Go on, who had the strictest School Uniform ???

Hello Jess - are you having a wonderful time Down Under?

Our comprehensive has gone formal too, with ties for the boys and blazers for all. Much smarter than faded sweatshirts.
My miniscule granddaughter in London has just started school in a shirt, pinafore dress, jumper and blazer. Most the time at home she's in a fairy dress or naked. Her mother said her little one didn't realise she had to wear uniform every day!

I've already commented on this thread regarding what type of uniform I wore at one school I went to. However, I just remembered something that shows how important that uniform was to the school, it was a private school just to set the scene.
One of my friends [we were ten years old] was seen by a teacher chalking a pavement somewhere in town. I think she was writing her name and drawing a picture. Nothing naughty. The following morning at assembly she was called out in front of the school. Her crime was that she had done the chalking in her school uniform and had brought disgrace upon it. For this she was put into Coventry for 2 weeks. Her desk was moved to one side away from us, she ate her lunch alone and we were forbidden to talk to her at all anywhere!! I thought this was so cruel , my Mother thought it was a bit over the top but accepted that is how the school punishes and there is nothing to be done. Can you imagine this now in a state or private school. There would be an uproar.
At another school when I was much younger, about six years old I think. This was in Canada who used the strap as a punishment not the cane. I can't remember my crime, in fact I remember at the time I didn't know what I had done. I was taken to the basement to be strapped after school, I refused to hold my hand out. So the teacher let me go, I do remember her patting my shoulder and saying 'just go home now'

Hello Jess. I've seen those NZ uniforms. I suppose they won't object if that's what they all wear.
Seen any of the rugby? Weeping for Wales?

Hi Annobel. Grrr. French didnt deserve to win... frustrating game to watch wasn't it.
Back to school uniforms, some schools seem to disgorge lots of girls who are rapidly trying to create a strippagram look. Pull up the skirt, unbutton the blouse etc. Others don't (my pet school doesn't) Why is this? Is it girls schools? Is it the forced wearing of skirts?
Kids in NZ much less fashion conscious bless em. Even when they are not in school uni.

I'm sure our uniform was unique- we had brown mortar boards. The metal school badge was sewn on the front of the cap and a browm silky tassel hung down from the top. We had to have elastic under the chin or it would blow off! How we were jeered at by the boys. Our skirts had to touch the ground when kneeling. We had to wear black woollen stockings in winter and fawn lisle ones in summer. Awful problems with suspender belts!. Same uniform all year "what keeps out the cold keeps out the heat"!

We had grey pinafore dresses grey lisle stockings,red and white striped blouses, black shoes, grey bloomers with liners,gre overcoat, grey mac, grey felt hat,grey blazer and red tie.
Shoes, I pr outdoor, one pr indoor, pumps, lacrosse boots and at the boarding bit , one pr indoor, one pr outdoor best for Sundays and apr of pumps. Ooh forgot the slippers! The school had originally been the site of a Franciscan ( grey friars) friary.

nanamoo your uniform sounds like mine! Was your headmistress miss Gent?

Like most convent schools the nuns were fairly strict about uniform, especially hats and gloves, but what I remember most is the headmistress at assembly announcing that a friend of the school had informed them that a convent girl had been seen on the bus/train without there hat/gloves and would that girl please step forward. Frankly when I knew it was me being referred to I never bothered to step forward. It struck me as petty and pointless.

What puzzled me most even then was; who were all these small-minded people who had nothing better to do in life than ring the school and report that they had seen one of us breaching the uniform code in a very trivial manner. It wasnt the nuns because if one of them saw anybody that was stated in the announcement from on high.

Usual strict uniform in a hideous green colour, with straw boaters with blazers in summer and velvet cloches with gaberdine coat in winter I folded both hats in half and either shoved them in my satchel, or pinned tham as far on the back of my head as possible - cue headmistress - Miss Manners (and didn't she suit her name!) in a foul mood because I had been seen on the bus looking like this!

