Uniform in primary schools - good or bad?

[Kim]

And Kim, regarding autonomy; I really don't want to raise children who think that what they wear determines who they are.

So why force them to wear a unifrom then? 

[Butterfly]

I think a sensible uniform is a good thing. It needs to be something that a dyspraxic child can manage by themselves, so polo or t-shirts and easy-care jumpers or sweat shirts - if it includes the trousers, pull up or hooks rather than buttons. It should be unisex so that it can be passed down. It should be washable and tumble-dryable and and not need ironing. This is better than non-uniform as it can be handed on and sold second hand, and doesn't have the problem of being in fashion. It should also be consistent and not change every year.

Uniforms should be inclusive, so everyone can manage it and it can be adapted to cope with different situations.

Having dealt with children in the most different and varied (state special needs - high end public) schools.

[L CC]

That children have precious little autonomy as it is, and that dictating what clothes they wear is almost as bad as dictating what food they eat in terms of right to control over their own bodies.

I do that too.
When you're an adult, you can choose. In the mean time, I'm your mother, I pay the bills, and you'll eat what I provide or wait till the next mealtime. You're unlikely to starve, and I wont feed you anything that makes you ill.

Autonomy isn't something you're 'entitled' to as a child. Being a child is a short term thing. You have two things to do as a child: grow and learn. As you get older and learn more, you have more autonomy. As a six year old, you'll wear what I tell you, in the circumstances where specific clothes are needed. That means you can wear the dalmation dressing up outfit as much as you like at home or on the weekends, but not at school, (No1Daughter). When you're 10 you'll have more say, when you're sixteen you'll have even more say and now you're 19 you can do whatever the hell you like whatever I think.
As a parent I'm here to provide love and comfort. And the wisdom of my experience. Sometimes you, child of mine, will not like it. Tough.

Have primary school catchment areas grown far more diverse? Do children no longer mix outside school?

One potential problem is that uniform marks you out on the way to & from school. I've heard of bullying of children from the 'wrong' school.

Yes, not much, and hardly ever any more- they're driven to & from school in cars.

[Kim]

Seriously, school trips, mufti days and foreign exchanges were *horrific* from the clothing perspective.

Every weekday from the age of 5 was *horrific* from the clothing perspective.

I learned aged eleven that you're not meant to shop in BHS, aged twelve that my non-uniform grey jumper I'd begged my mother for was the wrong brand and could therefore never be cool, aged thirteen that if you wear the same outfit twice that you are a TRAMP... and on, and on.

I don't think I'd have learned to reject the hive mind any earlier if there hadn't been uniform to hide behind.  I'd just have been more miserable. 

I get the impression that you had more to lose.  I was bullied mercilessly at primary school^[1], because I was a culturally oblivious outsider from the start, and soon settled into the victim role.  When you're at the bottom of the pile, you have nothing to lose.  Even on non-uniform days, clothing never got a look in - I was already miserable and living in a state of perpetual fear.

Secondary school was better, because the academic work gave me a channel through which to rebel against the norms of my peer-group, and I eventually earned enough respect from the geeks, thesps and musos (which was practically a euphemism in the days of section 28) that I became a more acceptable form of weirdo.



_{[1] Well, the 99% white middle class one I moved to at age 6.  Highgate Primary was sufficiently multicultural (and had a phenomenally progressive deaf unit) that being a bit odd wasn't a problem, and the year and a half I spent there was mostly confusion, rather than fear.}

[Kim]

When you're an adult, you can choose. In the mean time, I'm your mother, I pay the bills, and you'll eat what I provide or wait till the next mealtime. You're unlikely to starve, and I wont feed you anything that makes you ill.

See, that's not so bad.  I'd have been quite happy to wait until the next mealtime.

I was force-fed things I didn't like, and they frequently made me physically sick.

If it hadn't been for that, I'd probably be a lot less neurotic about food as an adult.  And if I hadn't been forced to wear horrid itchy clothes, I'd probably not have a bee in my bonnet about that, either.  But it's catch 22 - my parents probably thought they were doing the right thing at the time.  For another child, it probably would have been.  How the fuck is anyone supposed to know?  I'll not be having kids until I can answer that one...

Being a child is a short term thing.

Only to an adult.

