Posted: Mar 02, 2010 2:49 pm
Most of our kids use 'post' bags. A sort of white denim bag and they have to have unbranded sports shoes, luckily we have a sort of middle of the road type brand that most schools recommend.
I think that low-self-esteem has to do with more than just uniforms, it's a combination of a whole lot of things. There's more to the British teenager problem than what we can define in a conversation like this, you'd have to do comparative studies. And we have much bigger problems here too that go beyond discipline (there's a lot of that) and uniforms. We have poverty which is such a big problem that it overshadows any others we might have. Also under-educated parents, here certainly, are a large contributing factor to poor performance by our 'matrics' and also kids who don't live with their parents and are sponsored or whose parents live far away from schools etc. And I'm sure there are problems in the UK that Europeans don't have and ones in some parts of America that don't appear in others.
All I was saying in my original post is that when you have parents who can afford private school fees, the backing of the parents for disciplinary measures and expected standards of performance by the pupils, included in levels of hierarchy as far as the teachers' behaviour and the behaviour of the children towards the teachers, availability of learning aids, a level of social behaviour that in inculcated in the children from the beginning etc. etc. you'll get the expected results, which will be better when compared with schools where there are no fees, poor availability of learning aids, indifference to the standard of behaviour and poorly educated teachers. And a whole lot of other ills.
I think that low-self-esteem has to do with more than just uniforms, it's a combination of a whole lot of things. There's more to the British teenager problem than what we can define in a conversation like this, you'd have to do comparative studies. And we have much bigger problems here too that go beyond discipline (there's a lot of that) and uniforms. We have poverty which is such a big problem that it overshadows any others we might have. Also under-educated parents, here certainly, are a large contributing factor to poor performance by our 'matrics' and also kids who don't live with their parents and are sponsored or whose parents live far away from schools etc. And I'm sure there are problems in the UK that Europeans don't have and ones in some parts of America that don't appear in others.
All I was saying in my original post is that when you have parents who can afford private school fees, the backing of the parents for disciplinary measures and expected standards of performance by the pupils, included in levels of hierarchy as far as the teachers' behaviour and the behaviour of the children towards the teachers, availability of learning aids, a level of social behaviour that in inculcated in the children from the beginning etc. etc. you'll get the expected results, which will be better when compared with schools where there are no fees, poor availability of learning aids, indifference to the standard of behaviour and poorly educated teachers. And a whole lot of other ills.