Well I never?

[DtheP47]

As a callow youth at Accy Tech I always took with a pinch of salt when told that Paddock House girls were lectured by the Nuns at Paddock House on the dangers of wearing patent leather shoes.
Well the wheel has gone full circle!
Just had a pleasant Sunday dinner up at the Griffin's Head with my son and family and guess what my grandaughter (14) who is at "The Academy" tells me?
Yup
Patent leather shoes are banned because people can use the reflection to look up a girls skirt.

Have we moved on in the last 50 odd years? Apparently not.

And howabout this one guys and gals?
She tells me also they are not allowed to have their hair in a bun at school?
Can anybody explain that one to me?

I have asked Bex to find out the reasons on that one cos' I am stumped

[accyman]

because the fat kids might try to eat it ?

[Margaret Pilkington]

Schools seem to like to ban shoes and hairstyles that are in vogue.
I think the reasoning for them not wearing patent leather shoes is flawed.......most shoes today would not have the reflective material in the right place to see up a girls skirt.
Think about it........!
The banning of fashions is to perhaps focus attention on something other than how students look.

[accyman]

if they think kids are using the refelction on shoes to look up girls skirts then them teachers are pretty backward or extreemely dim

it sounds more like an extreemly poor excuse to justify what they want to acheive or to cover for their extreemly fussy preferences

if they are going to ban something they should have a reasonable reason for doing so and not a flimsy excuse

[lancsdave]

They probably have some connection with a shoe shop which only sells the type of shoes allowed.

Schools are supposed to have made uniform more affordable to families yet they do their best to make it so restrictive on where you can buy it.

[Barrie Yates]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

Schools seem to like to ban shoes and hairstyles that are in vogue.
I think the reasoning for them not wearing patent leather shoes is flawed.......most shoes today would not have the reflective material in the right place to see up a girls skirt.
Think about it........!
The banning of fashions is to perhaps focus attention on something other than how students look.

Quite right MP, patent leather shoes cannot do that. My mess kit dress shoes were patent leather - so one could say I have some experience on the subject. However, not as bad as the pervs who used to watch the HP girls playing netball in the school yard

[Margaret Pilkington]

Yes Accyman, you are right and it is a very flimsy excuse.
If the school wishes to ban them then they should just do that and not give a ludicrous reason.
It wouldn't matter if the patent leather extended up the whole of a girls leg...you still would not be able to look up her skirt using the reflective powers of the footwear.

If they were keen to protect the modesty of the girls then the simple answer would be to ask all the girls to wear trousers.

I am out and about when the pupils are making their way to The Academy and St Christopher's and some of the skirts these girls wear are so short that you can lamost see their underwear anyway.
We had a teacher who would monitor the hemlines of the girls as they filed past into school, anyone who had a short skirt on(above the knee) was sent home to change.

[dotti34]

This is not quite the same sort of thing, but is about school regulations and what some do and don’t allow. My 4-year-old granddaughter goes to Pre-school 2½ days a week and comes here to us for 2 days. I always like to have a few projects for us to do and the other day one of these was making a batch of gingerbread men.

She was very proud of the fact that she had helped make them and took 2 to Pre-school in her lunchbox. Both were sent back home with a note to the effect that biscuits were not allowed. These were homemade biscuits for crying out loud – admittedly with ‘sweet’ ingredients, but not shop-bought rubbish.

A couple of days later she had 2 apples in her lunchbox – one was sent home. When queried about this the little one said ‘we are only allowed to have 1 piece of fruit’. Not sure about this though as maybe she only wanted one.

The lunchboxes of both my young grandchildren are always full of healthy, nutritious food – so surely a little flexibility wouldn’t go amiss when a couple of homemade biscuits are included.

Just as well they didn’t see how many of the gingerbread men she ate here.

The ironic thing is that they allow white bread that has absolutely no nutritional value, and crackers that have lots of salt in them!

By the way, the older one at primary school (same campus) ate her biscuits at school, no problem.

[dotti34]

Also the same Pre-school has banned birthday cakes. If a child has a birthday they can only take a pretend (plastic) cake to school to celebrate the occasion.

I can understand the fight against obesity but really.....

[Bob Dobson]

I found that patent leather shoes were ineffective , so attached a small mirror to the end of a 3ft-long folding stick. The idea came to me whilst watching Hyndburn Park girls playing netball in the yard. I learned that, even on Saturday nights, many schoolgirls out dancing at Christ Church or the Arcadian still wore navy blue knickers.

[DtheP47]

Originally Posted by Bob Dobson

I found that patent leather shoes were ineffective , so attached a small mirror to the end of a 3ft-long folding stick. The idea came to me whilst watching Hyndburn Park girls playing netball in the yard. I learned that, even on Saturday nights, many schoolgirls out dancing at Christ Church or the Arcadian still wore navy blue knickers.

Times have moved on Bob get th'sel a selfie stick.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewziegle...-level#1dpgrfl

[Neil]

Here are links to the school uniform rules for the two schools mentioned

http://www.accrington-academy.org/Po...us_Page_11.png

School Dress Code | St Christopher's CE High School

Both refer to either traditional black school shoes or just plain black shoes and St Chris's lists this as not being allowed

Boots, sports shoes, sandals, ballerinas, plimsolls, patent, suede or fabric shoes, shoes with high heels or platform soles, fashion shoes, trainers or ballerinas.

And this on skirts

Girls' skirts should be worn on the waist and at knee length.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Well, Neil, I am not sure the skirt policy is being monitored.
When driving along Whalley Road this morning there were pupils from both the Academy and St Christophers who were definitely not abiding by the uniform policy.......with expanses of above the knee flesh on show.

[Eric]

Originally Posted by dotti34

Also the same Pre-school has banned birthday cakes. If a child has a birthday they can only take a pretend (plastic) cake to school to celebrate the occasion.

I can understand the fight against obesity but really.....

Too much PC bs ... what a kid eats is a parenting thing; no business of the school at all. The only time a school should show concern is if the kid is obviously not getting enough to eat.

I ate school dinners ... and they would turn the stomach of a crow ... oh, and I played conkers without supervision, or a helmet and safety goggles.

[Margaret Pilkington]

If we hadn't got school dinners we would have starved.
I quite liked most of them...and I am a fussy eater.
Mind you they didn't serve foreign grub all those years ago.

I am sick of the healthy eating fascists....those who know better than parents what children should be eating.
Teach children to cook healthy food from scratch and give then the playing fields back......that would be a start in tackling obesity...but only a start.