“It is not a judgement on the parents – who they are or how they are – we just feel we get the children to come in uniform because we like to be role models and that parents should be the same”.
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Their slovenliness has not been confined to morning runs, she says, with some parents turning up to collect their children or even attend Christmas performances and parents’ evenings in pyjamas and dressing gowns.
The principal of a primary school in northern England wants to impose a dress code – not on students, but on their parents.
The school’s clampdown has won widespread support from other parents who take the time to get dressed before taking their youngsters to school.
After asking the adults to “set a good example” in a letter sent out last week, she told the Press Association it is “not too much to ask parents to have a wash and get dressed” in the morning.
The headteacher of a British school has written to parents urging them not to drop their children off while still dressed in pyjamas, it emerged on Tuesday.
“So it looks like their expectations of their children, and for their children, are lower than they should be…it’s not sending a good example, as far as I’m concerned”.
She said: “I noticed that they were still wearing them at the end of my first week and I thought that it must be normal”.
Ms Chisholm said the letter had been welcomed by many parents, with one describing it as “amazing”.
She said: “We should be readying our children for the world out there”. Chisholm stated that she has received negative remarks about the letter, but says it “from those people who choose to wear pajamas”.
The headmistress at Skerne Park Academy in Darlington says she has noticed an increase in the amount of mums and dads wearing nightwear to the school gates.
“But at the same time, yes, we would want our parents to be giving some sort of more effective modelling for sure”.
Ms Chisholm added that the school works hard to raise its pupils’ aspirations and help them fulfil their potential and it was important that parents helped do the same.
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Ms Chisholm said: “I didn’t put the letter on social media, and I have a right to communicate to parents where I see fit”.