[Exit Stage Left]

One theoretical advantage of school uniform is that it should be zero-rated for VAT. There are some provisions for allowing for bigger kids to have school uniform items in adult sizes, but they end at age 14. Shoes are judged to be adult sized at 6 1/2, which is the size I took when I was 8. So a modern parent of someone like myself would be discriminated against in the tax system for 10 years in the case of VAT on shoes, and by varying amounts as the threshold sizes for clothes are reached.

[mrcharly-YHT]

And Kim, regarding autonomy; I really don't want to raise children who think that what they wear determines who they are.

So why force them to wear a unifrom then? 

Because you can say to them "Wearing this has nothing to do with who you are, it is just a uniform that the school asks you to wear."

I'm not going to send them to school thinking they have to 'fit in' with what the other kids think, or dress to impress or give an impression. They can choose to experiment with that another time.

I agree with what boab says about the ages and clothing. The local school seems to follow that; sixth-formers don't wear uniform.

[L CC]

Seriously, school trips, mufti days and foreign exchanges were *horrific* from the clothing perspective.

Every weekday from the age of 5 was *horrific* from the clothing perspective.

I learned aged eleven that you're not meant to shop in BHS, aged twelve that my non-uniform grey jumper I'd begged my mother for was the wrong brand and could therefore never be cool, aged thirteen that if you wear the same outfit twice that you are a TRAMP... and on, and on.

I don't think I'd have learned to reject the hive mind any earlier if there hadn't been uniform to hide behind.  I'd just have been more miserable. 

I get the impression that you had more to lose.  I was bullied mercilessly at primary school^[1], because I was a culturally oblivious outsider from the start, and soon settled into the victim role.  When you're at the bottom of the pile, you have nothing to lose.  Even on non-uniform days, clothing never got a look in - I was already miserable and living in a state of perpetual fear.

Secondary school was better, because the academic work gave me a channel through which to rebel against the norms of my peer-group, and I eventually earned enough respect from the geeks, thesps and musos (which was practically a euphemism in the days of section 28) that I became a more acceptable form of weirdo.



_{[1] Well, the 99% white middle class one I moved to at age 6.  Highgate Primary was sufficiently multicultural (and had a phenomenally progressive deaf unit) that being a bit odd wasn't a problem, and the year and a half I spent there was mostly confusion, rather than fear.}

Well that all sounds shit, but would it have been better if you didn't have to wear uniform?

I very much doubt it. I suspect, though it seems unlikely, it would have been worse.

[Kim]

Well that all sounds shit, but would it have been better if you didn't have to wear uniform?

It would have been one less battle to have with my mother every morning.

I'd have felt slightly less vulnerable, even if I wasn't.

I'd certainly have spent less time itching, and been better able to concentrate on other things.  Maybe I'd have learned to play the game sooner, or something?  Probably not.  While I do a passable impression, I'm not actually *that* aspie.

ETA: Or maybe I am?  I seem to be coming at this from the relatively unusual perspective of seeing clothing as something you wear to cover your body, rather than as something you display for other people.

[Julian]

I did the oblivious outsider thing through primary school, never had any friends and didn't particularly want any - children's customs and rituals baffled me, I could have done with a Lonely Planet Guide. 

By the time I got to secondary school I'd worked out that the other girls conformed to some sort of unwritten code, and if I kept to it I could be popular too - and aged ten / eleven, who wouldn't want to?  The popular girls always seemed to be having fun.  So I tried, and lasted the first half term of Year 7 when I accidentally broke the Code and got shunned. 

After that I hung out with the boffins and it was in 6th form that being geeky and boffiny suddenly became okay, the various forms got mixed up, and I found a lovely group of friends that I'm still in touch with now. 

But from Year 3 to 6th form is quite a long time when you're a child, and there was no guarantee that i'd ever have any friends, and dammit I wanted the keys to the Code that everyone else seemed to have.  Clothes were only one part of it but if we hadn't had a uniform i'd have been even more conspicuously odd than I already was.  And yes, I cared.  I tried not to, but I couldn't seem to help it.

[clarion]

Even in uniformed environments, these distinctions are still made - see upthread. 

Like Kim, I had a very unhappy time uncomfortable in horrible clothes inappropriate to what I wanted to do (concentrate in class, play football/run about outside, sit reading) which were too hot/too cold/too flappy/too button-y.

Maybe it's the aspie thing.

[barakta]

I think it depends.  My primary school had a non compulsory collection of "uniform" which was mix and match right from the smarty grey skirt/trousers + white shirt + red tie down to combinations of grey and red track suit sets with the jumpers which had the school's logo printed on them and could be worn over the smart uniform.

