School Uniforms - Good or Bad??

filigree_2

I heartily approve of uniform in principle, so long as it isn't ugly or expensive. Luckily my son's school recognise that a lot of the families are on low incomes. The children wear any navy trousers, skirt or pinafore dress, with a logo polo shirt and a logo sweatshirt or fleece. The uniform is unisex which makes it easier to pass down to siblings.

Having said there are a lot of poor families, I am amazed at the quantity of unclaimed, unlabelled clothes in Lost Property. The PTA wash them and flog them for £1 a piece at fundraising events, and we're lucky to sell a handful of items.

My High School had an obscenely expensive uniform, the nasty polyester blouses cost £8.50 each and this was over 20 years ago! Luckily the school ran a very efficient second hand uniform sale each year, where most items cost 50p - £1. It was an affluent school and many parents were happy to buy a new uniform every year and donate the perfectly acceptable cast-offs.

My only gripe is schools that have wishy washy rules and don't apply them properly. When I was younger my brother started at a new school and they gave my Mum a strict uniform list. We were on benefits and the uniform grant was minimal, so she spent money she could ill-afford on his uniform. After a week he was coming home in tears because he was the only kid in class wearing uniform and he was getting bullied about it. Mum was absolutely ******* furious, as you can imagine. My son's school introduced a "no trainers" rule so I had to buy him proper school shoes, but they didn't enforce the rule and of course he didn't want to be the only nerd in Clark's shoes. Bah.

nearlyrich

My two are past the uniform stage now although what they wear seems to be similar to their fellow students so it might as well be a uniform. I always found it easier and cheaper to put them in a uniform at both primary and secondary school and as I wrote in another thread some of my son's primary sweatshirts are still in use after 15 years and they are now on their sixth owner so they definately represented good value LOL.

The talk of strange school uniform takes me back to my school days when I had the most distictive blazer on the planet, you could probably see it from space. It was Brown with stripes of red yellow purple and blue and looked like the type of thing a deckchair attendant might wear having fashioned it from one of the deckchairs. This was worn with a very stylish straw hat with a band in the blazer colour scheme. We had very thick and uncomfotable fitted turquoise summer dresses in textured crimpelene ( well it was the 70's) and pale blue cardigans, that was the summer uniform. In winter it was brown pinafore and turquoise blouse with stripey tie. Brown felt hat with stripey band and long wool coat in brown. All set off by chunky brown brogues with max 1" heels for outdoors and brown flat sandals for indoors.

We also had the lovely blue airtex sports shirts and brown gym knickers for pe with black pumps for indoor sport and white tennis pumps for outdoor sports, no fancy trainers for us, not that they had been invented at the time.:cool:

Todays easy care fabrics are much easier to handle, my blouses were 100% cotton and had to be starched...ouch!

hilstep2000

My daughter's school was polo shirt and sweatshirt, but you had to buy them in the school shop, because they were embroidered with the logo, although, we had some hand-me-downs from a friends girl who went already. My son is at a former Grammar, so they still wear blazers, shirt and tie, but last year they introduced the school polo for the summer tem (£13 each!) and in September, introduced school baseball caps and "hoodies", they are smart though although again the hoodie was £18! they are embroidered along the back with the school name. I think the head got fed up with a mish-mash, but decided "If you can't beat em..."!

On the whole though I think uniform is better, I'm lucky that my son doesn't mind what shoes he wears (he's 15) he isn't into designer gear unlike his sister. I always tell my kids £15 is my limit on trainers, any more and you save up yourself, they always have, and I feel they appreciate it more.

loracan1

school uniforms - Definitely good, saves a lot of bother. My 8-year old wears blue or white shirt and tie, grey pants. Though how he manages to get holes in his knees within a few months is beyond me.

And I remember my pe uniform consisting of yellow polo shirt, brown gym skirt and knickers and a particularly fetching shade of bottle green leotard worn with slipperettes for dancing on a wednesday.

