I hope you're right, Kathy, about uniforms not legally enforceable. That's the story here officially, but frankly in practice, they would find ways to penalise the child (including detention) which really was illegal.
I agree about the need to do the utmost to fit in - I endorse that. it can be done, but sometimes allowances need to be made. And CAN be made, if a school will only stop the automatic inflexibility (ODD?) and try to work towards a compromise. It can be done, I've seen it done. But I've also experienced the inflexible (dare I say stupid?) staff members who stick to the rules and are totally unreasonable about it.
difficult children can often be VERY hard on clothes. difficult child 3 would chew his clothes, mouthing his shirts until they were soggy and had teethmarks through the fabric. His school pullovers were frayed at the cuffs, hem and collar from him chewing at them. I've seen a teething puppy do similar damage in the same time-frame. I couldn't afford to keep replacing his clothes with new; luckily the school was supportive and let me access the 'school pool" of second-hand discarded clothes. I also learned to mend at the first hint of a hole, because difficult child 3 and difficult child 1 both would 'worry' at a small hole until it quickly became huge (I vaguely recall a Michael Jackson video where he was getting around in a t-shirt in various stages of being ripped down the front - it reminded me of my boys).
difficult child 1 especially put the knees out of his grey flannel trousers, generally on his first day. The teacher would report that he came back into class after morning break, with the knee out on one side. difficult child 3 wasn't quite so bad - it would take him a week or more to put the knee out, but patching didn't work so well with him because he would 'work' at the patches and wear away the fabric above the patch.
Yes, my boys looked a bit different. It simply couldn't be helped. I did my best to make them as similar as possible and I really don't think they copped too much from other kids for being different; it was more the school staff, and even then only in the beginning. The teachers there soon realised I was doing my best against overwhelming odds. In a lot of ways I feel a number of those teachers at that school did wrong by my kids, but in this, they were great.
The next primary school - great, overall. Wonderful. It can be done.
Then high school - no longer an issue for difficult child 3. But the others - a headache. easy child's school no worries, they were supportive re uniform and she wasn't hard on clothes. She had classmates with problems, the school didn't hassle them but worked to find a solution.
The middle two - problems at their high school, especially in later years when the really good principal had left.
easy child 2/difficult child 2 was small, we couldn't actually buy the standard uniform and had to have it specially made. It was still too big. But no allowances were made.
Shoes had to be completely black, but they didn't tell us this in time, we bought difficult child 1's shoes before we knew. They had white vinyl flashes on the inside (Nike). The school wanted us to buy different shoes. difficult child 1 was difficult to find shoes for, we'd bought the only ones we had found anyway, so I refused. I offered to paint the vinyl black; somehow not acceptable. But I did it anyway and scrutinised those shoes to make sure the black stayed on - it did. The school simply assumed I had done as asked. Idiots.
Then easy child 2/difficult child 2 reached senior high school. Still tiny. School uniform colours - black, white, green, red. Actually, very attractive. Black trousers or tartan skirt in winter. She felt the cold badly - so we bought black trousers. But we couldn't find anything to fit, so in a high fashion shop we invested in a pair of black lycra stretch pants. On easy child 2/difficult child 2, they didn't need to stretch, but they were the only ones long enough, which didn't fall off her hips. The school never even noticed for the first few years, then someone noticed that the seams were place differently and told her she was out of uniform. Detention.
I sent in a note explaining that easy child 2/difficult child 2 simply was impossible to find the right fit for, and to not punish her for simply being the wrong shape.
I was told that she would need a fresh note for each day she was going to be out of uniform.
Mind you, she was still wearing black trousers of such a similar cut that most teachers didn't even know.
Winter - we lived a long way from the school, the 'island' requires an early start by boat, before sunrise. It's cold on the water. The total school uniform items were not enough to keep her warm, so I added a black scarf, black gloves and a black maxi-coat which had been part of easy child's uniform for HER school a year earlier (easy child had now finished school).
easy child 2/difficult child 2 looked good. She also looked thoroughly in uniform, since everything was in school colours.
Yep - we got an out of uniform detention note.
I saw red (and not the one on the school uniform). I rang up the school AND sent in a note saying, "When YOU (the staff member enforcing this rule) travel to school leaving by boat before sunrise, happen to be undersized and susceptible to the cold, wearing only permitted school uniform items and STILL feel you are being reasonable - instead of arriving by heated car getting to school five minutes before the bell - THEN I will support your stand. Until then, my daughter will be wearing her black coat, her back scarf and her black gloves according to the dictates of the weather, as this is a serious health issue. We have endeavoured to stay within the bounds of school uniform but you simply do not have enough items suitable to the weather to make this possible."
That school now has, as part of its winter uniform, the same black maxi-coat style. And scarf & gloves of any one of the school colours. Idiots.
One day easy child 2/difficult child 2 was walking to class AFTER a uniform inspection when a teacher called her over - her trousers had just drawn attention. She was in her final six months of her entire schooling, I was not wanting to order a pair of trousers to be made that she would probably never wear again; would probably only get a few weeks' wear out of them, assuming they actually arrived when ordered, before the end of winter term. But the teacher insisted - she had to present herself to the office for an out of uniform note even though she had just passed a uniform inspection.
In the office the inspecting teacher scratcher her head. In what way was this child out of uniform? Aha! Her shoes were non-regulation. Instead of wearing black sneakers, she was wearing black court shoes. That was it! And despite the fact that senior girls were permitted black court shoes, easy child 2/difficult child 2 was reprimanded for being out of uniform - the black trousers had again passed inspection, even with close examination. Detention again - until I got to the school and challenged it.
In Australia, most of our schools have uniforms. Increasingly they are practical, but it still leaves a lot of room for improvement. Entire companies' businesses are based on selling school uniform items. I suspect they import fabrics used only for these jobs, and no other. When everyone else is wearing stretch-knit fabric which breathes, school uniforms are still being made of pure cotton plaid with no room for movement and absolutely no warmth in winter. We get the ridiculous sight of a girl in school uniform (technically) wearing her school dress (cotton, short-sleeved) with school tracksuit trousers underneath the skirt and a tracksuit jumper on the top. This plaid little skirt is then sticking out in between like a frill - but because it's all school uniform, it passes muster. It looks ridiculous, but it's a desperate attempt by a parent to keep her small girl as warm as possible, in the absence of sufficient sensible clothing, or any heating in the classrooms.
After all these experiences, my attitude to school uniforms is very unfavourable. If only all schools would be equally reasonable about these things, perhaps I would feel differently. Schools which were reasonable - I can still look at photos of my kids in uniform there and feel pride. Where they were unreasonable - I feel resentful, even when I can intellectually recognise that the uniform looked good. The experience associated with that uniform is what has been so very unpleasant. And so very unnecessary.
Marg