A few weeks ago, I was introduced this article regarding  school pupils being sent home because of their school uniform. Reading through, I was intrigued to see why young people were being prevented for learning by the very people who are in place to allow them to learn and support them on their journey! The further through the article I got, the more infuriated I become. I am a strong believer that school uniform is important not only to get pupils in the correct mental state to learn but to give them a feeling of belonging. However, I find the article to be extreme.

Pupils are being stripped of the opportunities to learn and to set themselves up for life. What goes through teachers minds to become so pernickety over the appearance of their school that they ignore the value of education? I understand that pupils can return to school once they have “appropriate” school uniform on but, what about the pupils who aren’t as fortunate as others? The ones who cannot afford to go and buy a whole new wardrobe for school because the items they or their parents have purchased aren’t acceptable. Many young people are still growing quite quickly at the beginning of secondary school, it cannot be helped. Items such as blazers can be expensive so what happens when a family doesn’t have the money to replace it mid-year. This seems to me to be yet another way of singling children out who don’t have the same privileges as other.

A school should be a place of stability, a place where everyone feels as though they are being judged for the items of clothing that they have. How can we expect children to find who they are as an individual when they are under so much pressure to the same as every one else. Young people are already put under so much pressure from the media to look and act a certain way but now they are being put under similar pressure from school. Don’t get me wrong, I strongly agree in the value in school uniform but only when it is in it’s correct place on the priority list! The people making these decisions are only in the position to be able to make them because they have already come through the system, the same system that they are preventing these children to make the most out of because they are being sent home for the way they dress. It doesn’t make sense.