Back in 2018, former Deputy Head Teacher Liz Bain and the team at Keith Grammar consulted pupils and families about school wear. To reduce costs, the school changed their policy to specify black jumpers for all years rather than having a colour change for senior phase.

After attending a Cost of the School Day conference in 2019, they also decided to remove the need for logos on school jumpers to reduce cost pressures even further.

Liz sets out what she sees as key to Keith Grammar’s uniform policy:

“We believe school wear should be SIMPLE, AFFORDABLE and INCLUSIVE. We launched ‘Our Relational Approach’ which replaced our old discipline policy. At the heart of this is the importance of relationships and the last thing we want to do is make young folk feel unwelcome because of what they are wearing or can afford to buy to wear to school. We also aim by having a flexible school wear policy to reduce conflict and arguments about the right clothing, jackets in classes and so on.” 

Keith Grammar took other steps to reduce costs to families, including suppling ties to students, using Pupil Equity Funding to provide jumpers and shirts for anyone who needs those items, and referring families to Moray School Bank. The difference these changes have made are clear. Liz says that: 

“Pupils feel that our policy is simple and easy to get right and parents appreciate that we have tried to reduce the cost and make life simpler. As a school we feel we are helping and working together with our families to reduce the cost of the school day.”  

S6 pupil Sway described how an afforable uniform policy takes the pressure off of coming to school:

“Being able for everybody to enjoy themselves and nae hae the worry of thinking ‘oh, god, I’m going to have to go home and say that I need this or I need that. It's just really nice to know that everybody’s equal in this school, so no-one’s singled out at all.”