challenging ridiculous uniform policy

[Clearinguptheclutter]

DS started y7 this week. It appears that it is compulsory for all children to wear a jumper underneath the compulsory blazer. There is an exception for this week only, and from June onwards but all other times they are expected to wear them.

They are allowed to ask to take the blazer off, but apparently not the jumper. In practice teachers we think are more flexible but that is the rule. Certainly when walking around school they are expected to wear both.

Both DH and I think this is completely batshit. As it happens DS is a rule-follower and will probably just go along with it but I just don't understand this reasoning at all. In whose interest is it for kids to be hot and sweaty when learning? Who on earth in the real world wears jumpers underneath suit jackets? From what we can tell the rationale is. a. the kids will look smarter and b. it gives the kids a "collective sense of identity". I rolled my eyes at that.

Anyway I'm also a rule-followed so will just hope it works itself out. DH otoh really wants to challenge it on the basis "why does the school think it can make a collective judgement on if our kids are too hot or not". In the real world if you are too hot, you take a layer off. You don't ask for permission. Obvs there are exemptions for certain professions for good reason. He has a call booked with the head of year to discuss.

Anyway just wondering what others think of this policy if you have them and has anyone ever succesfully challenged?

Or is my DH unreasonable for challenging and we should just shut up and put up. DH is telling DS "there is no need for you wear a jumper unless you want to and if anyone has a problem ask them to call me" which I don't think is terribly helpful. As much as I hate the rule I don't want to encourage DS to break it.

Our school and other schools in the area have the same rule. We were told teachers are always reasonable and let children remove their blazers in class. Also, you dont need to wear the jumper for the summer term.

I know we had a few warm days but generally this country is not the warmest, so I cant see it being a massive issue. I have more of a problem with our school only allowing school uniform coat in winter, which I was told is not the warmest one.

Agree with you entirely.
fortunately our school doesn’t have any kind or rule with coats. It would appear very few wear one (we are up north so it def gets very cold!). I have bought ds an oversized non-lined raincoat to go over his blazer, which he can probably shove in his bag if necessary.

Totally ridiculous having to ask to remove your blazer. What happens if you’re hot but the teacher says ‘no’?
When I read these threads I’m so glad DT’s was a non uniform school so when it was cooler they wore jeans and swooped to shorts on warmer days - no permission required- they could think for themselves what was appropriate for the weather.

We are in east London so all secondary schools are ridiculously strict here, and all have uniforms prescribed even down to the socks colour. I can imagine there is a good reason for that ))

In my school it’s blazer compulsory, jumper optional extra. Blazer must be worn in corridors, can be off in lessons.
Kids prefer the jumper. They will claim to be dying of heat exposure and refuse to wear the blazer. This is while wearing the jumper. 95% of pupils will never remove the jumper no matter the heat. We just argue about the bloody blazer.
I think the logic is, if they didn’t have to wear it no one would buy it. I know uniform costs are a separate argument.
When DSS was at school, it was ‘you don’t have to wear the blazer or jumper, but you don’t wear anything else’ (hoody etc). He refused both and shivered November-March.
You can’t win.

At my nieces’ school, in Ireland, wearing a jumper was compulsory, some thought it was to prevent coloured lacy bras showing through the while shirt, & to save the blushes of the male teachers & principal 😳
In my son’s school, in Northern Ireland, an officious head of department was instructing all the students to put their blazers back on at an extremely warm 20+ degrees prize giving evening, where sun poured in through the many windows.
I quietly mentioned to her that I would be concerned that some of the teens might faint - all of a sudden, there was a special announcement that blazers did not have to be worn on this occasion 😂
Thankfully my son has left school now, is quite the young executive and wears cargoes & a tee & hoodie to work, unless it’s a special meeting, then it’s an open neck shirt, jacket & black jeans.
School uniforms are enforced for control - which is rarely followed through in the world of work.

The policy didn't set out that children would not be allowed to remove pointless items of uniform without permission. Didn't you read OP's posts?

Usually the jumper is optional, the blazer compulsory when moving between lessons for smartness. Jumpers aren’t even that smart; they’re just an item of winter clothing, so I never understand that bit. I never wear a jumper even in winter! I’m a secondary school teacher btw and I always tell kids to take their jumpers off if they’re hot. 🥵

I suspect that if OP's husband tries to make the appointment with the head he will be told to raise his concerns with the HoY first anyway. At least the HoY can pass on the very valid questions that will be raised about this, and if the issue is not resolved, Mr OP can legitimately insist on speaking to someone further up the line.

If children don't want to wear blazers, why waste time arguing about it? Just get on with the lesson. Blazers are stupid garments anyway, there's a reason why they aren't worn routinely outside schools.

It isn't about what the children want though is it? It is about rules that are there to be followed. It is about rules that parents agreed to when they choose to send their child to that particular school. If a parent doesn't like the rules of a school the can either send them some where else or home school them.

They didn't agree with this rule, @Getonwitit, because the school chose to keep quiet about it.

