Overly-elaborate and costly school uniforms are unaffordable for many families and are stigmatising children who live in poverty, MSPs have heard.
EIS teaching union assistant secretary Andrea Bradley said that with many families facing “growing financial difficulty”, schools could help them by ensuring that school-uniform policy minimises the risk of pupils feeling excluded.
She suggested that they look at “things like braiding, school logoed polo shirts - they’re unnecessary fripperies that cost families money, that bring about stigma for families that are unable to afford them”.
Ms Bradley said that headteachers and local authorities in some areas must consider changing uniform policies so that uniforms are “universally affordable”.
Eileen Prior, executive director of national parents’ organisation Connect, said that making school prohibitively expensive for poor pupils - for example, through “exotic” school trips or by charging extra costs for school clubs or shows - was “restricting their experience”.
She added: “In schools, there are many things that can be done…We don’t have to have school uniforms with braiding that changes every year. We don’t have to have these highly individualised school uniforms.”
The concerns about school uniform were raised today in the latest session of an inquiry into poverty and attainment run by the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee.
MSPs also considered written evidence from a pupil who complained about school uniform being treated as a discipline matter.
An EIS poverty survey for 2016-17 found many teachers saying that pupils were not wearing school uniform, and anecdotal evidence of pupils not coming to school because their parents could not afford to buy uniform.
The union said that the price of school uniform and the level of assistance through clothing grants varied across Scotland, but that the Poverty Truth Commission recently estimated the minimum cost of school uniform for a year to be about £130.
The Poverty and Inequality Commission, which advises Scottish government ministers, said school clothing grants around Scotland varied from £40 to £110. It has called on the government to establish a minimum rate for school clothing grants.
