Uniformly daft! Schools avoid naming boys’ and girls’ outfits and swap them for gender neutral terms ‘Uniform A’ and ‘Uniform B’ so their pupils can self-identify

Hundreds of schools are using the gender-neutral terms ‘Uniform A’ and ‘Uniform B’ instead of saying boys and girls.

Primary schools have abolished uniforms ‘based on sex’ to let children as young as four wear clothes that ‘most reflect their self-identified gender’.

Top private schools, including Britain’s most expensive, Brighton College, plus Christian state primaries and secondaries and sixth form colleges nationwide have adopted gender policies.

In many cases the words boy and girl are erased from uniform policy documents, replaced by ‘Uniform A’ and ‘Uniform B’.

Confusingly, some schools have also introduced a ‘Uniform C’.

Blofield primary in Norwich altered its uniform policy last year to allow children aged four to 11 to pick clothing based on their ‘self-identified gender’.

Retired head Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘Schools are adding to the mental health problems of children who, after going into school, no longer know what gender they belong to.

‘It’s time we had a government with the backbone to intervene.’

Lucy Marsh, of the Family Education Trust, added: ‘It’s about time that parents got together to push back against this.’

Christian state schools, based on Church of England teachings, are among those removing children’s gender from uniform policies.

Ellesmere Port Church of England College, in Cheshire, does not use the words boy or girl to ‘ensure all pupils feel part of the College’s community’.

Brighton College, which has fees of up to £64,920 a year, has ‘Uniform A’ and ‘Uniform B’.

Its headmaster Richard Cairns has said he wants to ‘give transgender children personal leeway’. 

Wellington private boarding and day school for boys and girls in Somerset is among those also having ‘Uniform C’.

It says its three uniforms let pupils make ‘a considered and thoughtful choice’. But it adds: ‘A combination of ABC is not allowed’. 

Major school uniform provider Stevensons said in 2019 that it would be gender-neutral by default and no longer market uniforms for boys or girls.

An analysis of 550 schools it supplies found that most have adopted gender-neutral uniform policies.