Uniform wars
AS children prepare to return to school after the long Christmas holidays, we cast our minds back to the start of the January 1984 term, when a row broke out over whether to allow children from ethnic minority communities to wear traditional dress as part of their uniform.
Trouble had flared back in December when Brian Seager, head teacher of Derby School, had sent home three Muslim girls for wearing traditional dress. In protest, the parents of 12 more girls had kept their children at home.
In that era, most city schools required their female pupils to wear skirts, but their interpretation of the uniform rules was reasonably flexible. At most schools Muslim girls were generally permitted to wear clothing appropriate to their religious requirements provided they matched the colour of the standard uniform.
But councillor Janet FletcherDavies, of the County Council’s education committee, found that Mr Seager had offered no flexibility. It was her view that the county’s guidelines on uniform were no longer adequate and had to be changed.
Education director John Evans believed that, although the headmaster was acting within his own school’s rules, religious dress should be allowed.
Mohammed Najeeb, of Derby Pakistani Muslin Welfare Organisation, said the girls would probably be kept away from school until there was a meeting between a special governors’ sub-committee and parents.
A few days later, a heated debate had erupted at another local school – this time Homelands – where head teacher Robert Knapp had decided to permit the wearing of traditional salwar loose-fitting trousers rather than insisting on the standard navy ones previously required.
One of his school governors, Glynis Williamson, had quit her post in protest, claiming that parents had not been consulted on the decision, an assertion that Mr Knapp denied.
She argued: “There is a uniform already at the school – I just don’t thing there ought to be two different ones.”
Later, she told the Derby Telegraph: “It could cause problems as there are many nationalities at Homelands School.”
While the argument was in danger of becoming divided solely along racial lines, Mr Knapp assured parents that everyone was working towards an appropriate uniform of material and style that satisfied a cultural need and ensured that all pupils were neatly and efficiently dressed.
However, it seemed matters had been taken out of head teachers’ hands. The County Council had already taken the decision to allow students from ethnic minorities to wear traditional dress to school.
In a letter to Milton Crossdale, Derby Community Relations Officer, John Evans wrote: “They took the view that this desire was rooted in religious beliefs and as such offered a powerful reason for exempting the minorities from standard requirements of dress that apply to the white majority. I hope this will restore the confidence of the Muslim and other communities.”
Schools were therefore instructed that they should listen to the wishes
of parents that were, as the Derby Telegraph put it, “based on religious beliefs or cultural tradition, particularly about the need for modesty in clothing, especially for girls”.
Unfortunately, this proved not to be the end of the matter. Two days later, 200 Derby School pupils turned up for lessons dressed in jeans. Although they claimed that they were simply exercising their right to wear their own “traditional dress”, they were immediately sent home, despite many of them being scheduled to take mock examinations that day.
Frank Revell, chairman of the County Education Committee, said he was disappointed. “I did not think the pupils would react in this way and I suspect that many parents are behind the protest.”