Uniform thread update.. MP meeting tomorrow

[Fisharefriendsnotfood]

Hi

I've had a long running thread about my dd's school not allowing girls to wear trousers as part of uniform.. Can't link as on phone. Anyway, all attempts to get school to change policy have failed and due to dd crying with the cold last week we got her a Dr note and she is now wearing trousers.

I still want this ridiculous rule changed though. I have a meeting with my MO tomorrow to try and get his support and to float the idea that it should be illegal for schools to discriminate in this manner as it is in employment situations.

Anyway, any tips for me ahead of the meeting? I've hardly slept al week and am far from feeing at the top of my game

I wonder how they'd react to a boy wanting to wear a skirt? Seems a bit hypocritical coming from an institution where men routinely wear dresses.

Hope you get a good result.

Well done fish.

No secondary schools in my area allow girls to wear trousers. It blows my mind that they get away with it. Although there are a lot of women where I live whose families wouldn't allow them to wear trousers, so a trousers for all policy wouldn't work either.

Local primary schools don't officially allow trousers either but if you send a girl wearing trousers nothing will be said about it as long as it matches what the boys wear.

Good luck with the meeting. I would have loved to have been allowed to wear trousers to school and wish a parent at my school would have taken up the battle for us.

I thought that primaries weren't allowed to enforce school uniform anyway? My mother sent me and my siblings to a Catholic primary school with full uniform requirements in clothes that she preferred (a kilt for some reason, I really wish she hadn't!) and I'm sure that there was a loophole that mean she got away with it. Long long ago though.

It seems so ridiculous to make girls where skirts when the majority of women wear trousers most of the time now. But then I really don't understand the benefits of uniform full stop now my children are in a no uniform system and suffering no downside.

Good luck fish, and well done on getting a solution for your little girl at least.

"I thought that primaries weren't allowed to enforce school uniform anyway"

This is often repeated online, but it is not actually the case.

Was it true in the past and has changed then? Me and my siblings never wore our primary school uniform, but all wore uniform for secondary school. Not quite sure what my mother's rationale was, but I know it wasn't an issue at school - I can remember my mother being told that it would probably make us happier to wear the same stuff as everyone else, but we were never sent home or punished. My understanding is that the school was not allowed to punish or exclude us.

I am so pleased you are pursuing this with the help of your MP. Really hoping this rule will disappear at your daughter's school along with the Headteacher, but your point is a wider one and sensible guidance could benefit other children.