First Newcastle Grammar School uniform change in 30 years causes controversy

Head of School Erica Thomas said she was pleased the school community had provided feedback and that the majority of it had been in favour of the update, which will replace distinct summer and winter uniforms with a range of items that can be layered for different weather.

"I'm really well aware there will be mixed views," Ms Thomas said.

"It's very hard to implement change and while people feel that they wanted to be consulted, can you imagine the diversity of views on a school uniform?

"That is something that is very, very difficult.

"We had to work with a really fantastic company who have helped us with the design and realistically I think it's fantastic people are giving us the feedback.

"Certainly social media is one way to do it, but we set up a special email address and overwhelmingly [the feedback] has been very, very positive.

"I know past students will find it a bit confronting that things have changed and it's different, but that's the nature of society, isn't it, and there's got to be a moment at which you do make some changes.

"Uniforms are often at the top of everyone's list of things they remember or want to retain, but it was really important for us to have the gender mix, so the girls and boys have some similarities which we don't have at the moment, and that we move to this more practical uniform."

The school has disabled comments on its Facebook post about the change, which included questions about families being required to buy new uniforms during the pandemic and why there wasn't more consultation.

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Comments about the stripes included that NGS was a 'school and not a circus' and compared them to 'prison stripes', pyjamas and referenced 'Bert out of Mary Poppins'.

One said students would be the 'source of ridicule from others as they walk to and from school', another that they didn't see how 'vertical stripes add comfort, practicality or a contemporary look'.

One said the 'bold striped blazer' could have worked using the current colours of navy and maroon.

Former student Amelia Drinkwater - who graduated in 2013 - said she wore the same style of dress from kindergarten to year 10 and found it restrictive and not practical, so welcomed girls being able to wear shorts and trousers, but said the school could have stopped there.

Change is a really good thing and there's nothing wrong with changing the uniform in itself, but for me it felt quite obvious that there should have been consultation and it should have been more of a considered decision, rather than just completely changing all of the uniforms from kindergarten to year 12," she said.

"The striped blazers felt like a very bold choice to make, it felt very reminiscent of old money, very reminiscent of lots of Sydney private schools."

Ms Drinkwater said her parents had to work hard to send her and her two siblings to NGS and buying new uniforms for multiple children at the same time could add up, "especially with no option for second hand uniforms".

"I feel like maybe there should have been more of a transition period, or not a complete redesign."

Ms Thomas said the new uniforms were intended to be more modern, practical and comfortable, provide students with more choice and would be rolled out over 18 months.

"There's several reasons [for the update] but at the moment they don't tie together particularly well, the boys and girls and the junior and senior," she said.

"We want to standardise our colours and we want to make sure we have a distinctive uniform in the community.

"It was time to do this. In fact we started this in 2019, but of course COVID put a slow to everything, so we're just at this point in coming around to it. We wanted to really accurately reflect who we were and basically modernise what we were doing, so they were the key reasons.

"We wanted something that would help us stand out and the striped blazers are for year 11 and 12, our kindergarten to year 10 students will have a much plainer blazer, but it goes over the stripes."

Ms Thomas said the school chose to add aqua because it complemented the current colours and reflected the sky and the sea. The current hats and sports uniform will remain.

She said students had been wanting changes for a long time and that in the most recent annual wellbeing survey had pinpointed assessments and uniforms as things they disliked most at school.

"From the moment I arrived at the school I had little groups of girls coming to see me and saying - this is seven years ago - 'Mrs Thomas do you think it might be okay...', or 'Would you consider [trousers]' and what we've had is a number of girls from different age groups and they've been involved for a while now.

"It started with girls bringing me little petitions and it developed into something that's been a little bit bigger."

She said the school started working on the uniform update after collating student feedback.

She said the school formed small student focus groups to gauge what they wanted and then handed the process to a staff committee to work with a designer for nearly a year.

"We've had overwhelmingly the students say 'That's great'," she said.

"There will be some students who don't like it, but they don't like the current one either.

"I think we'll find that when they see it in real life [most will like it].

"The parents who came in and brought some of their children in the other day to help us take photos and film, they all went 'Wow, it looks fantastic' and the student feedback was that it was so comfortable to wear."

Ms Thomas said the school planned six to eight weeks ago - before the current COVID-19 outbreak - to introduce the new uniform at this time so that kindergarten, year seven and year 11 had time to purchase it for 2022, ahead of the other grades for 2023.

She said new uniforms were already required for kindergarten and year 11.

"There is a moment at which you think 'Do you want to delay it again?', well we can't and the reason is that we're running very low on our current stock of uniforms," she said.

"It's been very difficult to get uniforms and if we were going to order and start off with this new uniform we needed to do it now. The timing is now because we want it for the 2022 school year and whatever way we went we were going to have trouble, even getting the old one."

Ms Thomas said all grades will have access to a navy vest, jumper and cardigan.

The new primary uniform consists of a dark navy blazer, shorts or trousers, and a white shirt.

Girls can also wear a striped dress, or striped pinafore over a shirt. Boys and girls will wear ties in winter.

Kindergarten can wear a polo shirt and kindergarten to year two can wear a soft shell jacket.

Year seven to 10 will wear a dark navy blazer, shorts or trousers and a white shirt.

Girls can also wear a striped skirt or dress. Boys will wear a tie and girls will in winter.

Year 11 and 12 students will wear a striped blazer and dark navy shorts, trousers or a skirt, with a white shirt. Boys will wear a tie and girls will in winter.

Current uniforms can be donated to an international partner school in need.

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