School uniform

I have not noticed schools abandoning uniforms - I wish they would. An unnecessary expense for parents and a focus of wasted time by teachers having to discipline non-compliance.

I have not noticed pupils at our local Sixth Form College failing to learn and achieve excellent results in their everyday clothes.

I don't think abandoning school uniforms would be a good idea at all. Can you imagine some of the outrageous outfits some pupils would turn up in?

Having said that my DGD's school uniform is ridiculously expensive and can only be bought from one specialist company. I would like to see more affordable uniforms available from the usual outlets .

Watching the 'Educating Greater Manchester' series recently I was amazed to hear about what a bad school it was and with major discipline issues. All the children wore smart uniforms and were pulled in to a separate room if staff spotted them even wearing trainers. This seemed to be part of the approach to pulling up the schools attainment level. The staff worked so very hard to get children to work at school. There was a large department just to work with individual problem pupils. Staff even gave wake up phone calls or picked them up from home to get them in to school.
The uniform seemed to contribute to a feeling of belonging to a school community as part of this attempt to give these children a chance in life.
By golly the teachers had to put up with unimaginable behaviour from some pupils !

A school,local to us has no uniform. The school says this is a good thing as it allows pupils to express themselves. But I am not so sure. The school is in what is generally a very affluent area of London, but also has a council estate within catchment so there is great diversity in wealth among its pupils and pressures to wear the right trainers or what have you are common. Uniform is a great equaliser and I think dressing differently from your normal every day clothes to study or work is a good thing in any case as it differentiates between leisure and non leisure time.

Saying that I do not understand why some state schools insist that plain grey or navy or black trousers or skirts must be bought from expensive uniform suppliers when sup[ermarkets offer them at a fraction of the price. A pair of plain uniform trousers looks the same to me whether it is from John Lewis or Asda or a uniform shop. Thank heavens for second hand uniform sales is all I can say