

[PanelMember]

I wouldn't disagree, Pointythings. But I wonder too how well-known the OFT guidance is and how many people have used the power that already exists, to ask the OFT to rule on whether a particular school's insistence on logo-ed items available only from one shop is reasonable in the circumstances.

[pointythings]

I've seen that site too, panelmember but i just isn't strong enough. Schools are still getting away with selling logo'd items for £10 for a polo shirt when the high street price is a fraction of that, so I really think it's time that there was some enforcement on this - something like allowing a 10 - 20% price increase from local average (and I mean high street/supermarket average, not posh local shop) but no more than that. Self-regulation has clearl failed, schools now need to be hammered to stop them using uniforms as a tax on parents.

[PanelMember]

Pointythings - They have been (or, at least, strongly discouraged). See the OFT guidance to which I just linked.

[PanelMember]

Yes, but the DirectGov site is not a definitive statement. The much more detailed guidance is on the DfE website here. The unauthorised absence point is covered in paragraph 13. There are several places in which the school seems not to have followed this guidance (which is non-statutory).

The guidance doesn't rule out logo-ed items. It does, though, say something about the cost: the governing body is supposed to consider "the cost of including branded items and items in unusual colours/shades before insisting they must be worn, and continually reviews the cost of these items" (paragraph 4). Has the governing body done this?

As I said earlier, I also think the monopoly aspect of getting the polo shirts from one shop is worth challenging - there's Office of Fair Trading guidance on school uniform which would provide some useful background.

I agree, too, that any school ought to approach this with common sense and not use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Whatever power they may have in theory, I would hope that any sensible governing body would not countenance sending children home because they were wearing unlogo-ed polo shirts in the uniform colour. The guidance at paragraph 14 seems reasonable to me.

[pointythings]

Considering this currrent government is so enamoured of the free market, it seems perverse that schools are still allowed to enter into these sole supplier deals - they are a huge, huge ripoff and should be banned.

[carpetlover]

Panel and scurry are both correct to a certain extent. Scurry is correct to say that schools cannot enforce a uniform with logo or demand a uniform from a particular supplier. However, Panel is also correct in that if a school has included it's uniform, (which to comply with above needs really just to be colour) in its home school agreement which all parents have agreed to and signed then technically they can say a child is non-compliant with school rules.

However, I would think it extremely unlikely that any school would allow a child to miss school simply because the parents couldn't afford the correct uniform.

[scurryfunge]

here. Non compliance should not be based on ability to pay.
Schools cannot demand a particular supplier. Common sense should prevail.

Challenge all the way.
There will be no primary school in England or Wales that will exclude on the basis of non compliance with school uniform.
No child will miss out on education for a missing logo on an T-shirt, I guarantee.

[Mumsnut]

It seems nuts to me for a school not to have the right to enforce its uniform policy.

[PanelMember]

Scurryfunge - We're obviously going to have to agaree to disagree. The opinion I've offered here comes from the Dept of Children, Schools and Families (as it was at the time, now the Dept for Education). They have suggested that (a) an unauthorised absence is not an exclusion because the underlying decision (ie not to obtain/wear the uniform) is the parent's not the school's and that (b) this could (not to say that it necessarily would) be done in cases of non-compliance with the uniform policy at primary school. What is your source?

[scurryfunge]

Panelmember...there would be no legal grounds for enforcing such a rule. There would be no unauthorised absence because to send a child home would be unlawful. This is true for primary state education and different for secondary, I believe. No primary school will exclude for uniform non compliance and they know this.

[spiderpig8]

Well if lots of you decide not to comply what are they going to do? Send the whole school home

[PanelMember]

No, there is no legislation that caters for uniform as such but there is plenty that permits schools to have policies on uniform, behaviour and so on. Nor can children be excluded from primary school for non-compliance with the uniform policy.

However, the point here (as I was advised by the DCSF as it then was) is that if a school decided to send a child home for not wearing correct uniform, this wouldn't be an exclusion - it would be an unauthorised absence on the child's part, on the grounds that the parents had made a choice not to comply with one of the conditions of attendance. The distinction is important and is why it alarms me when on threads on school uniform posters sometimes say 'it doesn't matter what your child wears to school because the school can do nothing about it'. That simply isn't true: there are things that the school can do, if it decides. Whether it would make that decision is a different question.

[scurryfunge]

There is no legislation that caters for uniform. Children cannot be excluded at primary level for non compliance.