silly school rules

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My son came home on Friday with a detention for repeatedly floating the school uniform rules. I can understand if he was walking around school refusing to put his tie on, but detention for having his top button undone and shirt untucked in my opinion is ridiculous. My son leaves the house looking smart but I don't ask his to fasten his top button, that's up to him. Do other school adopt a similar draconian approach. My opinion is schools should concentrate on improving teaching standards rather than the way someone looks.

It’s very simple. He can choose to have his button undone and shirt untucked and deal with the consequences of that by doing his detentions. Or he can do his button up and tuck his shirt in and then he won’t have to do detentions. Mummy getting involved won’t achieve anything other than make you look like the daily fail sad face idiots so don’t do it!

I feel the “repeated” defiance is why it’s escalated to detention. Teachers are sick of wasting time telling him to smarten himself up.

Because hopefully, part of their education is training about how to be an independent adult. And part of that is to know what the expectations are and to follow them.

It might seem a petty thing, but it is the rule and if students choose to ignore the rule, then it is inevitable that they will eventually be sanctioned for it.

It doesn’t matter whether you or your child think it’s sully and unnecessary. It’s what you signed up to when you enrolled your child in the school.

I can tell you too, that teachers would prefer not to have to pull students up on uniform transgressions , or to issue and police detentions. But they have to follow the rules too.

I would hardly call the rules regarding uniform silly. If your son school uniform states top button done up then he needs to follow the rules. It's the same with the untucked shirt. Both, my child go to school dressed with top button and tie done up, blazer on and shirt tucked in. If they disobeyed those rules in school they would get a sanction at home as well as school. You need to read the school uniform policy.

Agree. At our school, uniform is checked upon entrance. Coats off. Shirts tucked in, ties and top buttons done up. Your son needs to abide by the school rules and you should support it.

I do think silly draconian rules-for-the-sake-of-rules turn kids off and encourage an unnecessary us-and-them dynamic.

I also think a lot of schools (especially academies) are introducing new, increasingly silly and formal uniforms and rules around appearance which they seem to think will magically improve discipline. As if dressing up the kids like extras from Tom Brown's School Days will somehow vanish all the complex social and systemic problems that lead to poor behaviour. It's lazy and insulting, and the kids know it.

A friend of mine went to a convent and they had a rule about not overtaking nuns in the corridor They also had some very old nuns who were very slow and being late to lesson because Sister Francis was causing a traffic jam was an accepted excuse.

Most workplaces have a dress code and if you go in wearing the wrong clothes you Could be disciplined sent home or even sacked. Schools have a dress code to teach children there is an appropriate time to wear certain types of clothes. School also teaches other things such as being punctual, quiet in class and so on. It's part of school life and Shows children acceptable behaviour and teaches them how to behave as an adult

Huge and obvious differences between rules which serve an effective purpose - punctuality, no shouting over the teacher, no giant hoop earrings during PE - and rules which are simply there to augment the dynamic of control for the sake of it. Kids know the difference. The first sort of rules ARE analogous to those kids will later face in the workplace. The second aren't, and in any decent workplace pointless and stupid rules should and will be challenged by workers.

Why do you believe your son doesn’t have to follow uniform rules? I think it’s a slightly OTT rule, myself, but only a child with a BAD attitude would refuse to do up his top button and tuck in his shirt after being instructed to do so by multiple members of staff. I’ve met these kids - they’re no fun.

The second aren't, and in any decent workplace pointless and stupid rules should and will be challenged by workers.

Students aren’t workers. They are not doing a job, producing, servicing, etc. They are learning. They don’t have the right to decide which rules they intend to follow. If you want that for your child, do it at home.

Yes, all schools I know have this rule (top button, shirt tucked in). I'd call it standard, not draconian.

Absolutely fine if you don't want to remind him to fasten the button/tuck his shirt in, but I wouldn't complain about the consequences if he doesn't!

Then don't pretend that the purpose of arbitrary and pointless rules is to prepare children for the world of work. They don't, and they aren't designed to.

Then don't pretend that the purpose of arbitrary and pointless rules is to prepare children for the world of work. They don't, and they aren't designed to.

In some respects they are. A fast food shop floor, for example, will have certain rules: wear your badge, get a hair net on, no phones, no long socks, no jewellery.

Of course, but workplace rules generally have some relevance to the practical function of the working environment. That's quite different to policing girls' eyebrows, for example, or sending a GCSE student to isolation because his sensible, practical black shoes have a small logo on the back.

That's quite different to policing girls' eyebrows, for example, or sending a GCSE student to isolation because his sensible, practical black shoes have a small logo on the back.

In schools, having a no heavy make-up or no logo shoes rule has a purpose. It may not be obvious to you, but it exists.

