Mass hysteria has broken out again over the issue of school uniform, school authorities hell bent on forcing parents and pupils to conform - the 'look alike, think alike' mentality.

Let's dispense with some of the usual myths peddled by non-thinkers on this subject:

1) It  provides a level playing field and therefore makes everyone equal

Children are not fools and they know very quickly what type of background their peers come from.  They are natural judges of how poor, rich, geeky, cool, trustworthy etc. someone is, regardless of clothing.  Besides, once outside school they wear what they like, at home and in public.

No two pupils look identical in uniform.  Pupils find ways of circumventing uniform, little ways of defying it, e.g. wearing earrings, jewellery, odd socks, hair colouring, ties ridiculously knotted so that the thin end is much more prominent than the wide end, etc., etc.

As Emma Jacobs pointed out in her splendid article in The Guardian on 7th November:  "Teachers spend time and energy policing uniform when they could presumably be teaching us."

It is human nature to defy stupid policies and each pupil, in their own way, makes a statement of individuality, something anathema to authority. It is almost an amusing irony that private schools are the strictest when it comes to uniform, when almost all the pupils are from the same socio-economic strata.  So who are they trying to fool?

2) Uniform fosters a pride in the school

If pupils are so proud of their school because of the uniform, why don't they wear their uniform outside school?  I would guess, no pupil does.  If you choose to join a club, you might be proud to be a member, but joining was your choice.  Pride in a school uniform is yet again an adult idea foistered on pupils and therefore meaningless to them.  If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, then it runs parallel to the road of 'Adult ideas for children'. If pupils are proud of their school, it is always for reasons other than their uniform.

3) Pupils will compete to have the latest fashion if there is no uniform

They do anyway, outside school, which, after all, occupies most of their day.  And besides, so what? Quite often, in non-uniform schools, pupils compete to see who can look the scruffiest or weirdest. I couldn't care less what pupils look like or what they wear.  I was only ever interested in how interested they were in the lesson.

Teachers I have known who have worked in uniform and non-uniform schools have said the same thing - there is no real difference in behaviour between the two. When the last school I was in had non-uniform days, the general behaviour of the pupils was somewhat better than usual.

What you wear and learning have no connection.  If they were connected, most university students would fail all the time.  The notion that wearing a uniform is somehow related to academic success is illogical and therefore absurd.  As Emma Jacobs succinctly puts it:

"Finland's schools top international league tables and don't have a school uniform, while the UK has the uniforms without the stunning results."

The concept of uniform is authoritarian and conformist.  The message is clear - "Don't you dare behave as an individual!"

If a school is obsessed with uniformity, they have missed the point of education in a big way.  Schools should be focused on learning, knowledge, diversity and creativity, not bloody uniform.