POLL: Should students have to wear school uniforms?

Suzanne Harrington and Arlene Harris debate the need of uniforms in schools today. Have your say in the poll in at the bottom of the story.

"It’s not the girls who need educating. To force girls to wear long, shapeless garments so that they will not attract unwanted sexual attention — seriously, isn’t that a bit Taliban?"

It’s the person inside that matters, not the colour of their socks or the length of their skirt, argues Suzanne Harrington

SO TERM is under way and everyone has settled back in. Or have they? What if you were one of the children sent home for uniform ‘infractions’? Like the child in Margate, Kent, who was dismissed for wearing black suede shoes instead of black leather shoes?

She was one of 50 sent home on her first day. How would this affect her sense of confidence and belonging within the school community? Were her parents able to afford a second pair of almost identical shoes?

There is much mythology around how putting on a blazer and the “right” shoes magically improves attendance, grades, attitude, performance, and learning. If that were the case, nobody would ever bunk off or fail an exam again — they’d simply slip on the magic blazer to get a string of A-pluses.

Suzanne Harrington

According to a study by the University of Houston, school uniforms have no impact whatsoever on grades, but can improve attendance between 0.3% and 0.4%. Which you can see — even if you failed maths — is not very much. And the only reason it improves attendance is that it’s harder to bunk off in uniform than in ordinary clothes — you are more visible.

There are two glaring points regarding the fetishisation of school uniform. The first one is the most obvious — it’s not uniforms which get good grades and improve attendance, it’s good teachers. It’s getting students interested, passionate, inspired, fired up. Not niggled at or humiliated because their shirt collar is the wrong shape. Never mind their shirt, what about their character?

Are they kind, decent, helpful to others, socially aware, involved in the school community? Or are they alienated by a bunch of meaningless petty rules about things that really don’t matter? A 15-year-old boy in my daughter’s class fainted last week in the warm weather because he was not allowed to take off his blazer inside the classroom. He was taken away in an ambulance — how would this have helped his grades and attendance?

The second thing is more sinister, because it involves the stifling of individuality. If you can’t express yourself as a teenager, then when can you? I’d rather a happy, confident kid with blue hair who gets solid maths grades/can speak decent Spanish than a perfectly attired kid too strangulated by rules to ever put their hand up. Forcing kids to all look the same is Maoist. It works brilliantly in Pyongyang — so why do we adopt such tactics in our secondary schools? It’s not aspirational, it’s oppressive — our kids are not going to Eton, nor have they joined the army. They’re just kids, crammed into exam factories. They’re already under enough academic pressure on them without someone shouting at them about their trousers.

The sexualisation argument falls flat too. If some girls like wearing short skirts, why shouldn’t they? Tight trousers, short skirts — if these are a problem, it’s not the girls who need educating. To force girls to wear long, shapeless garments so that they will not attract unwanted sexual attention — seriously, isn’t that a bit Taliban? Wouldn’t it be better if young people were educated and socialised to respect each other as human beings rather than alien creatures of the opposite sex?

Strict school uniform policy appeals to some parents and some teachers. Many teachers find enforcing the “correct” sock colour tiresome and draining — it’s not like they already have an easy job.

Focussing on students’ outward appearance gives entirely the wrong message — one of pettiness, control, and superficiality being more important than character and intellect.

It’s the person inside the clothes that counts. That is all that matters.

"If your school requires you to wear a skirt to your knee, then put the damn thing on"

Parents should teach their children that no means no when it comes to school uniforms, writes Arlene Harris

THE kids are well and truly back at school now and, while many parents spent the last few weeks of the summer holidays frantically searching for the correct shoes, trousers, or shirt to complete their school uniform, many others opted for a watered-down version.

At my youngest son’s school, we parents regularly get notes reminding us of the fact that branded tracksuit bottoms with logos are not suitable attire for the primary school classroom. This is firstly, I would assume, to reduce competition between those who can afford the ludicrous price tags and those who have better things to spend their money on than trousers with large lettering down one leg. I would also imagine that it is designed for the children to be dressed the same in order for the school to present a uniform look on the clothing front.

There is nothing wrong with any of that in my mind, because not only is it less costly and looks better, but it also makes life a lot easier without the hassle of deciding what to wear each day.

Arlene Harris

However, once the kids get to secondary school, many will try to enforce their will and apply their own brand of fashion into their school attire — and I get that too — we were all teenagers once and know how confining it is to have to stick to knee-length skirts, regulation trousers, and “sensible” school shoes, but we all learned how to get on with it (albeit, by sticking with the rules until we were past the eagle eye of the principal and then going about the serious business of rolling up skirts, loosening ties, and applying a lick of mascara).

The point is that no teenager likes having to wear a uniform, but nowadays it seems many parents are siding with their rebellious teens and allowing them to choose skinny, low-rise jeans or leggings as school trousers, skirts that hardly contain their modesty, and shoes more suited to the local gym.

There were angry scenes all across the UK earlier this month, as many schools decided to adopt a hard line with returning students with the result that those who weren’t dressed properly were refused entry.

Parents rang the national newspapers, outraged because their daughters “didn’t like wearing baggy trousers” or had an aversion to leather shoes. While others took things a step further and staged protests outside their child’s school, shouting and heckling teachers until the police were called to break up the mob.

Is it just me, or is this just plain ridiculous?

A uniform is a uniform – you know the requirements when you register for the school, so how can you justify complaining about spending a fortune on new trousers and shoes when they are nothing like the clothes stipulated on the uniform list?

Youngsters today have been dubbed “Generation Snowflake” for their inability to deal with anything which doesn’t please them, but from what I can see, it is often the parent’s fault. They should learn from a young age that no means no and, if your school requires you to wear a skirt to your knee, then put the damn thing on. Roll it up once you are inside the gates if you must, but don’t feel you have the right to protest because it “doesn’t look nice”.

When my eldest boy started secondary school, he was required to wear black leather shoes. He wasn’t happy and spent the first term moaning about how awful they were, but he soon got used to them and found other things to concentrate his mind.

So, parents who feel it’s fine to adapt a uniform policy to suit their child’s taste, should stop and think about the bigger picture: It’s not really about a disciplinarian principle enforcing draconian rules, it’s about teaching kids to do what is required, whether they like it or not.

As I said before, the uniforms are there for many a reason and, if you don’t approve of what your school insists on, then find another school. Don’t embarrass yourself and your child by shouting at the school gate — it’s really not cool.

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