Stereotypical Sartorial Elegance

So, OFSTED are at it again. Teacher bashing, personal insults and comments that help no child to learn more. A school in Camden has been criticised because the teachers don't dress professionally enough. It's such a strange comment. Professionally enough implies that they are dressed in a manner suitable for their profession, which also implies they should dress in a stereotypical way.

If you ask a primary school child to draw a teacher they will invariably draw a woman in a long flowery skirt (possibly with an elasticated waistband) comfortable sandals and a nondescript top. This will happen even if their female teacher always wears trousers or a power suit and 6 inch heels or even if their teacher is a man. She will probably also have glasses.

Most teachers think very carefully about what they are going to wear: no skirts the children can look up, no tops they can look down, something that is suitable for sitting cross legged on the floor, something they can leg across the playground in when little Johnny tries to make his escape over the fence and through the school car park, something that washes well and doesn't mind having paint, glue or bodily fluids on it. After hearing that list you would think the most appropriate outfit would be overalls and trainers but no, there are standards to maintain. Smartness is the key to being taken seriously: a suit, a nice dress and cardigan, twin set and pearls or something that screams middle class affluence.

Staff and pupils criticised for being too scruffy

It seems as though OFSTED aren't talking about clothing suitable for the profession but clothing that makes teachers look like business people.

Mark Twain said, "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence." This is true but I would love to see if there is any evidence to show precisely what a teacher wears has an influence on what children learn. Children certainly notice what you are wearing, "Miss, I love your shoes, you look really pretty in that dress, oooh where did you get your earrings from?" But do my sparkly treble clef earrings help them learn anything?

It has got me thinking, though, about whether the way my teachers dressed had an influence on my learning. At primary school, my focus was mainly on the lower half of the outfit. I remember tan tights, comfortable shoes and skirts that ended below the knee. Baggy Adams was famous for the fact that his beige coloured trousers hung down at the crotch but I don't think we listened to him any less. By the time I entered senior school I must have been much less aware because although I've tried I really can't remember much about my teacher's clothes and I wonder if what I do remember is a Stereotype rather than the reality. If I close my eyes and try to picture the staff room I see a haze of pipe smoke, tweed jackets and elbow patches. I see an awful lot of brown and check, dotted with the occasional blue track suit. I do remember a French French Teacher who had a bag that I really wanted. It was a totally inappropriate bag for carrying school books in and things were always falling out of hers (hilariously one day, tampons and a chocolate bar) but I didn't care. She was beautiful and stylish and different and so I got the bag but I don't think it made me any better at French.

I have three black dresses that I bought at Tesco for £5 each that I wear with leggings (so no one can see my knickers when I sit on the carpet with them) and I paint my fingernails. On Friday I paint them the colour of the winning house point team, so that I don't have to talk to any children at 8am band practice. "What are we playing?" they say and I can reply with a simple gesture.

Today we are playing the Blue Team song

It might be an appropriate gesture for OFSTED.