When I was growing up in the 1980s, going to school at Westhill Academy in Aberdeenshire would have been my idea of heaven. The school, which opened at the end of the more permissive era of the seventies, had a no-school-uniform policy, and if I had gone there, I would have avoided a lot of clothes-related conflict with my teachers.

I could barely make it into the school grounds without being told to take the band badges off my lapels, do up my tie or wear a blazer - hardly an atmosphere to make you feel welcomed. Before I could relax after school, the first thing I had to do as soon as I got through the door was tear off this uncomfortable symbol of subjugation.

I was not alone - I had classmates who burned the hated uniform on the last day of school. But today, when my children come in from school, they have to be persuaded to change out of the oppressive garments. Meanwhile, the 2018 pupils of Westhill have decided to introduce their own school uniform for the first time.

That’s not to say uniforms didn’t play a part in my youth, when teenagers would wear the various uniforms of punk, ska, new romantic, goth or denim-encrusted heavy metal. (Although it is somewhat ironic to wear a uniform to stand out as being different.) Maybe I am too old to spot them, but I don’t see extreme, tribal youth uniforms on the streets anymore, just a disparate range of sportswear.

What’s changed in the intervening decades? Westhill Academy headteacher Alison Reid believes the pupils, who voted to introduce a rather nondescript traditional black uniform, wanted to create an “identity” for themselves when they attended interschool competitions or events.

I wonder if this is a desire for identity beyond being recognised as part of a school - a yearning for a wider sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself, in an age of unprecedented turmoil.

Teenagers have many things to worry about: from concern over which careers will be available in a post-Brexit economy where the job market might increasingly be dominated by robots, to whether their passports in the future will be British or Scottish. Wearing a school uniform identifies its wearers as being part of a stable institution in a world of uncertainty.

While the pupils at Westhill are part of the wider teenage trend of being happy to wear a school uniform, it is the adults who are challenging the norm. Boris Johnson, David Davis and Michael Gove stood out at the summer cabinet Brexit talks for not wearing ties. Just as teenagers used to rebel against the grown-ups by breaking sartorial rules, maybe this generation is indulging in a smarter rebellion.

Gordon Cairns is a teacher of English in Scotland