Convent school in the 50's. Brown tunics, with matching thick brown knickers. My mother bought them large when I started to make them last - and they did! I was still wearing them in the 5th form. I used to pull them down to my knees in gym and they were longer than my shorts! We had strange hats, again brown, and called glengarries. They were long and thin and worn front to back. If you had fluffed up hair and lots of clips, you could make them almost disappear.

Did anyone else have the craze for swapping scarf tassels with other schools?

All the secondary schools and most primary schools have uniforms here in Queensland, Australia. Some are very much like the ones we wore in the UK over 50 years ago, but in a lighter material. I prefer it because there are no arguments, there's no fashion angst, and it gives an egalitarian feel to the school.

At junior school my lads had to wear a T shirt with the school logo on, grey shorts, white socks, black shoes, and a school hat, Hats are essential for health in this very sunny place. High school was similar but they wore a white cotton shirt and tie, not a t shirt.

The whole uniform thing made life simple for me, and being lads, they just didn't mind what they wore .

At the end of school, they all signed each others shirts, using black nikko pens. What a mess!

Then came university - the 'uniform' there was jeans and t shirt: very simple and cheap. I guess I had it easy here, as a parent.

Talk of navy blue school knickers reminded me of the creations we all had to wear, come rain or shine. Mine were often hand-me-downs and far too big. Mom could stitch them back to life whatever happened. There were strict rules at my grammar school. No gaps between stocking tops and knickers for example. A letter even went home about it. But by then an “accidental” exposure of thigh above your stockings was proving good currency with the boys and it was too late. I was petrified of any such thing and lived in fear of a suspender or knicker elastic giving way.

By the fifth form I was put into a white roll on. OK for standing up in, but digging in when you sat down. Mom explained it held your tummy in at the same time. One benefit of the big drawers was that you could pull them right up over the whole shooting match, particularly good in winter. Even in the Upper Sixth we had the same ridiculous knickers and skirts with white shirts and ties and blazers. The acreage of navy needed unrucking after sitting down for any length of time.

Even at university mom sent me supplies of school pants, always the same style. Little parcels of navy blue wrapped thoughtfully around a Mars Bar. But by my second year tights and short skirts were coming in and I preferred to be without them when my boyfriend was around. My final pair gave way in rather ignominious circumstances, duly rendered out of reach of mom’s darning needle in the process, their resilience under fire contributing to their downfall and the sentiments with which they were dispatched. They were very sweetly replaced soon afterwards by a very sheepishly delivered pair of Charnos nylon panties.

Mom was a great hoarder and never threw a thing away. Lots of my school stuff is still up in her loft with all my certificates, some things still in their old wrapping, untouched. She asked me the other day if Banardos would be interested but I said no-one wears those sort of things these days. Not the enormous pants at any rate.

Marjorie

Not me - brought up in Switzerland in the 50s and 60s, I never went to school in anything but jeans, a t-shirt and trainers

We had bottle green knickers and had to lift our skirts for the nuns to check we had the correct ones .sounds a bit creepy by today's standards but never questioned at the time.!!!

In the first year at Secondary school we had to make our own school skirts as a project for needlework. It was considered very sluttish to have (a) ladders in nylons and (b) any glimpse of petticoat beneath the hem of the skirt. I was pulled up by the Headmistress and severely reprimanded when the elastic of my petticoat snapped and (after rolling it up round my waist) about an inch escaped, showing under the skirt.

Talking of the old fashioned Charnos full nylon briefs I started wearing in my late teens (see above), does anybody out there know where I can buy some more? I hate these skimpy thong things and adore slippery nylon for the feel and comfort. The shops don't seem to sell them anymore. Handkerchief size jobbies or horrible cotton granny pants, that's all. Apologies to us grannies, but why not live a little longer?