The school population in the 80s when I did primary was 30% middle class with parents in the professions or teaching, 30% blue collar manual workers parents and 40% kids from the local housing estate where most families were single-parent and had social issues TM (they were relocated from Moss Side in the 70s). 

This mix n match non compulsory worked for me because it was easy to get in/out of and I usually lived in the tracksuit part + a teeshirt + one of the jumpers.  I believe it worked well for most kids as the snotty middle class kids worse variants of the smart uniform, some kids worse mix of own clothes + bits of uniform and the tracksuits were very durable.  The school collected decent quality hand me downs and did their best to help out families in poverty to ensure their children had some form of uniform.  It wasn't forced on us as a "you will" and as such I quite liked it because I genuinely felt proud to wear it because I was for juniors certainly proud of the school (which was a safe and mostly nurturing place for me where bullying was stomped on when they discovered it).  I had 4 years where I was weird but not treated badly for it in the most part.

Secondary school had a strict uniform with petty made up extra unwritten rules that certain teachers enforced.  One example of this was the school jumper, we weren't required to have one with a logo, we just weren't allowed any other logo, so an alternative had to be plain - some teachers would insist it had to be a proper school jumper as a petty made up rule. Almost all my fights at secondary school were over uniform and bullying. There were also silly discrepancies like boys being allowed to wear black trousers but not the girls (we had to wear blue) which made buying trousers harder as I had a better chance of black ones fitting.  I had gender issues with skirts which remain to this day and I could not get clothes to fit me properly another issue I still have with clothes of all kinds.

It didn't hide the rich/poor, the poor kids merely wore the wrong things i.e games polo shirt in class cos their class one was ripped or dirty and dad had spent the money on booze this week (true story).  The poorest children's clothes were often FILTHY and they often wore incorrect uniform e.g trainers because they couldn't afford shoes and it was the parents' fault. Poor kids never had official school jumpers. Even the stupidest of teachers could see that poorkid in wrong clothes was not their fault so didn't reprimand the poor kids in the same way thus increasing the rich/poor divides and resentment on all sides.

The school had a huge bullying problem (helped by public denial of any bullying happening evah) and I was weird from day one and teachers very blatantly cared more about uniform than children's safety, individuality, reality and needs.  I wasn't like everyone else and treating me as such caused me permanent physical damage and unhappiness.  I got more attention from "no tie" than I did for asking a teacher to help while I had a 5 fingered palm print across my face from assault by another student.  Not the best way to make me respect an institution. 

Uniform encouraged the school to treat us all like automatons and refuse to see us as individuals or see issues that arose in school and between children of different socioeconomic classes.

I think uniform is laziness and convenience rather than actually having real or useful value.  Children won't learn to conform any better because they wore uniform as children if anything uniform was a major point of contention and was significant in my refusal to conform unless I choose to.  The uniform wasn't fit for purpose and when I wore polo necks under my shirts because I was cold the school wasn't willing to fix the broken windows in my classrooms so I wasn't willing to wear fewer layers.  I had a screaming row (well he did the screaming, I did the calm refution point by point) with a head of school over this policy more than once.  If they'd have sent me home, I simply would not have gone back in and they'd have lost SEN funding and a "high achieving" student so I knew I had a bargaining chip and I was willing to argue the toss with rationality in the face of lost tempers on teachers' part.

I can see advantages of uniform for parents, but I think that depends on the parents and children.  Mine and my mum's life became easier when I could get away with docs at school (people thought they were crip boots!) because before then I had to get new shoes every 6 weeks as I wore through "school shoes" at £40+ a pair as cheap ones didn't fit and it was stress and hateful shoe shopping.  Docs lasted 1-2 years and cost £40 once.  I had to get trousers made as I couldn't find any which fit me in my final two years all because they insisted on one difficult to buy colour. 

[geraldc]

I was shocked when they made shorts in my primary (prep) school optional. I went to school in shorts in all weathers for 4 years.  Never did me any harm.

[Arch]

For what it's worth, as a non parent, I'm 'for'. I had uniform from the beginning to end of schooling,and probably the only thing I disliked was wearing a skirt instead of trousers - but that applied to Real Life too, since I was generally too wimpy to argue with Mum, who put me in skirts and dresses.

Nephew Oli has a polo shirt and nice grey trousers, and the only difference I can see with the sort of thing he wears at the weekend is that they don't have dinosaurs on.