It's SO ridiculous to say that parents can "just choose" to send their children to another school that doesn't have the same ridiculous rules. In many areas there aren't enough school places and the reality is that parents don't have a free choice. As for saying they must home school, that is equally wholly unrealistic when parents need an income to keep a roof over the family's heads.

It's interesting that when these topics come up, people supporting them are in an ever-decreasing minority; the majority of parents and indeed non-parents can see just how unjustifiable and ridiculous strict uniform rules are. Yet some schools, particularly academy schools, still labour under the delusion that parents like them and it makes them look good. It's mostly laziness on the schools' part, as it's much easier to mess around with uniform and enforce draconian rules around it than actually to ensure high quality teaching and learning. I wonder when these schools will finally catch up with reality?

I hate school uniform rules when they are this militant. I work with young people who struggle accessing education. 1 girl I worked with had 0% attendance from September to January and I managed to get her in school for a hour to build up to a part time timetable. She made it all the way on site and then got told off for wearing fake eyelashes so left straight away.

Another child was a child who entered foster care and was so happy that she had a pair of school shoes that fit her properly. Apparently they looked too much like trainers (they 100% werent trainers) and was given school “spare shoes” to wear. I was furious.

ClockwiseHoneysuckle
If the rule is that you wear a jumper then it's fairly obvious that this does not mean carry it round in your bag. It means wear it unless you are told you don't need to. I would have thought this was pretty self explanatory personally.

This is so awful and emphasises how pointless most of these petty rules are.

Our local school its blazers only no other jackets no matter the weather. It drives me crazy when it's pouring with rain and freezing. I work for same council and they provide me with full length coat, hat, gloves and waterproof trousers. It's crazy

@Clearinguptheclutter so the rule is that they must wear the jumper at all times unless given permission to take it off? But the blazer is not compulsory? If so, then yes, some other schools have this rule for most of the year (until it gets hot in summer when it gets relaxed).

Are short sleeved shirts allowed? Some children prefer them - if so I'd buy those if he has a tendency to get hot. Also if you are allowed to choose which shop to buy the jumper from (i.e. it's non-branded) then you can choose thinner ones which helps

no @PollyPut both are comuplsory generally though the jumpers (not blazers) rule is lifted during the warmest weeks

yes we have bought short sleeved shirts which seem to be working well so far

and jumpers don’t have to be branded so bought the cheapest ones I could find at Asda which are pretty thin tbf

Luckily our school - jumpers optional.
Blazers compulsary.

Back in the 80s i remember going back to school in September in a coat and sometimes a hat because it was cold. this was circa 1984/85 so forty years ago. Now September is quite a warm month.

As the school does not seem to realise this i assume they arent lecturing about climate change or including it on the curriculum because that would be completely hypocritical. If they DO teach about climate change then their hypocrisy should be pointed out to them

@ClockwiseHoneysuckle

The vast majority of parents want a school in which their DC can learn well in a safe and calm environment. In an ideal world, this would be possible without rules, but that is not the reality.

There are a good number of inadequate schools where DC rule the roost if parents are so averse to rules. Just take this charming Ofsted report. sounds great, doesn’t it?

Pupils are typically disengaged in lessons. They may ignore the teacher and chat
among themselves. Some pupils can be defiant. They do not respond to adults’ requests, and they leave lessons because they want to. Some pupils think they need to misbehave to fit in. Certain behaviour is dangerous, such as planned fights, and this has left pupils and staff feeling unsafe.

Pupils do not treat one another with respect. Name-calling, the use of homophobic
language and bullying are features of everyday life for too many pupils. Pupils have stopped reporting bullying because, too often, ‘nothing happens’. The negative experiences pupils have at school mean they do not want to attend.

Some staff spend their time looking for pupils on site as they are not where they should be. Truanting pupils cause problems by disturbing other lessons.

Many parents and staff agree that pupils are not safe on site. Some of the most vulnerable pupils have suffered serious violence or harm by other
pupils.

Staff report that they have received injuries from pupils, but school leaders have no oversight of this.

The school’s core values of ‘respect, responsibility and resilience’ are often ignored. Too many pupils have a lack of respect for one another and for adults who work at the school. Some behaviour is unsafe.

I will add that the above school is not an outlier- for a long time it was related good by ofsted. However, it is a warning of what happens when schools become lax on behaviour as many are advocating on here.

But that wasn't the rule. The parents were simply given a list of school uniform items. Surely it's obvious that there is no expectation that pupils wear all school uniform items all the time?

If that had been the case with my school uniform list, I would have been wearing, from the inside layer outwards: a shirt, a tunic, a jumper, a blazer, a coat and a cloak - even before considering how to fit games kit in. I guess if we'd overbalanced we'd all have been well-insulated from injury, provided of course that we didn't all die of heat exhaustion.

What on earth is the relevance of that Ofsted report, @LaughingPig? You've dug out a report on a poor school, it says absolutely nothing about the uniform issue, nor indeed does it blame the problems on parents questioning school rules. Poorly performing schools exist, it is utterly irrelevant to the issue of schools imposing idiotic rules that adversely affect pupils' ability to learn.

You've been asked why looking smart is so important, and more important than teaching and learning. I haven't seen a response?