Thanks, Marjorie

My 15-year old gd in New Zealand looks very smart in her green plaid kilt and white blouse - no tie or hat. I like the idea of uniform because it makes everybody equal, but sometimes it is taken to ridiculous lengths in England. We had to have navy cardigans and coats, not black, and sometimes they were only obtainable at Manners, a very expensive specialist shop in Mancheser. My mother took out a Provident cheque to buy my first uniform as my dad, whilst proud that I had passed the 'scholarship' was not proud enough to contribute. She tried to dye a lavender coat, given to me by the woman she cleaned for, but it wouldn't take navy blue, so I had to have a regulation gaberdine. The posh girls wore velour hats and straw boaters in summer, but the rest of us wore berets with the school badge sewn on all year round.
Of course, like today's girls, in the early 1950s we managed to customise our uniforms - tie in blazer pocket, top button undone, skirt shortened from calf length to knee length. I suppose we looked just as scruffy as they do today - but no make-up , of course. I think Mother Anna would have had a heart attack if she saw the way 13-year olds go to school today.

Our school motto was a perversion of 'Omnia vincit amore' (love conquers all) and became 'Omnia vicit labor' (work conquers all).
There were no boys or men teachers, but in gym we had to go though stupid contortions to prevent the other girls seeing our bras - no showers, of course. Boy, those nuns were obsessed by sex, although it was never mentioned, not even menstruation or pregnancy. Anybody wanting to take Biology at A-level had to go to the local Technical College. It was quite a popular subject, because the Tech had boys!

I bought some normal lace and nylon panties at Matalan when I was in Manchester - only £2 a pair and so easy to wash in an hotel room as they can be dried with a hair dryer! I loathe thongs and find them disgusting and I can't stand anything that does not come up to my waist.

That made me smile Greatnan. Our Loreto sisters decided when we reached sixth form, to let the girls decide ourselves on the uniform. There were many heated debates and in the end compromise was reached with the exception of what to wear on our heads. The posh girls, with their leader, Olivia, all wanted boaters and velours as you describe. The lefty plebs under my leadership either wanted nothing at all on our heads (no interference with the beehive) or, if we had to, berets. In the end Mother Mary Paulina declared that no compromise was possible and we could choose to wear berets or boaters. I used to wear my Labour party badge and CND emblem pinned on my beret. Mother Paulina was absolutely in favour, her brother was a great friend of Bruce Kent and she prayed every night for the success of CND. When a group of us went on the Aldermaston march, the sisters made us a big box of sticky oat biscuits as they said we would need lots of energy.

Must say I always wanted to call Social Services whenever I first saw those poor kids (well, not poor ... but 'poor') - dressed in those stripy blazers, caps and shorts ...

Lord did we hate our berets. Supposed to be worn all the way to school and all the way home again. My garberdine mac was re-vitalised much later as a fashion item I seem to recall.
They still have those elaborate uniforms in NZ. Extraordinary outfits, often involving a below-the-calf kilt, specially chosen to make all girls look a fright, particularly when worn with a shirt and fancy blazer. They seem to accept them. 3 big Maori girls walking down the high street in their huge kilts a sight to behold.
I have a theory that the posher the school and its uniform, the more the girls rebel. Always a smug school governor that we had a very basic, cheap uniform and all girls wore dark trousers. They the students asked if they could have "a uniform like other schools" bless them. So they have a tie and a (cheap) black blazer these days and black trousers. Still no rebellion really. Bless their cotton socks really, they are quite proud of the uniform that they requested and when you see some of them coming to school with no coats in the winter, or broken shoes

In my first headship the school had no uniform some parents cam and asked if as the new head I would introduce a uniform. I said if they wanted a uniform that was fine by me but it had to be inexpensive and practical. I asked them to survey parents and they could choose colour etc! They came up with a really ugly maroon colour but were practical in the trousers, skirts etc! I was not strict with enforcing it though as many v poor families and if the stuff was not clean or dry I'd rather they came to school without uniform than not come incase they were in trouble.

One school some of my gc attended had an excellent idea - parents could contribute good but outgrown uniform and it was kept in a private room. Anybody needing uniform could ask to look and see if they could find anything suitable.

In the second school we had a stock of spare 2nd hand stuff and made up sets for new families that probably did not have the cash to buy new.