[nicknack]

I find it interesting that the parents who hate uniforms for themselves hate it for their children.

Is it also interesting that that parents who liked uniform also like it for their children?

FWIW my son hated uniform at least as much as I did and rebelled rather more than I ever managed. I don't remember my daughter caring one way or the other - but that might be a fault in my memory.

[Tim Hall]

<reads and digests all of the above>

For.  But then The Boy and The Girl are now all growed up, so school uniform isn't an issue for us anymore.

Random anecdata of schools I see round here is that teenys wear polo shirt/sweat shirt with the school logo. Indeed, that's what ours had. I don't recall them being wildly expensive or crap quality, but they were from one supplier (via the school).  They certainly seem to be practical.

The local comprehensives have blazers and ties. The one our children went to had some kind of colour coding thing on the ties, to keep track of who was allowed out of school at lunchtime. The extra colour was assigned when you joined and moved with you, so you didn't need a new tie each year. The integral sixth form had a more toned down uniform (black skirt/trousers, black blazer (no badge) for boys. As per usual we left the getting of this to the very last minute for The Boy. A fruitless afternoon traising round Reigate only had one on offer, some flash name at £150. Erm, I don't think so. The school approved online supplier delivered one the day after next for twenty qpuid. It lasted the requisite 2 years.   

[plum]

For, ties too. My school this year went over to clip-on ties and they're the best thing ever. No more arguments about length or whether the top button is done up, it just works. Silly disputes and getting them pulled off etc lasted for a week then they got used to them. 90% of our uniform  problems solved in one stroke. Summer uniform is polo shirt and no tie so no worries there either.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I don't buy the convenience argument, either.  Shopping for clothes is a nightmare.  School uniform doubly so.

Are you kidding? It's a total trump card for a parent. We're spending our (hard earned, limited) money on the darn children and the ungrateful shits want ridiculously overpriced tat because that's what <insert loathsome friend of choice> has. The end of the argument is this:
It's school uniform, you have to.

What is this shopping for clothes you're talking about? Bearing in mind I started this about primary school, so not teenagers. Clothes shopping consists of visiting <Primark/M&S/etc> buy appropriate clothes, leave. No child presence required except for shoes. Uniform is even easier cos you know exactly what to get and where to get it.

[L CC]

I find it interesting that the parents who hate uniforms for themselves hate it for their children.

Is it also interesting that that parents who liked uniform also like it for their children?

FWIW my son hated uniform at least as much as I did and rebelled rather more than I ever managed. I don't remember my daughter caring one way or the other - but that might be a fault in my memory.

I hated uniform. I pushed its limits in every possible way. Many and varied were my means of subverting it. (Eg: shaving my head "but boys are allowed this haircut"  )
I don't much remember objecting to it at primary school though.
But then, as my mum said rather stereotypically to Mr Smith "she was quite a wild one, you know" 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Have primary school catchment areas grown far more diverse?

Yes, I think so. It no longer seems to be a case of going to the nearest one, you fill in a list to 'apply' for your choice of three (or was it four?).

Do children no longer mix outside school?

They still do, in the school playground for a short time after end of school and visiting friends at their houses.

One potential problem is that uniform marks you out on the way to & from school. I've heard of bullying of children from the 'wrong' school.

Might well happen with secondary schools, not primaries.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I think a sensible uniform is a good thing. It needs to be something that a dyspraxic child can manage by themselves, so polo or t-shirts and easy-care jumpers or sweat shirts - if it includes the trousers, pull up or hooks rather than buttons. It should be unisex so that it can be passed down. It should be washable and tumble-dryable and and not need ironing. This is better than non-uniform as it can be handed on and sold second hand, and doesn't have the problem of being in fashion. It should also be consistent and not change every year.

Uniforms should be inclusive, so everyone can manage it and it can be adapted to cope with different situations.

Having dealt with children in the most different and varied (state special needs - high end public) schools.

This much common sense is wasted on YACF.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I vote yes, for all the reasons Julian said. I hated school uniform, but I accepted it as just part of school. And I would have hated being bullied for my own clothes even more - and I would have been.

Arguments that your own uniform was itchy and impractical and uncomfortable isn't an argument against all uniforms; it's an argument against the one you wore. Ours were neither itchy nor uncomfortable, although trousers for girls would have made them more practical. Some of us were told off severely for daring to turn up in black trousers in winter, all of us having a half hour walk through quite deep snow. One girl's mother wrote a fantastic snotty letter saying she'd dress her daughter as she saw fit and any queries should be addressed to her, and that was the end of it. And we all got kicked out history once for the heinous crime of fluourescent socks (it was 1985) but that was about it.