I do think some school rules are totally unneccessary. If the rule is for health and safety reasons, fair enough. But rules regarding hairstyles/colours etc. prevent teenagers from expressing their individuality. Our local secondary school insist that pupils have to ask a teacher for permission to remove their blazer. That's ridiculous in my opinion. They should be allowed to regulate their own bloody body-temperature!

Completely agree with you, Greensleeves. Shouldn't we have moved on from the "they are children and don't have the right choose!" attitude by now?! Being young shouldn't mean their voices aren't heard.

Completely agree with you, Greensleeves. Shouldn't we have moved on from the "they are children and don't have the right choose!" attitude by now?! Being young shouldn't mean their voices aren't heard.

No. Adults are responsible for children. That means children need to be guided by adults. It doesn’t mean people shouldn’t listen to children, but adults get the final say.

Adults certainly get the final say in my house. I don't generally make them jump through meaningless hoops for the sole purpose of emphasising that point, though. I imagine they would have little respect for me if I did.

Adults certainly get the final say in my house. I don't generally make them jump through meaningless hoops for the sole purpose of emphasising that point, though. I imagine they would have little respect for me if I did.

But the rules do have a purpose. You just don’t understand it.

Take the top button rule. On the surface of it, it sounds silly. I agree. But if you take it away, it’s hard to do up the tie tidily. Ties not done up well are a H&S risk - can be grabbed in a fight, can get caught on things. Or, if you take the rule away, the children walk into Maths with the first three buttons open, and the next thing you know, one of them is complaining that his/her peer - or the teacher - is looking down their top. So you take away buttons and ties, and let them wear polo shirts. Applications to Y7 explode. But it’s not the mixed demographic you had before. It’s all the local parents who hate school uniform, hate teachers, hate authority, and have gone, “Fantastic!” That isn’t good for your school, or its students.

You’ll get people carping and moaning because they don’t understand why a rule exists, but sometimes the reasons are subtle.

I also think a lot of schools (especially academies) are introducing new, increasingly silly and formal uniforms and rules around appearance which they seem to think will magically improve discipline. As if dressing up the kids like extras from Tom Brown's School Days will somehow vanish all the complex social and systemic problems that lead to poor behaviour. It's lazy and insulting, and the kids know it.

There have been quite a few studies looking into the effects of having a school uniform. They consistently find that teachers like uniforms but pupils hate them, which is unsurprising. The majority of studies also find that introducing uniform is linked to improved attendance, improved behaviour and improved academic results. The studies are not unanimous - a few found no effect and a tiny minority found an adverse effect. But the majority find a positive effect.

You are, of course, right that introducing a uniform will not make social and other problems disappear, nor will it stop poor behaviour completely. But, despite your scepticism, the evidence suggests that having a uniform does bring benefits.

workplace rules generally have some relevance to the practical function of the working environment

I have come across a lot of places where workplace rules on dress code and other subjects have little, if any, relevance to the practical function of the working environment. On the particular subject of uniform/dress code, an employer can enforce whatever they want within reason provided it is not discriminatory (or, if it is, the discriminatory aspects are a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim). So, for example, an IT consultancy a few years ago banned staff from having beards or moustaches purely because the MD didn't think they gave the right image. Similarly, an employee who was fired for wearing his hair longer than allowed by the employer's dress code lost his case for unfair dismissal.

You may not approve of such workplaces but there are many of them around.

The OP's child has repeatedly flouted the rules. If that happened in the workplace he could be sacked. If he doesn't want to be disciplined he should follow the rules. He can't pick and choose. If the OP doesn't think her son should be disciplined for his behaviour she needs to move him to a school with a more relaxed dress code.

My DD has recently started a job:

• Formal office wear, no bare shoulders, or jeans, or casual trousers.
• Mobile phones to be off and away.
• To be ready to start at start time (not just wandering in with a coffee)

Basic stuff that school set her up well for.

I would hardly call uniform rules silly. Shirts tucked in and doing up top buttons are an expectation in most schools. Uniform is a good behaviour tool for teachers. Ready to learn.

Your child leaves the house looking smart. Thats good.

Unfortunately, I can guarantee that your child will have their shirt
un-tucked and tie hanging off within 100 meters of your front door.

Children think its "cool" to defy basic school rules. The most obvious and easy to flout is the uniform....

I give at least 5-10 warnings to the same students per day regarding their uniform, every single day. I have 3 students in my form that have a detention every week for uniform issues.

If you go around with your top button undone in our school you would be told to do it up. Also, you would look the odd one out as most others comply with the rules. Doing up the top button, insisting ties are done up shows the school cares about the way they want their school portrayed. It's also ensuring all look smart and follow the rules.