Will Replacing School Uniforms With Tracksuits......

nanna8

Revolting idea. Imagine a world full of youths in trackie daks. Why don’t they issue balaclavas as well ?

Our delightful 5 year old grandson is very comfortable in sports kit twice each week. Shorts, tie and blazer isn’t practical at his age (frequent skinned knees).

Uniforms are a strange thing.
If you cancel them, the children will simply invent their own. Being part of a group will entail wearing what the group demands.
You can see that at the weekend. The essential low gusset trousers, now so last year.
The hoodie-essential wear even on a hot day.
Visible underwear straps - for girls.

I do think this hasn’t been thought through though. Track suits in summer?
After just a few warm days, the uniform seems to be T-shirts with a jumper tied round the waist.
So will we have
Obligatory shorts for girls rather than obligatory skirts for boys.

Cumbrianmale56

I think a proper school uniform instils pride in a school and prepares pupils for jobs where they have to look smart like certain public facing roles and the armed forces. Tracksuits look awful and belong on a sports ground.

What sort of work place are we preparing them for? I cant remember the last time I saw anyone at work sporting a shirt with tie and blazer. Very few office workers wear a suit these days and the armed forces are a law unto themselves, no one can be prepared for service life by wearing a school uniform.

‘Proper’ school uniform really doesn’t instil pride into the poor kids suffering from wearing it.

Cumbrianmale56

I think a proper school uniform instils pride in a school and prepares pupils for jobs where they have to look smart like certain public facing roles and the armed forces. Tracksuits look awful and belong on a sports ground.

If the children need school uniform to have pride in their school does this mean the teachers and ancillary staff do not take pride in being a part of the school as they don't wear any type of uniform?
School uniform doesn't have to be as rigid as many schools make it. A generic 'buy from any supermarket' type uniform with a sewn on school badge should surely suffice?

Actually, if you simply asked children that they should come to school looking clean, well groomed or tidy, some would go out of their way to, customise as M0nica puts it

the clean and well groomed or tidy into anything but, undoubtedly with the support of their parents.

Cumbrianmale56

I think a proper school uniform instils pride in a school and prepares pupils for jobs where they have to look smart like certain public facing roles and the armed forces. Tracksuits look awful and belong on a sports ground.

Sorry, it doesn't. It generally instils nothing at all in the pupils and a determination to customise their uniform as far as possible, whether loosely knotted ties, skirts turned over at the top to make them shorter or the many changes that the ingenuity of pupls can devise.

The comments you make are what adults, head teachers and the like, think what a uniform ought to do, but it doesn't.

I think a proper school uniform instils pride in a school and prepares pupils for jobs where they have to look smart like certain public facing roles and the armed forces. Tracksuits look awful and belong on a sports ground.

When my Dc were at primary school, it did not have a uniform, just a list of 'not acceptables'. In the 1970s these were: jeans trainers and T shirts with slogans or loud images.

later uniform was introduced. The people behind it were not the school but parents, who thought it made the school look better if all the children were in uniforms.

I did as asked, but told the Head master that I thought the old way was better because as children get older they need to understand that there are dress codes and dressing appropriately for a job or profession, or occasion was important and best learned at school. he said that was what he thought, but parents judged the school by its uniform.

Cagsy

I worked for a while supporting young people at a secondary school in quite a deprived area, uniform was a very thorny issue. I could work with a poor attender (with very difficult home life) for weeks to get them back into school only to be met by a member of staff barking ‘where is your tie?’ threatening to send them straight back home again! I used my own money to buy 1/2 dozen ties and would stand outside the building trying to ensure no one got sent home for this infringement.
I can understand that some like to dress up for events, I know it’s massively important for most young people, but it’s not for everyone and I think it’s a mistake to judge people for this.

That about sums up the nonsense that is school uniform.

Totally agree it’s a ridiculous idea

I’m one of those people who have let themselves go and rarely dress up to go out unless it’s a wedding or the like. If others want to dress smartly to go for a meal or theatre visit that’s fine by me but please don’t look down on those who don’t.
Times have changed as people have said - smart casual now seems to be the normal dress code in a lot of workplaces.
The obsession that some schools have about the finer points of school uniform is ridiculous as far as I’m concerned.

TheSunRisesInTheEast

This thread is about changing the conventional school uniform for tracksuits (personally not in favour), not about taking part in PE, although it does make me wonder if they're wearing tracksuits as an everyday uniform, what will they wear for PE? Another tracksuit? 🤔😂

If they don’t have another tracksuit for PE, or even just for PE days, that conjures up a a week of hideous classrooms full of sweaty teens.
One of the reasons for tracksuits on PE days was so children didn’t have to do the embarrassing change routine.

