Avanti free schools in fresh battle with parents over uniform requirements

Children at former Steiner free schools controversially taken over by a multi-academy trust have been arriving on site this term not in uniform, as they and their families dissent against the chain’s newly-imposed dress code.

 

In the latest evidence of unhappiness with how the three schools in the South West are being run by the Avanti Schools Trust, some families at all three of these academies have continued to give their children the choice of whether or not to wear a uniform, despite the chain’s introduction of the new code, which it has been trying to enforce as a requirement since the start of term.

This is the first time that the schools, which opened from 2012 as Steiner academies but were transferred to Avanti in 2019, have had compulsory uniforms. Parents had been told by the chain before the takeover that it was “not wedded” to the “principle of school uniform having to be worn by all students”.

I understand that parents were called into meetings with senior figures at the trust last week, and have been receiving phone calls. However, families, who have threatened legal action should Avanti try to enforce its uniform requirements, have also been individually sent identical emails by the trust, saying that it acknowledges the “legal right” for their child to attend school “without consequence…based on their choice of clothing”.

The background