I fear the ‘Gestapo head’ is fighting a well-dressed but unwinnable war

THE classroom door inched open and a hand attached to an unseen department head motioned to our teacher that a word was wanted.

I saw him offer some penitent grimaces before the door closed again and, chastened, he returned to the middle of the floor. ‘I’ve just been told not to wear this tie to school again,’ he told us.

I’m not convinced his superior had wanted us in on that information.

But we 14-year-olds made the appropriate noises to show whose side we were on. It was the rebel schoolmaster of course – probably no more than two years out of teacher training and therefore still, technically, in possession of a sense of humour. This he had chosen to express with a piano keyboard tie which, I shudder to recall, passed for sartorial wit in the 1980s.

Down with stuffy senior staff outlawing freedom of expression in younger teachers’ fashions. That’s what we reckoned, sitting there in our Madras College ties and blazers, school crest emblazoned on breast pockets.

In our defence, we were young and stupid then. Now I am older than some of the parents of children at Hartsdown Academy in Margate, Kent, who this week became irate with a head teacher on his first day in the job when he refused to allow pupils on to the premises without the ‘perfect uniform’.

And I have to say I am enjoying this story immensely. Few things are more fun for those whose memories stretch back well into the 1900s than noble rear-guard actions to protect the stuff from our youth which we know is either done for or dead already.

That is why it was a delight to hear Prince Charles declare this week that people must dial back on all the emails and texting and return to some proper letter writing. (Admirable sentiments, Your Highness, but a masterclass in futility.)

And it is why head teacher Matthew Tate is suddenly a hero – and possibly quite mad.

Where the ‘Gestapo’ head’s zero tolerance policy on uniform infringements borders on heroism is in the clarity of its message: We are a school and there is a uniform. Wear it.

What, he may reasonably ask, is so difficult about that?

Draconian

Some of his pupils may go on to join the Armed Forces or the police. How far do they suppose they will get arguing with the chief constable or Sergeant Major about dress codes?

Others may get jobs in the City or with airlines or burger joints or clearing rubbish from trains. Uniforms await in those careers as well.

Wherever they end up working – even if they never work at all – there will be rules. Many may seem spurious or draconian or downright unfair.

School uniform always seemed to me an excellent training for this cruel world where towing the line with gritted teeth so often turns out to be a prerequisite for getting mortgages paid and putting food on the table.

It tickles me that breadwinning parents subject to this very compliance see their offspring as somehow off-limits.

But then again, as we discussed, Mr Tate is possibly quite mad.

The age of authoritarian, disciplinarian schooling is long gone – decommissioned along with the tawse, the cane, the mortar board and the supercilious sadists who got into teaching for questionable reasons. Truth be known, most of these were history even in my schooldays.

The age in which Mr Tate is head teacher of Hartsdown Academy is one where 40 per cent of people aged between 18 and 29 have tattoos.

Indeed St Andrews University academic Andrew Timming published findings this week which show applicants with tattoos are more likely to get jobs in certain work environments than those without.

So what is the plan, Mr Tate? For pupils to observe to the letter every over-fussy uniform regulation before collecting their armfuls of tats at 18?

A more relaxed approach, surely, could pay dividends. I may have forgotten to mention that, on the day our teacher was quite rightly picked up for wearing a piano keyboard tie, many of his pupils were wearing fluorescent pink or yellow socks (more 80s ghastliness). Rightly again, I think, no one picked us up on those. In time, we figured out for ourselves how daft they looked.

Years later I encountered a more relaxed approach still. There is no school uniform requirement at all at Hyndland Secondary School in Glasgow, which my daughter attended for six years. It remains one of the top performing state schools in the city. Its pupils, for all their short skirts, ripped jeans and lurid trainers, are a credit to the place.

Certainly the policy made this sceptical parent reappraise his attitudes to school uniform. Yes, of course, uniform fosters a sense of community and identity. Some believe it mitigates against bullying. It is, they say, almost as effective a social leveller as nakedness.

Indulgence

But should we really be regimenting children like mini soldiers?

If a lifetime of rule following lies ahead, is a smidgen of sartorial indulgence in their formative years such a terrible thing? My daughter had her nose pierced weeks after leaving school. First she put a stud in it, then a ring. Where will it all end? With a tattoo sleeve?

I’m hopeful sense will prevail. Now 19, she figured out her nose looked great without the metal. Some realisations it’s best to make on our own.

Right now I suspect Mr Tate is realising he’s been a fool. For there are other life lessons at play here and one of them is learn to pick your battles.

In locking horns so readily with parents whose children wear black suede shoes instead of black leather ones he has chosen a pernickety and probably unwinnable one.