This thread is about changing the conventional school uniform for tracksuits (personally not in favour), not about taking part in PE, although it does make me wonder if they're wearing tracksuits as an everyday uniform, what will they wear for PE? Another tracksuit? 🤔😂

Utter drivel! I taught PE for nearly 40 years...girls will either participate or they won't...Parents write excuse notes to excuse them as they don't see it as important. Believe me been there done that,tried everything..... If they don't like PE/sport or any form of exercise nothing will encourage them to do it...and that's speaking from experience...

Nanny27

Why do so many use words like 'scruffy or 'baggy to describe track suits? The designs being considered by these schools will be of a uniform style so all the same, no option of hoods or cuffed/not cuffed etc. They will be in school colours with a logo. Some schools have proposed optional knee length shorts in the same design for the summer term.
Sounds smart to me.

It would be, but do you really think that’s what will happen, or what parents’ ideas will be.

BlessedArt

Tracksuits are easier for parents to maintain and clothes do not make or break a child’s intellect.

Indeed true.

M0nica

Caleo The idea that uniforms disguise how well off children's family are is an illusion. Children always know which children come from poorer homes; shabbier secondhand uniform, their shoes, underwear when changing for games, free lunches, so many indicators.

I cerainly knew which were which when I was at school. It didn't interest me much and it certainly did not affect whether they were my friends or not, but I knew - and everyone else did too.

Absolutely correct

People rarely dress formally for work these days. Comfort is considered more important. And I agree. The school is worked in was unbearably hot if the sun shone at all. Thank goodness in Scotland there isnt the same strictures about uniform. Yes, schools do have uniform rules but generally they are sensible.

One of my GCs had an own clothes day at school and nearly all the girls, who normally wear knicker flashing, ultra short skirts to school, were in jeans or trousers. Most of them actually looked smarter than usual.

Incidentally, the same school actually has a compulsory school track suit as part of the games kit, it is black and rather smart with purple piping and a fitted zipped top.

Why do so many use words like 'scruffy or 'baggy to describe track suits? The designs being considered by these schools will be of a uniform style so all the same, no option of hoods or cuffed/not cuffed etc. They will be in school colours with a logo. Some schools have proposed optional knee length shorts in the same design for the summer term.
Sounds smart to me.

Tracksuits are easier for parents to maintain and clothes do not make or break a child’s intellect.

gillsterry

I have seen so much change in peoples habits etc the main one is that people have lost all respect for their appearance and most look as if they have just come from a building site even going to restaurants in old jeans or shorts and T shirts .I come from a time when i would wear a suit and tie when i went out for respect of the girl i would be with .so encouraging children to to go on that downhill stretch is another nail in the coffin for respect not for themselves but others

But times do changeable attitudes and fashion change too. My dh would almost never wear a suit and tie for an evening out with me unless we were going somewhere very smart. He has the utmost respect for me.
As a poster upthread has noted, some students are wearing the exact same uniform that she herself wore. Must we expect our young people to dress like we did 50 or so years ago?

In the great scheme of things, does it matter?

I went to school for a year in California, in 1975, what a joy, as a pupil, to be able wear my own choice of clothes, a joy for my mother no to have to purchase uniform, often from a designated store, often at great expense.

I’m far more concerned that both teachers and pupils are completely engaged in education!

Walk into any city in the UK and you’ll see much fewer “work uniforms” ie suits etc on show.

I know many people consider “uniforms” very important and dressing smartly, but frankly I’ve worked in very casual and very smartly dressed offices across my working life, I think the clothes worn for work should suit the situation and safety of the job, so yes, Armed Services, Builders, Fireman, police offices, Nurses, Doctors all wear clothes appropriate to their roles. Office staff? Work hard, do your job well, wear what you like within boundaries!

M0nica

If everyone is wearing the same clothes, whether tracksuits or matching clown suits, they are wearing a uniform.

It is time that uniforms were chosen for their practicality and usefulness, and if that means tracksuits, tracksuits it should be.

Children are far more likely to wear properly, uniforms that are practical and comfortable to wear. I can remember from my own school days and living near a secondary school when my children were young the many and various ways that unifom was manipulated in order to show our dislike of our uniform.

This obsession with uniform and how it was being worn, if my own childhood memories are correct, is limited to little old ladies like us and ex military types.

Well said!