School Uniforms

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 1:31 pm on 19 September 2018.

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Photo of Angela Burns Angela Burns Conservative 1:31, 19 September 2018

Following on from that, Cabinet Secretary, of course you will be aware of various stories at the beginning of school term of children being punished for not having the correct school uniform. I absolutely buy into the notion that we want all the children to look the same, and it's very important for school discipline and school morale, and so on. But one of the concerns I have is this view that we should punish the child for something that the parent has done. And I'm deeply concerned that—. It runs across not just school uniforms—I know Caroline Jones raised the issue not long ago with you about the child who couldn't go to the prom because she had Asperger's and couldn't get the grades. I've raised with you in the past the child who was punished because they had a chronic ill-health issue so they couldn't attend all the time, but the punishment was meted on the child, rather than the schools looking at the individuals concerned. Will you have another look at this, because of this school uniform issue, and about how we might proportionally represent, or proportionally treat children, and divide between those who don't do things they should do because they just don't feel like it and those who are put in an awkward position because of decisions made by parents and carers, because I think we're giving out the wrong message to these young people about responsibility?