Uniform Guidance

Our Approach

As a school we believe our students should where possible wear school uniform to create a community to which they can belong. We believe the principle benefits to this approach to be:

• Our students often find it helpful to understand when a day is a school day through wearing school uniform.
• It is an important life skill to dress for purpose/in line with an organisation’s expectations.
• Students themselves have often feedback that they want to feel the same benefits from belonging to a community which their mainstream peers experience.

Remaining child-centred

We are very mindful our students will be at different stages in understanding the need to wear uniform/dress for expectations. Whilst we promote school uniform we would never want it to become a barrier to a student attending school or feeling uncomfortable in their learning environment. With this in mind we do not promote the wearing of school uniform where:

1. The wearing of school uniform potentially creates a barrier to attendance.
2. Parents/carers find that prompting a child to wear school uniform is raising anxieties or making behaviour that may challenge more likely.
3. A student has sensitivities to the feel of our school uniform.
4. Alternative material types are available, please contact the school to explore this.

Should a family be experiencing financial difficulties they can contact the school for support with uniform provision for their child.

In the event that the above applies to your child please prioritise attending school in clothing with which your child is comfortable above raising anxieties through pushing school uniform on a child.

Labelling items

With all students wearing the same/similar items please make every effort to label your child’s clothing clearly.

Each child will have two PE bags, one for swimming kit and one for PE kit. We ask parents and carers to send the kit detailed below at the start of term. During the term kit will be washed weekly onsite by our staff. At the end of every term the kit will be returned home for parents/carers to check.

PE and swimming kits

Swimming bag: please include swimming costume and towel in this bag.

PE bag: please include white t shirt and black shorts in this bag. If your child’s footwear is not appropriate for sports please also include trainers.

Starter Pack

We appreciate that sometimes students will move to us at short notice so we will always provide new starters with two sweatshirts and two polo shirts at no cost. Hopefully this will be a supportive step to helping them settle in.

Ordering additional items

Parents can order additional items from www.yourschooluniform.com

Once on the site please search for ‘Ivy Lane School’ and you will be directed to our school specific site. Once on this page you can order items for delivery to your home address as you would for any home delivery.