Uniformity

In the beginning, I was so keen to conform. I tried to establish what the school's actual uniform policy was, so I could follow it to the letter. Several conversations with the school secretary left me little the wiser. She showed me a price list of items which could be purchased from the school office, but explained that I was free to buy most things elsewhere. Repeated questions about what was actually required bore no fruit. In the end, I just sized up the other children and aimed for a similar look.

Uniforms make some home educating parents see red. Uniforms are cited as one proof among many that the institution of school is set to destroy children's free will by demanding conformity. I can appreciate this view.

On the other hand, having attended a non-uniform school, and having been teased for wearing the clothes our family was willing and able to afford, I can also see the other view. As a parent, I do find it far easier to get my daughter out the door now that I can simply tell her to put on her uniform. This has put an end to the inevitable faffing over the location of her favourite trousers (usually in the wash, of course) and angst over whether this top goes with that cardigan and whether it's fashionable enough. Will wearing a uniform crush her individuality and turn her into a mindless clone? Maybe so. Under the circumstances, I think I can live with that.

What's more, I may be the last mum in the country to have discovered this secret: unless your child attends an awkwardly fussy school, uniform is blissfully cheap! Spotting jumpers in just the right colour at Matalan for an exhilarating two pounds each, I closed my mind to images of children working in sweatshops abroad, and bought a few. These were to be spares, to tide us over until I could buy a couple of logoed jumpers from the school office, and thereafter to use in case of washday emergencies. The Kid declared these bargain jumpers to be beautifully soft and cosy inside. At the time, I fully intended to buy the "proper" school jumper in due course. At nine pounds it was not a steal, but neither was it extortionate.

Then two things happened. First, The Kid managed to lose two jumpers at school in the space of two weeks. (How one can lose a distinctive jumper with one's name written on it, in a small school of under 70 pupils, I cannot imagine. Other parents tell me it happens often. It's one of those great mysteries of child-rearing.) Second, I looked around and noticed that a substantial minority of children were wearing jumpers and cardigans in the correct colour but without the school logo. I concluded 1) that the loss of a steady stream of £2 jumpers would pain me less than the loss of £9 jumpers, and 2) that the school did not much care precisely what the children wore.

I remained pleased with my purchases. They faded rapidly in the wash, but I expected to need them only for a term. Anyway, the fading made them even easier for The Kid to keep track of.

The school secretary made passing remarks to The Kid about the necessity of buying a proper school jumper. In the absence of an official communication, I instructed her to ignore these remarks, or direct the secretary to me. Then, in the middle of November, in the weekly newsletter, the headteacher made a pointed remark about the variety of nonstandard apparel in evidence among pupils at the school, and reminded parents that logoed jumper was required.

Pushed to the wall, I finally emailed him, with a copy to the secretary, asking to see a copy of the school's uniform policy. I mentioned that I hadn't seen it before, and suggested that perhaps other parents were also confused and in future it might be useful to cite the uniform policy in the welcome pack sent to newly-enrolled pupils.

There was no response. The secretary, however, continued to raise the jumper issue with my daughter, with the result that some of her classmates began to give her grief as well. Previously, they had teased her only over her coat, shoes and umbrella, most of the other families being considerably better heeled than ours.

Now I was annoyed. Home education, I suppose, has turned me into a troublemaker. It was no longer a question of £9. It was about authority being overstepped (just as Local Authorities so routinely overstep their authority in dealing with home educating families). You see, I had begun to suspect that the school did not actually HAVE a uniform policy. No doubt you'll be wondering whether I have nothing better to do with my time than stir up trouble in a school where none of the other parents has ever had a problem with buying a jumper. I wonder that too, especially considering that my daughter probably would be leaving soon.

The head did not accept my assertion that a uniform policy is not merely a matter of custom or for him to dictate, but is instead a specific statement which can only be approved by the board of governors and then enforced by the head. I imagine this is a detail of his job which he's never needed to know, never having had parents like me raise a ruckus. He did, however, acknowledge that it would be silly to require me to buy any more uniform now, since it was possible my daughter would leave the school in a few weeks' time. And there we left it. So I still don't know whether the school has a uniform policy. I guess I'll leave that for the other parents to figure out.