Julie Helen: 'The school tracksuit should be THE uniform'

End of school is here. It only feels like yesterday I was filling out the application so that Ricky could get a place in primary school. It meant moving to a new community, it meant leaving where I grew up, so it felt big.

Watching my son walk up the path to the school door each morning is a great joy. Luckily he loves school so he leaves the car happy and full of excitement for what the day will bring.

The month of June has been particularly fun because there has been no homework and Ricky can wear his tracksuit each day.

That means our evenings are relaxed and our mornings are easier because Ricky can dress entirely independently and can get himself ready for the day.

I think the tracksuit should just be the uniform full stop.

Since we all experienced covid 19, and working from home, the need for formal wear has gone out the window for everyone. I am absolutely on board with a uniform so that school is an equitable place and not a place of competition and designer labels, but a stuffy shirt with finicky buttons and a stiff trousers does nothing for anyone, and with the risk of sounding like a pure Irish mammy altogether, the tracksuit is far easier to wash and dry than the more formal uniform.

A couple of teachers have let me know that in some schools when a vote about wearing tracksuit more permanently happens, parents often opt for the full uniform because of a “cuteness factor”.

This just enrages me. Actually, it infuriated me way more than it should have because it made me think of so much inaccessibility in the world and how a lot of bad access exists because of the notions of how things “should” look or how things “should” be. 

We should focus on making things easy, for you, for me, for children, for everyone.

I think we focus too much on creating webs of how things should be that just ends up getting us all in knots and then we can’t say so because then we might not feel as good as everyone else.

We have had roadworks near our school and it disrupted the parking situation.

One day we got a message only a few minutes before the collection time to say there would be no access to the carpark and we needed to park somewhere and walk to pick up our children.

This was not possible for me. I am disabled and at the moment I cannot walk more than about fifty metres. My first feeling was one of panic, and I started running through people I could ask for help at the last minute.

Then I stopped myself and remembered that I should be able to collect my own son, especially when I told him I would. I drove up to the gate of the carpark with a man wearing high-visibility gear waving wildly at me.

I looked like the typical yummy mummy coming to get her darling, but I decided I wasn’t apologising for it.

I could see the paver up ahead and with a husband who works with tarring the roads I knew I wasn’t going to cause major destruction.

I rolled down my window and explained how I was disabled and needed to collect my son and went on my merry way. This situation seems like a small thing but it is big in my head because it is about being able to do what I need to and unapologetically claiming it. It felt great.