Parents divided by school's plans to ditch traditional uniform for hoodies and tracksuit bottoms
A school is planning to swap it’s traditional uniform in favour of tracksuits and hoodies.
Pupils at Telford Junior School, in Leamington Spa, could soon be donning jogging bottoms and sports tops emblazoned with the school’s logo as they head to their lessons.
The school is consulting parents on the potential move, which it says would help promote a more “active” curriculum.
A letter sent to parents explained that other perceived benefits of the clothing switch include “reducing costs to families” and “saving valuable lesson time” as students would no longer have to change for PE.
“The school is planning to update its uniform code over the course of the school year,” the letter reads. “The aim is to make it more suitable for the active curriculum that we are keen to develop.”
“The new uniform would be phased in, allowing children to use existing uniform items, which may have been purchased recently.”
The letter goes on to state that among other items the new uniform would consist of: a T-shirt/sports top in Telford Junior colours, with the school logo, track-suit bottoms, in school colours and a ‘Hoodie’ or ‘zoodie’ in school colours with the school logo.
The current uniform is a blue fleece cardigan, white polo-shirt, black or grey trousers or skirt and black shoes.
A decision is expected to be made later this month and if accepted the measure could be brought in next year.
Commenting about the potential move Headmaster Richard Siviter told the BBC: “We want to retain a uniform code and make it more practical for the children.
“I feel we need to move with the times. It’s an active curriculum and pupils need to feel comfortable.”
News of the potential steer away from a more traditional type of uniform seems to have divided parents on social media.
“Sure fire way to make hoodies become totally unfashionable,” one Facebook user joked.
“Omg awful…….keep the uniform,” another added.
But others were more in favour of the idea.
“I think it’s a great idea. People who are comfortable will learn better than people who are not,” one user commented on Facebook.
“If all of the children are wearing it, it is a uniform?” another added.
The topic of uniforms has been causing quite the buzz of late.
Last month a mum sparked an online debate about whether or not parents should buy an entire new uniform when their kids go back to school.
Meanwhile earlier in the year it was revealed that schools across the UK are introducing bans on skirts in an effort to introduce more gender-neutral school uniform policies.
According to the Sunday Times, uniform policies have revealed that at least 40 secondary schools in England have already stopped girls from wearing skirts, while a number of other schools are consulting on introducing a ban, the newspaper found.
That followed the revelation in June that one secondary school had banned boys from wearing shorts in favour of skirts this summer, again as part of a gender-neutral initiative.
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for non-stop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyleUK.
Read more from Yahoo Style UK:
Mum’s foolproof method for getting her children to tidy their toys goes viral
Should we all be bathing our babies in buckets, like Chrissy Teigen?
Should non-parents have a say in raising children?