sixth from dress code

[super_gurl]

ok, so i'm not under 16 but it's school, lol.
i'm just finnishing my first year in sixth form so yeh,.....

....to be honest it's not really much of a big problem, but it's bugging me.

so we have this like sixth form counsel thing, which i guess is supposed to be the link between sixth form and the teachers etc, and it consists of head boy and girl and two prefects for environment, community and charity and the sixth from paper director.

So i thought that they whole blooming point of head girl/boy was to get the voice of the sixth form heard....WRONG! it's to get the voice of head girl/boy heard. sorry, but what is the point in that??? and how was it ever going to be remotely the voice of the 6th form when it's the teachers that choose them, and we don't get a say, then the prefects are chosen by head boy/girl and surprise surprise, it's their friends...

...now the school just won some money to be a specialist school and for the interviews form head boy/girl they had to dress smart and now they've decided that sixth form HAVE to dress smart from next year one...
.....but yet again the students don't get a voice unless they are in the meeting.... fair? well, i didn't think so, but they seem to.
...so someone startedsort of like a petition against it, just so we can see who doesn't want it, but the thing is, head girl comes in and basically says we don't get a choice anyway, real democratic eh?

personallly, i'm against the smart new dress code, we are fine as we are now, it won't increase grades or concentration, most of us can't afford to just go out and buy a new wardrobe, they failed to adequately involve the students in the decision, just because the grammer schools do, doesn't mean we have to, it's been a privalige in 6th from to wear what we want, and one reason given was it just looks nicer, what a shallow view on education and 6th from, as long as it looks good it's ok....

now this school has always annoyed me and so does unfairness, and i know life's unfair, but this just really annoyed me...


....now i'll shut up lol, thanks for reading guys...what do you think?

xxx

[Moose]

Hi Super Gurl,

I think it's a good idea that your school want sixth formers to wear smart clothes to school. It gets you into good habits for when you start work (I know not all jobs require you to look smart, but they generally will for an interview, even if you don't need to look smart to do the work), and it's not like wearing a uniform: you're choosing what you think makes you look smart. Have they given you any ideas about the sort of clothes you can wear? Or have they just said no trainers, no jeans? My old school's sixth form asks students to come in smart, and they always looked really good (I didn't stay for sixth form there - I went to college where everyone wore typical studenty clothes. Nothing wrong with this, but I wouldn't have minded either way really).

Part of my job now is working with young people now aged 18-24 who are unemployed and need help with interview techniques, application forms, letters, jobsearch etc. The last group I had in were really motivated, so we decided to have a Dress Smart Day on the day we were due to work on interview techniques. Not all of them did it, but the ones who did (most of them) looked absolutely brilliant and a million times better than they had done the other days they'd come in. My colleagues couldn't believe it was the same group. The ones who had dressed up smartly performed better in the interviews than those who didn't - maybe that was coincidence. We talked about appearances and nearly all of them agreed that they felt more confident when they were dressed smartly.

I agree that it's a lot to ask for you to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe to go to school. It's similar to when schools change their uniform - have you spoken to the school about any help that may be available for families who can't afford to do that? As for the council meetings - maybe you could ask for a meeting with the head girl/boy and tell them you feel the rest of you aren't getting your views heard. See what s/he says. The head boy/girl may not have had any infuence at all about this decision, but you should be able to have some say in other decisions in the school.

[Liquidius]

I know right now it seems completely unfair - but I agree with Moose. I remember when I was in sixth form, they almost introduced a uniform! However, there's more to wearing what you want at the end of the day - it's just clothes.

You might find that the head boy and girl are there to voice the opinions of the teachers back to the students, as well as the other way around. At the end of the day, if the teachers introduce a smarter dress code, there isn't much the head boy and girl can do about it. I doubt it's their fault really. They're probably just doing as they're told.