School uniforms are the new target of an hysterical woke insurgency

BBC Breakfast reports on back to school shopping Most people are now familiar with the transgender hysteria distorting teaching and learning in too many places. With the pronoun police out in force, woe betide any teacher with the temerity to address a class of girls as girls. School leaders, terrified of alienating the sinister culture warriors now running much of the public sector and its corporate equivalent (N.B. Coutts Bank), bow the knee to each Sarah who has decided this week that she would be happier if known as Samuel. As a former Education Minister, but most of all as a parent, I have some hope that forthcoming Department for Education guidance on transgender policy might just bring an end to some of this madness. At very least parents must be fully involved in matters which affect their child’s present and future. READ MORE Furious parents slam ministers for failing to reveal full list of school closure School uniform is being weaponised in the culture war, says John Hayes Certainly, a dose of common sense has never been more important as rainbow flags (though not Union Jacks!) adorn many classrooms and school noticeboards, explicit sex education lessons complete with all kinds of carnal peculiarities, are commonplace, while pride months and climate alarmism are routinely taken as read by many into whose hands we place our children. ‘Will we make to the end of term, Miss? Or will the climate emergency means the world’s ending before August?’ I recall as a schoolboy regarding with amused curiosity an eccentric fellow with a sandwich board declaring that ‘the end of the world is nigh’. Who would have thought that a few decades later the world’s end would be perceived as imminent with equal vehemence by both so many young people who don’t know better and too many older people who should. Even school uniform is being weaponised in the culture war. Just before the pandemic hit, the Government bowed to pressure from mainly Labour MPs to change the law, so ordering schools to minimise branded items of uniform, such as distinctive and brightly badged blazers, colourful school ties and associated sports kit. The road to the underworld is always paved with good intentions and the virtuous intent in this case was to reduce the financial burden on hard-pressed parents kitting out their offspring for the school year ahead. Trending Post-pandemic increases in the cost of living have exacerbated such concerns. Ministers and their Labour acolytes were seemingly captivated by a Children’s Society report alleging that the annual cost of uniform is £340 a year, a figure that has been now upgraded to £422. Never mind that the fine print of the initial report conceded that the average cost of branded items was only £100 per annum. The £340 price tag was enough to justify the Government’s meddling in a matter surely best left to schools to decide, imperiously instructing them to reduce uniforms to a bare minimum. Offering a bitter taste of things to come, the Labour Government in Wales instructed schools that they should not make branded items of clothing, such as blazers and caps, compulsory, thereby effectively ending uniforms in the Principality. Now, no state school there can insist on a distinctive sartorial identity. SUBSCRIBE Invalid email We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info Schools are being instructed that they should not make branded items of clothing Yet, will scrapping or minimising uniforms actually save families’ money? Certainly not. Numerous surveys suggest that the average cost of clothing a teenager for a year is at least £1,000. Pupils are at school for 195 days a year, so the average cost of their wardrobe for this time is bound to be more than £500 – even more than the Children’s Society’s questionable figure of £422. Many schools already assist with costs by holding used school uniform sales, often organised by PTAs, thus cutting costs for families. Regardless, children have to be clothed whether in uniform or not and the bill for the average family, certainly at secondary level, would definitely be more than the amount cited in the questionable report.