A SINGLE mum has been left furious after her two daughters were sent home from school for "wearing the wrong shoes."
The single parent has hit back at the Reading secondary school after her daughters were sent home on the first day of the term due to their new pairs of shoes.
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The two girls were sent home for wearing the wrong shoes Credit: BPM 2
The school said that the students' shoes did not comply with the school's police Credit: BPM
The mum bought them two pairs of shoes but the school said they didn't comply with the uniform policy and classified them as "boots".
The single parent said she will only be able to afford to replace the shoes next month.
She said: "I'm a single parent. I'm self-employed and I don't earn a lot of money. The shoes I bought my girls cost a fair bit."
"The school skirt alone cost ￡25 but if I'd gone to Tesco's I could've bought one for ￡10."
SCHOOL SHOES
The two girls have since been allowed to return to the classroom, but on the understanding that the shoes are replaced by October 30, but the mum said she "can't promise that I'll be able to pay for them".
She said: "My girls were so looking forward to going back to school as they've missed so much of it because of the pandemic.
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"If my washing machine breaks down in that time I'm going to pay to fix that, not buy new shoes.
"I just don't understand the pettiness of how the schools are dealing with the fact that parents haven't got any money.
"We are doing our best to keep them looking clean, smart, and respectable yet they are punishing and penalising our kids."
She added that she "bumped into 20 students walking through Prospect park" that she claims had also been sent home.
"Me and the school disagree on what their shoes are classed as but they were sold as a school shoe," she said.
SCHOOL POLICY
The school's deputy headteacher, Mary Morris, said: "If you have a school uniform, it's reasonable to expect students to wear it.
"We did a full consultation with parents in March and every parent was invited to give their comment.
"As a result of that, we instituted blazers and we recognised the cost of that for parents so the trust funded a blazer for every single student.
"We then finalised our uniform policy and sent it out to parents in April and sent out several reminders.
"We were very clear about what the uniform requirements were.
"We've just got a very small number of students who for whatever reason have not followed the uniform policy.
"We wrote to all families last week to send them the uniform policy again.
"We really did everything we could to make it crystal clear what our expectations were."
Ms Morris mentioned that only a small number of students were sent home because of their uniform and that the rest looked "incredibly smart."
The school's uniform policy states that "brown shoes, trainers, Ugg boots, boots and canvas shoes" are not acceptable and that "pupils who do not comply with the uniform code will be challenged by staff".
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