The Government says that upcoming changes to school uniform policy will save parents around £50 per child. The number of compulsory branded items of uniform will fall to three, plus a tie for secondary age kids.
This is good news in theory, although some uniform retailers have suggested parents may end up paying more overall if they purchase lower-cost, unbranded items which then need to be replaced more often. Then again, they probably would say that.
I feel conflicted about school uniforms. As a child, my primary school took a fairly pick-and-mix approach. Girls could wear blue or pink gingham dresses; boys could wear red or blue jumpers of varying descriptions. Branded sweaters were introduced around the time I left. Prior to that, I’d got away with wearing one that had a Manchester United logo on it. There was a vague level of smartness, which I enjoyed, but almost nobody wore the optional school tie.
At secondary school, things became more serious, with branded jumpers and mandatory ties. I quite liked the sense of formality – it felt like an important part of growing up. The only downside was that my mother insisted on darning the elbows of my wool jumper when they wore through, whereas most other children had the polyester version and just lived with holes. At a time when I just wanted to look like everyone else, my woollen patches were a crushing embarrassment.
Still, in general terms, I liked wearing a uniform in class and when my kids started school, I loved seeing them with their little friends, all in matching outfits. I tried to encourage them to keep their collars neat and – when they moved from infant to junior school – to keep their ties straight.
As time has gone on, however, it has felt like a losing battle. Last week, ahead of an early-morning class assembly, I asked my son if he planned to tuck his shirt in. “Not yet!” came the astonished reply, as if I’d asked him to do something utterly outrageous. He assured me he would sort it out, but when I turned up to watch the assembly, there he was on stage, shirt flapping. And he was far from the only one.
At my daughter’s secondary school, there are all sorts of specific requirements: blazer, jumper, tie, pleated skirt, sports gear aplenty, all needing occasional replacement as growth spurts require, or emergency overnight washing and drying when a spillage has occurred. The upcoming policy changes will be very welcome if we no longer have to buy a specific, branded skirt from a single retailer at not insignificant cost.
square MATILDA BATTERSBY
Can we loosen school uniform rules? My kids look like mini accountants
Read MoreMore than all this, however, I have developed an ambivalence towards school uniforms because of wider societal changes. In the days when most adults seemed to wear suits and ties, or pressed shirts and smart skirts, school uniform almost felt like a rehearsal for grown-up life. You needed to know how to wear a tie properly and polish a pair of shoes because that’s what you would need to do if you planned to work in an office or professional occupation. If you were going to have to put up with sartorial discomfort, why not start young?
Now, however, just 7 per cent of adults wear “business attire” for work, according to a YouGov survey in 2023. Nineteen per cent wear a work uniform (from police tunics to Tesco T-shirts), but six in 10 wear either casual or smart-casual clothes of their own choice.
Sure enough, I still have a draw full of ties I bought in the early 2000s – but most have been unworn for years. I wear a suit rarely, and cufflinks stay in their box for weeks on end. I try to avoid looking scruffy, but I do not miss the days of neatly ironing creases in my shirts or of having to shine my black leather shoes every week.
With this backdrop in mind, it would surely make more sense to prepare children for adulthood by being a bit more chilled out about what they wear to school. After all, it’s not as if every child in a school uniform actually looks particularly well-kempt – just ask my son and his flappy shirt. If we focused on there being a requisite level of smartness, rather than conflating uniform with formality, we might end up with a generation of chic young adults who could put their forebears to shame.
Alternatively, we can keep the kids in stripey ties and elaborately branded blazers – but in that case perhaps we grown-ups should be prepared to bring back suits to the office.
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