“Harlow Star” “Paul Wilson”

WARNING R25 image !

A photo of the offending shiny black knickers can be seen here.

“Harlow Star” “Paul Wilson”

Oh dear some schools do seem to make life hard work!! It is always prudent to pick your battles wisely, especially where teenagers are concerned. I would suggest getting your pupils to turn up at school everyday, dressed appropriately for a full day of learning, may be slightly more important than getting all hot and bothered that some pupils are wearing footwear, that while may not be totally school regulation, appear to be the right colour neither outrageous or entirely unsuitable for surfaces one would normally except to encounter in and around a normal school building

The school feel it is reasonable to ask a pupil coming to school in non regulation footwear if they would like to borrow a pair of shoes purchased by the school until such a time they can purchase there own suitable shoes. Who ever came up with that idea must have had very little experience of teenagers!

The Executive principal, see this is what happens when people are given fancy job tiles, is understandably wishing to drive up standards at a once failing school, he wants his teaching staff to be able to spend more time teaching than dealing with non compliance of uniform issues. It might be wise if he instructed his staff to get on with teaching, concentrate on their pupils faces instead of peering under the desks to spy on footwear, which if the picture is correct are partly hidden under trousers anyway.

Now should half the pupils suddenly turn up sporting 7inch platforms, then maybe he might have issues, until then don`t go creating them and perhaps order a copy of `Don`t sweat the Small stuff`

I got asked to remove my earrings at school, I was furious! We were only supposed to wear either the studs or sleepers we`d originally had our ears pierced with. We were also only allowed a necklace if it was a cross and no rings. I think probably in the first three years these rules were pretty much observed, but in the fourth and fifth they were pretty much ignored! I used to like rings and always wore a couple on each hand. I can never remember being told about them, in fact I got a whack across my hand and was not even told to remove them then.

I don`t think rings or necklaces ever got checked, but earrings occasionally did. One morning in the fifth year filing out of assembly and HoGs was doing an earring check, well I was not wearing the studs I`d had my ears pierced with but the earrings I had in were tiny little horseshoes. I couldn’t`t believe it when she checked my lobes and sent me back into the hall with all the other deviant earring wearers. We all had to remove offending earrings there and then, I was really annoyed about it I thought it was petty and ridiculous, but I begrudgingly did as I was told, for one thing my boyfriend was in that hall having one of his Head Boy talks with a number of staff, I was not going to cause a scene with him there.

This particular HoGs took me for a lesson once a week. I was still annoyed about my damn earrings so deciding to give her something to complain about so found the biggest most garish, hideous earrings ever and wore them to her lesson. I pulled my hair back just in case she couldn’t`see them Every time I spoke, and it was an interactive type of class so I spoke a lot, I moved my head in an exaggerated style, these earrings were banging against my face like a demented pair of chandeliers.

She didn’t say a word not one comment, she was an experienced teacher, she knew a daft 15 year old with an axe to grind when she saw one and simply and quite sensibly decided her lesson was not going to be interrupted by getting into an unnecessary row with me.

On the subject of leather as a school uniform had this been introduced at my school I would have had to decline to wear it as a conscientious objector I have been a vegetarian since about the age of ten, back then I used to refuse to wear dead animals as well as eat them.

Although I still don`t eat meat I do however wear leather, in fact I am very grateful to the cow who gave up its skin so I didn’t leave most of mine on the asphalt!!

“Harlow Star” “Paul Wilson”

“Harlow Star” “Paul Wilson”

Hi Another_Lurker

Thank you very much for doing me the honour of putting up a link for the pictures.

Wow that uniform is a little different! I would never have believed in the same era I was at school, somewere in another part of England, kids were sat at desks wearing leather!

This forum is so very educational which is slightly ironic coming from me

Looks very much like real leather to me as far as I can tell from a photo. Rather a bizarre choice of material for a school uniform. I see a possible connection to local industry may be the answer as to why leather was worn at the school, well that would make Walsall`s attempt to support their industry by whacking kids with a bit of leather seem just a little tame!

I do hope the girls were not obliged to wear their jackets all throughout the school day! leather is not the most comfortable of material to wear for any length of time, and while mine is admittedly designed for protection and not sitting around a classroom even with the armour pulled out it is still considerably heavy. Leather clothing requires specialist cleaning and even something as simple as having a zip replaced is met with a `Have to send it away love, specialist material` and a quote that leaves me wondering whether I should go and purchase myself a new one! All in all I would have thought leather, despite it`s durability, is probably not the best thing to be cladding school children in.

On the other hand of course, should any of the leather clad children find themselves facing CP aimed at their posterior and providing the school did not go in for clothing adjustment, having the backside covered in leather is going to be just the thing to soften the sting a little!

My efforts with the horrendous earrings were for the benefit of the water phobic HoG. I had nothing much to do with the other one once I had got past the third year. My last real dealings with her was when she had the task of trying to get me to take, as an O`level option, the one and only subject I was really good at. I was having none of it, a small and very silly victory but important to me at the time and an example of how sometimes SCP may have had a negative effect in seemingly unrelated ways!

“Harlow Star” “Paul Wilson”

Hello jd 19,

My apologies for the somewhat belated response to your above most interesting and informative contribution.

Yes, I believe that the school uniform in question was indeed real leather and was worn throughout of the 1970s and into the 1980s. I think it was probably an option rather than a compulsory ‘that and nothing else’ standard, but it does seem from photographs to have been quite popular with girls It is difficult to judge the take up amongst boys since they are generally pictured wearing their CCF uniforms in official photographs. I have certainly never heard of any other school in the UK with such a uniform option and it may have been a unique if rather charming novelty.

You say:

I trust you will accept my assurance that I have never faced CP in a skirt, and certainly not in a leather one! I am not therefore qualified to judge whether the skirts illustrated would lend themselves to, ahem, clothing adjustment. However I suspect that the issue did not arise. I am informed by a former frequent contributor here that the school is one of the jewels in the crown of England’s ‘progressive’ school regimes, and although it had various changes of ownership in the intervening period I doubt that CP was used there at the time the leather uniforms were in vogue, if indeed it ever was.

And now for something completely different. I deduce from your above posts that you are either driving or being carried as a passenger on one of those dreadful motor cycle thingies which so alarm me as bits of them strike sparks on the road as they lean over too far in a vain attempt to corner faster than my car. If so, please have a care. We need your excellent contributions!</div>

“Harlow Star” “Paul Wilson”

Daily Mail. Teachers. Misconduct. Struck off. 54.

“Harlow Star” “Paul Wilson”

“Daily Record” “Gordon Mundie” bottom

“Harlow Star” “Paul Wilson”

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