It’s what you learn, not what you wear

ISTILL shudder when I think about my old school uniform. I was one of those unfortunates who was forced to wear dark brown. Even our knickers had to be brown!

The regulation duffle coat and hat were also brown and my mum bought them several sizes too big to allow for growth. So it was that my 12-year-old self dressed up for the first day at secondary school looked just a tad sadder than Paddington Bear.

There was a slight colour concession in the emerald green blazer allowed in the summer which added a dash of After Eight to the rest of our attire.

The winter uniform was the typical girls school take on boys’ uniforms. I’ve always been utterly baffled why girls are forced to wear a shirt and tie – as if we might reach the same academic standard of boys if we are dressed like mini men.

And in the equally-baffling concession to femininity, trousers were banned and skirts had to be worn that came below the knee. Like every other schoolgirl, I rolled mine up at the waist to fashion a miniskirt as soon as I was out of the school grounds.

We also had a summer uniform which was a surprisingly girly dress. They would have been great except that they came in a choice of, you guessed it, brown or lurid green.

I also remember how expensive the school uniform was. My mum took me to the designated shop and spent a small fortune on a big pile of clothes I ungratefully detested.

But there was one good thing about that uniform. All the pupils looked exactly the same. It didn’t matter if your parents were rich or poor, you had the same clothes as the next child. There was no shame in picking up secondhand uniforms or in receiving the subsidies that were then available for poorer families towards the cost.

As MPs yesterday were debating the delayed School Uniform Bill, the topic of school uniform has been very much back on the agenda over the last week.

The Children’s Society, among others, has urged schools not to enforce uniform rules as pupils return following months of home schooling.

It says some children have grown out of uniform they haven’t even had a chance to wear during the lockdown.

The Bill would end the practise where schools insist parents buy branded uniform from a preferred supplier. Instead schools could specify basic items but not dictate styles.

It would mean parents saving a fortune because they could buy nonbranded clothing cheaply from supermarkets or shops like Primark – and be able to quickly and easily replace it.

Labour MP Mike Amesbury, who introduced the Bill, has said it should be the case that school headteachers and governors specify basic items, such as trousers and shirts, but not the specific style.

Despite this and the difficulties faced by parents getting their children kitted out during lockdown, there’s still been reports of some schools reprimanding pupils for incorrect uniform.

The reported incidents have been as daft as kids wearing trainers instead of plimsolls for PE.

It seems incredible to me, at a time when pupils have missed so much valuable time with teachers, that any emphasis at all is being placed on school uniform.

But the education system still seems to be stifled by a belief that a disciplined uniform code will do as much for a child’s development as good teaching.

My local secondary school is an example of this kind of thinking.

A few years ago, pupils could wear a sensible mix of sweatshirts, trousers, open neck shirts and comfortable shoes. But since the uniform rules were changed and the school now insists on expensive blazers, tailored trousers, skirts and shirts and ties (for the girls as well as the boys, of course!).

It seems odd that rather than embracing modern dress, as has happened in most workplaces where the full suit now looks a bit odd, schools wants children to dress as though they are ready to go to work in a 1980s office.

In the meantime, many schools “reward” pupils with “mufti days” when they can pay a contribution to charity to wear their own clothes for a day. This tradition makes an utter nonsense of all the practical arguments for a school uniform while making any child who can’t afford to pay, or who doesn’t have the “ingear” highly susceptible to bullying.

Hopefully the School Uniform Bill will be the beginning of the end for some of the archaic rules and practises surrounding school uniform.

And perhaps the pandemic will teach us that successful schools are powered by the desire to learn, not by uniform.

My 12-year-old self dressed up for the first day at secondary school looked just a tad sadder than Paddington Bear