Savvy_Sue

rushnowt wrote:

My daughter at secondary school is the most expensive to buy for as they do have a strict dress code there, but at least once its purchased it will last for the whole year

Don't you feed (whoops! not 'feel') her? Trousers used to last my lot a year, but every time I look at them now they seem to be up round their knees!

rushnowt wrote:

the jackets are my real problem as they tend to lose them in school and are never found again, my son as required 2 jackets already this year and now the second one has gone missing :mad:

Presumably you get their name into the jackets before they go to school? I know the primary school started writing names in uniform before handing it over the counter to try to reduce the number of un-named brand-new sweatshirts finding their way to Lost Property! They also started to do a termly check that all items of uniform had names in them, and you'd get a letter home if they didn't!

[Deleted User]

Great idea!!

bokkie7975

My family moved abroad when I was in 2nd year of secondary school - imagine the shock to my system to be told that there was a strict uniform policy, as my old school had a "suggestion of uniform policy".
so i was forced into;
- cherry blazer in winter with grey skirt & white shirt for girls /grey trousers & white shirt for boys. summer was a red gingham dress for girls/ grey shorts for boys.
wow! 18 year old "boys" wearing shorts every day soon sent the temperature rising. funnily enough I soon got used to it and didn't even notice them after a while.:D
the school had a 2nd hand shop which sold donated uniforms and unclaimed lost property.
Uniform is definitely a good thing if it is sensible and affordable.
my girls are at the 1st stages of fashion awareness and I would never be able to afford to keep them up to date........ not to mention taste - it's amazing how often I hear my mother's words coming out of my mouth - "you are not going out in THAT"

rushnowt

Savvy_Sue wrote:

Don't you feel her? Trousers used to last my lot a year, but every time I look at them now they seem to be up round their knees!


Presumably you get their name into the jackets before they go to school? I know the primary school started writing names in uniform before handing it over the counter to try to reduce the number of un-named brand-new sweatshirts finding their way to Lost Property! They also started to do a termly check that all items of uniform had names in them, and you'd get a letter home if they didn't!

LOL, i'm definately worried about her having a big growing spurt, so far we seem to have done ok, the 1st year i bought a pair too long and took them up so that they could be lenghtened, and this year she doesnt seem to have grown that much, but as she's 12 now im expecting her to shoot up in no time and i'll have to dash off to get some new trousers out of the blue LOL, but fingers crossed we make it till the start of the summer hols.

All the younger ones have their names in their clothing but unfortunately it doesnt seem to make any difference, the strangest thing of all is that the items just seem to vanish, the school has no lost property area at all so the kids just dont know what to do when they lose something.

I've been in to see my sons class teacher twice in the past couple of months and explained about him losing these damn jackets and to tell him that im not in a postion where i can afford to be replacing these at £14 a time each time ones lost, and he just looks at you blankly and says it'll turn up :mad: smart answer. but wrong, they never have I've refused to buy another one this year and wrote a letter in to school saying that he;s already had 2 this year and if they dont turn up then he will have to wait until next year before i can buy another one, I've heard nothing back so i expect thats it then ?

burbs_2

hi

good question. I personally am only 22 as is my girlfriend and we have a 4 year old daughter who will be going to school in september. she is looking forward to it as kids do and we really cannot wait.

the most exciting thing that i cannot wait for is the first day that she comes out of her room in her school uniform, that will be the proudest moment of the last few years for me and her mum.

another way of looking at it, and i know this is a bit of a shallow argument but anyway, is the fact that kids who went to school without uniform on would be so paranoid about wearing the right clothes and if they didnt wear the most expensive clothing then they would be the victims of bullying. at least with a uniform they are all on an equal playing field so to speak

rushnowt

burbs wrote:

hi

the most exciting thing that i cannot wait for is the first day that she comes out of her room in her school uniform, that will be the proudest moment of the last few years for me and her mum.

awwww, I was the same with mine, I was taking pics the first morning with tears streaming down my face, I was so proud and they looked so smart, but i was also worried ****less LOL, everything was fine and they loved it as i'm sure your little girl will do too