I have never understood this idea that Labour drove out school uniforms decades ago. I went to school, in the Eighties and Nineties, entirely under the aegis of the first local authority that Labour ever won, and which it has never lost in the hundred years since. We certainly had uniforms. I was subsequently a two-term (i.e., eight-year) governor both of my old primary school and of my old secondary school, and they still had them then. And I still live in the country town where they are located, and can assure you that those uniforms are still very much in evidence. Old Labour versus the New Left, which is now called New Labour, I suppose.
School uniforms mask disparity of wealth. Not perfectly. But vastly better than their absence. The best that Jeremy Vine’s anti-uniform guest could find to say was that his local school with the best exam results had no uniform for years. That school turned out to be Camden School for Girls, within the quarter-mile square catchment area of which house prices are out of this world, and alma mater of that spectacular advertisement for open primaries, Georgia Gould. Hardly typical, I think we can all agree. No disparity of wealth to mask, except that between the super-rich and the super-super-rich. Old Labour versus the New Left, which is now called New Labour, indeed.
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Like you..I was also a parent-governor when my children were young enough. The school wore a uniform. Very much the "norm" here. I dont ever recall ANYONE objecting to their child wearing the school uniform.
ReplyDeleteIt is (as you rightly say IN PART) a social equaliser...as the children were obviously linked by catholicism anyway. An that of course "identity" was something to which all parents subscribed.
The prime reason in choosing "our" school was the Catholicism and therefore people had no qualms about making this choice very visible.
In fact as I recall during or around my "term" the uniform was actually enhaced by a school satchel in school colours and with crest. It seemed a "new" idea at the time but now it is quite common in all schools.
I also note that our local school like many others now has a rain jacket (anorak kinda thing) and a fleece in school colours.
"Very much the "norm" here
ReplyDeleteAnd here. But there is a persistent right-wing media fantasy that this is not so in the State sector. Perhaps they are thinking of the London pseudo-comps for the well-heeled New Left/New Labour?