27 - Uniform

Okay. So I'm going to rant about school uniform. 

Now, I'm not against the actual concept of school uniform as it makes things easy for kids and parents in that there's no worry about what a child is to wear each day. Without a uniform, this can cause anxiety for children - especially teenagers - as then there's a pressure on them to ensure the outfit they wear complies with the ever-changing idea of what is "fashionable" today. With uniform everyone wear, essentially, the same things.

What twists my melon is the nature of much uniform these days, and the expense of it all. Especially given that one of the reasons often cited for uniform is that it means richer and poorer kids are wearing the same things, and don't have to worry about the costs of things.

But that's not true... so many schools - especially secondary school - insist you buy a blazer with the school's logo, jumpers with the school branding, specific school branded PE kits, the school tie, and so on. And these branded/logoed items are only available at a single store who therefore have a monopoly and can charge what they want. 

Back in the day when I was in secondary school the only things that we wore that were specific were the school tie, and a PE top; neither were branded as such. The rest of the uniform could be sourced from anywhere else as long as it was specific colours. This did lead to a bit of variety in style, but all were close enough to be recongnisably uniform. And we didn't have to wear an expensive blazer.

The sheer cost of so many branded/logoed items is ludicrous, and makes a mockery of the idea of uniform being a leveller between the well of and the less well off. 

We need a return to the old days. We do not need so many branded/logoed items of uniform; it's sheer ego and vanity on the part of the schools. And I wonder exactly what their cut of the cost of the uniform is? Must be a right little earner. The school tie is enough to identify a school. We don't need all the rest of the clothing to have so much corporacy on it. And kids don't need blazers. Simplify the uniform. Make it cheaper. 

Also; I guarantee that in the next week or so there'll be articles in the press about how kids have been sent home from school for minor uniform breaches, or some other spurious reason due to a lack of clarity in the specifications. Some of these are very badly worded and open to interpretation. Especially around things like hairstyles. 

For example, my daughter's secondary school says this about hair that it should be "Well-groomed hair (no extreme styles and not shorter than a grade 2). Long hair tied back."

Which at a first glance seems reasonable, until you look at that one word;  "extreme". Now, the problem is that what one person counts as "extreme" another may think is entirely normal. This is where ambiguity comes in to play, and where you'll get disagreements about whether something complies or does not, especially where the line between what is considered extreme, and what is not considered extreme is not clearly defined. 

And to my mind there should be no room for ambiguity in any such guidelines. But if there is ambiguity the benefit of the doubt should be given to the child/parent. 

This should apply to all elements of any uniform code. Clarity is good. Ambiguity is bad.

And uniform should be as simple as possible, with as little branding as possible...