Wednesday 10 May 2017

We should be able to wear any shoes to school!

We wrote an argument as a class - Do you agree with our opinion?
We should be able to wear any shoes to school.

At Halsey Drive School we are required to wear a uniform however this only applies to the children. We believe it is unfair that the teachers can wear whatever they want to school while we cannot. While we are happy to wear a school shirt, shorts and jumpers we draw the line at our footwear. The rules for children are that we have to wear shoes that are exclusively black or white. In our opinion we believe we should be able to wear any coloured shoes to school.

When our parents are buying our school shoes they face a very limited choice. Research shows that there are more options available for shoes with colours such as blue, pink and green rather than plain black or white. To illustrate this on Rebelsport.co.nz, in the school shoe section, there are 23 pairs of Asics trainers. However only 3 pairs are black and therefore suitable for us to wear at Halsey Drive School. While you may argue that this is not the only brand available, this is the common pattern across other brands such as Nike, Adidas and New Balance. We often purchase these brands because they are better quality and last longer compared to other cheaper brands. The limited options make it difficult and often stressful to find shoes that fit the current school rules.

Approximately half of our class has been told they are not wearing the correct footwear. For example, one time Connor’s shoes had laces with neon yellow tips. The rest of his shoes were black and therefore adhered to the school rules. However he still got told that his shoes were not suitable and he needed to buy new laces. Connor’s mum believed this was unnecessary as she had done her best to buy shoes that fit the school rules. As only a small part was yellow she was understandably frustrated that she had to spend more money and time at the shops to buy new laces. For this reason we strongly believe that we should be able to wear shoes with any colours to save time and money for our parents.
Buying school shoes that fit the current rules can be very expensive. For instance Hannnahs.co.nz has two pairs of nearly identical New Balance shoes, the black pair costing $129.95 and the blue pair costing $69.95. Buying the blue pair would save our parents $60. A saving I’m sure you would agree all parents would welcome. Of course you may think that having coloured shoes would act as a distraction and affect our learning, however there is no proof to indicate that students who wear coloured shoes perform any worse than those that don’t.

As we have demonstrated shoes that fit the current school rules are often more expensive and difficult to find. We would be very grateful for your consideration on the matter of changing the rules around footwear for students. We very much look forward to hearing your opinions.

2 comments:

  1. A very well-written and rather convincing argument, Room 3. Although I would point out that shoes need to be "predominantly" black, white or navy blue - which means that there is a bit of flexibility with colour choices. Also, intermediates and high schools are much more restrictive with shoe choices so perhaps we are preparing you for this eventuality?

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  2. Good job room 3! You have done a great job at using convincing reasons for your argument. You have shown that this change will benefit parents as they will not have to spend as much money. I am sure Mums and Dads would be well on board with this rule being taken away.

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