A high school has defended its decision to suspend dozens of pupils amid a row over school uniform.
The changes have been brought in at Buile Hill Academy Salford, which is being supported by a new education trust after failing to change its 'requires improvement' Ofsted rating.
But trust leaders say the rules were already in place - just not being upheld - and the only change they have made is that girls can no longer wear socks and must have 60 denier black tights instead.
Uniform was checked on the first day back after the Easter holidays on Tuesday (April 16), when a number of suspensions were made, with parents blasting the new rules as 'outrageous'.
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One mum claims her daughter Ava, 11, was sent home after refusing to wear tights, despite having the skin condition psoriasis, which is aggravated by them.
"My daughter got sent home because she refused to put a pair of tights on," said the mum. "She has psoriasis and tights make her itch and make her skin condition worse. They said they will not accept a medical letter either. It's absolutely disgusting how they are treating people with a skin condition."
Others have questioned the introduction of tights during the warmer weather and how much it's going to cost families to replace them when they are so easily damaged.
A number of parents also criticised the timing of the move, coming in midway through the school year, when families have already bought the uniform, and said youngsters should not be forced to 'miss vital educational time for such a minor thing'.
"Changing a uniform policy halfway through a school year in a cost of living crisis is completely unfair," said one dad, whose two children were sent home for having incorrect footwear. "Also to have children miss vital educational time for such a minor thing when they have missed so much from the pandemic and with teacher strikes is absolutely ridiculous."
But the school says parents were all given adequate notice, with meetings and drop-in sessions all held for mums and dads to share any concerns.
It says the suspensions were not a result of incorrect uniform, but pupils' refusal to comply with their request - even when offered uniform supplied by school.
Andrew Jordon, senior executive principal, said that Northern Education Trust (NET), which has been brought in to help turn the school around, says the trust has funded 1,000 pairs of tights, around 300 pairs of school shoes, along with new ties, blazers and various other uniform items to give to pupils.
"Even though it was the policy to wear black polished shoes, a lot of students were wearing trainers, but we recognise that mid-year, with just a term left, not everyone can go out and buy new shoes, so we've removed those barriers.
"The vast majority took a pair of shoes and said they will use them until they have the opportunity to buy a pair."
He added: "The only element that's changed is that girls now have to wear tights as it's our belief that it's a much smarter uniform and there were definitely some modesty issues when they didn't have to wear them, so we did make that one alteration.
"Yesterday 98% of students turned up and were in the correct uniform. Other than the tights, we haven't made any changes to the policy, other than to uphold the policy that was already there."
He said the trust's usual behaviour policy, of implementing various sanctions before a suspension, did not apply because of students' outright refusal to engage with staff.
"If a students says 'no' to the headteacher of a school and flat down refuses to do something, then those steps clearly wouldn't apply. When children in a school with 1,000 plus pupils are saying 'no' to very senior members of staff, even when they're being offered the uniform from us, then those suspensions were necessary."
Mr Jordon would not discuss individual cases, but said pupils have been given suspensions for various lengths - parents claim they range from one-and-a-half days to four days - and will be expected to meet the guidelines upon their return.
He said the school hasn't been performing - 'a cursory look at the statistics places it in the bottom 1% of schools' - adding that 'something needs to change for these children'.
"We've had a number of parents engage with us since yesterday," he said. "Principal Martin Knowles is a very experienced headteacher and he's been speaking to parents this morning. The vast majority understand what we're trying to do.
"We've made it clear that these are the standards and they're not going to go away. We're not going to lower our standards and parents need to come to us and work with us on this. We deal with every child as an individual and there are reasonable adjustments that can be made where necessary."
The NET has been brought in by the government to support Consilium Academies' running of the Pendleton school as part of a National Leaders of Education contract. It is expected to fully transfer to the trust in June.
NLEs are headteachers and trust leaders with strong experience of school improvement. They support underperforming schools, helping them to identify and address areas in need of improvement, including leadership, governance and finances.
The school has received two successive judgements of requires improvement in 2018 and 2022. And last October we reported how it had the worst truancy rate of any state-run primary or secondary school in Greater Manchester, with students missing the equivalent of 11,905 days of school through unauthorised absences in the autumn and spring terms of the 2022/23 school year.
A monitoring inspection by Ofsted in November last year found that: "Leaders have made progress to improve the school, but more work is necessary for the school to become good."
It said the school should take further action to 'swiftly increase pupils’ attendance so that more pupils benefit from the education that is on offer' and 'ensure that the expectations of pupils’ behaviour are communicated clearly and applied consistently'.