[CrinklyLion]

I didn't have a uniform in primary, and never felt the lack of it.  I was the odd kid in secondary with the homemade skirt and coat and the 'wrong' pe kit but it never really bothered me - they'd have picked on me (short, ginger, fat, bespectacled and reasonably clever - I never had a cat in hell's chance!) regardless of what I was wearing.  I remember my eldest sister having a huge stress about getting the right, suitably cool in the non-temperature sense, shorts for athletics and being completely perplexed because I couldn't understand why it mattered.  I was very very fortunate in that I passed the qualifying test and interview (seriously - we had an exam on categorising and alphabetising and an interview with two teachers!) to be a volunteer school librarian.  Which meant I won a magic badge (colour coded for what year you were in as I recall) and could spend every break and every lunchtime in there, and didn't have to queue for dinners, thus avoiding 99% of all bullying and misery until the blessed relief of sixth form.  In sixth form there wasn't a uniformbut there was a 'dress code' of, iirc, 'suitable business attire in black, blue or grey'.  I too challenged this in a few ways.  Grandad shirts, fringed skirts, carrot-orange henna hair and a half shaved head didn't cause an issue.  Wearing a headsquare did - they claimed to object to it being green, but then objected to a black one.  And a friend got into trouble for combining patent doc martens with a mini skirt.... It was simpler when the rules were clearer further down the school.  But less fun

The cubs' school, currently, has a voluntary uniform and I'd say roughly 2/3 of kids wear something approximating to uniform most of the time.  This is likely to change and become less voluntary soon, I believe.  School colours are navy and red.  Official badged kit - polos, t-shirts, jumpers and cardies - can be bought from the school office, but tesco/asda/M&S/whatever equivalents are fine.

From a parenting point of view - it's easy.  It's routine - and my boys respond well to routine.  It clearly distinguishes school days - when we have to get out the door NOW from weekends, when we can pootle around and stuff.  It's cheap as  chips and we have hand me downs from other families that have gone through 4 kids before ending up on SmallestCub - we have one of the original run of t-shirts from the very first newly introduced optional uniform!  It's all stuff that washes well.  The odd bits that I do buy rather than acquire, I aim for comfy versions - as I would with their civvies.  We don't have to think about it or argue about it.  They don't change out of uniform when they get home - but then 3 days a week out evening routine is home/tea/bath/bed and try to get that all done in an hour and a half to avoid a late night!

EldestCub, btw, says he 'doesn't mind' uniform.  He thinks it is a good thing when you're on a school trip as it helps to identify you.  He couldn't think of a good reason to not have it.  But then he consistently wears uniform on dressy-up days (he'll wear civvies on mufti days if we remember, but Doesn't Do fancy dress) and his favourite role in any performance is narrator - so he can just wear school clothes and doesn't need a costume....

[Kim]

Arguments that your own uniform was itchy and impractical and uncomfortable isn't an argument against all uniforms; it's an argument against the one you wore. Ours were neither itchy nor uncomfortable

Yes it is.  If you have school uniform, then the kids don't get a choice (or get a very limited one), and if it happens to involve itchy fabrics, excessive buttons, scatological colour schemes, brain blood circulation restriction devices or similar monstrosities, they're out of luck.  If you don't have a uniform, it's far easier to find something comfortable.  The one thing you can guarantee about uniform decisions for primary schools is they're not being made by the people who have to wear them.

The uniform described by CL seems to be standard fare for primary schools these days.  I'd have probably accepted that.  We were forced to wear collars and ties.   


And I reckon EldestCub has the right idea about casting decisions, given that it's generally quite hard for kids to wrangle nice sensible roles involving clipboards, scenery, lighting desks, things-that-are-no-longer-tape-recorders or projectors at primary level.  Playing a musical instrument sometimes works, thobut (mine was the triangle^[1]).


_{[1] I got a lot better once I worked out which corner not to hang it from.}

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Depends how strict the school is. Our uniform was grey trousers or skirts (black from third year up  ), white, blue or grey shirt, grey or black jumper and school tie (which wasn't compulsory for girls). There was no approved supplier or style or fabric, you just had to have the right colours. I had white or blue shirts with "proper" collars for a while but then when they were being replaced because I needed bigger ones, I had blue ones with rever collars.