“…uniform and dress codes set the tone for our community and provide the scaffolding for high standards in every aspect of school life.” Elizabeth Churton, principal of Hanson Academy, Bradford, England. (The Guardian)
DURING MY TOUR of duty as a school administrator, the area in which I got my greatest criticism and strongest opposition was in relation to my insistence on deportment. As I look back on my career, this was the area in which I got the greatest satisfaction.
Discipline is the pinion on which all school success rides. In a country which has a tradition of students wearing uniforms, it is important that we understand the need for good deportment. Sloppiness in dress is a reflection of a breakdown in other areas of school life.
It is impossible to achieve overall educational success without compliance to rules that relate to how students carry themselves and overall behaviour. I took a personal offence when people and educators who should know better asked what does uniform dress codes have to do with learning?
While you can’t always judge a book by its cover, sloppiness in dress is not only unsightly and distasteful, but can often be a hint or mirror to underlying traits of character.
Today, though retired, I want to take up my professional boots and return to the arena in which I spent over four decades fighting in the trenches to teach a key lesson in school success.
First of all, what is meant by dress codes? While this was one of my areas of emphasis at the primary level, it loomed larger in my experience as a secondary head. The dress code, most of which was already spelt out in the school’s handbook, addressed all aspects of good grooming.
It spoke to how the uniform should be made, the type of shoes, pants, blouses, shirts, belt, socks, hairstyles, jewellery, make-up, accessories and in the area of greatest contention, it stipulated the length of girls’ skirts and overalls and how boys’ pants should be worn.
The code, which was eventually adopted in 2009 by all secondary schools and the Ministry of Education, was comprehensive. System-wide compliance could have seen our system being further seen as a model for global emulation.
Students were sent home because there were breaches in virtually every area of the code, chief of which was the length of the girls’ skirts and overalls, which was, in some instances, more like that of netball skirts. Boys’ pants were drifting dangerously off the butt and deliberately tapered from leg to ankle, and belts and buckle heads were diverse and distracting.
Hairstyles, which included designs, were obtrusive and inappropriate and the wearing of multiple earrings was the norm. Weaves, wigs and braids were colourful and totally out of control. Shoes of all kinds and colours pervaded.
The overall effect of such wide-scale breaches and distractions imposed an adverse impact on the overall tone and ethos of the school, thereby undermining success in other critical areas including academics and school image.
Let me set the record straight. I was neither the first nor the only secondary school principal who suspended students for dress code breaches. While I was still a primary school rank and file teacher, scores of students were sent home from a secondary school which overlooks the Garrison historic area, for wearing the wrong shoes.
The tragedy was that the students were sent back to school by the then minister, who is alleged to have said, that he did not see the connection between shoes and learning.
Yes, in 2007 I admit that I sent home 213 girls for prolonged breaches of the school dress code. After close to four years of speaking and working with parents to improve the image of school and part of what my staff and I called the “rebranding” of the institution and after repeated written warnings, I acted decisively.
On reflection, I regret sending them home during the school day, but I make no apologies for taking the action which sent a strong message that remains at the core of the whole purpose of education.
Schools that fail to enforce dress code rules and allow breaches with impunity, miss the boat in terms of understanding the delicate interplay between values like deportment, compliance and discipline and education.
The true test of the value of enforcing schools’ dress code is seen long after students graduate and enter the workforce in business establishments where deportment is part of the “brand”, and is understood to be critical to the ethos, mission and the core values of success.
Schools systems that fail to enforce their own dress code rules do so at their own peril and demonstrate an unfortunate misunderstanding of some of the core elements of a good and sound education.
• Matthew Farley is a retired secondary school principal, chairman of the National Forum on Education and a social commentator.
Email: principal208@gmail.com.
