[nippa&pippa]

Can someone explain this, why children at school have to take their shoes off before they are allowed go into classroom or library? what was the reasons behind it?
I can't remember why, is it something to do with moari? or always have been part of NZ's school custom?
(yep they can wear slippers in classroom if worried about kids' feet get cold but I have only see 2 or 3 girls wearing it, no boys...)

[catt]

Talking to my other half about shoes he said that they never wore them to go to school and when we were in Waihi last November we saw lots of kids walking the streets without shoes. He said that its believed that its healthier to go bare feet thats why they did it no other reason. The Kiwi's are strange i know have lived with one for the past 20 years :D

[BaldyBeardyBloke]

I think it's a general kiwi thing, as opposed to Maori or even child specific.

I see plenty of adults barefoot too, in the supermarket etc.

[AndyR]

no way lol I've been looking for an excuse to walk around barefoot for years without looking like a weirdo! I used to do lots of martial arts so my feet were pretty hard!

[shakyle2906]

Hi

Our son is allowed to wear shoes in classroom, library, etc ...........

Have seen loads of people, adults included, walking around bare feet.

I do around house, but wouldnt in street............

Sharon
x

[Potato]

no way lol I've been looking for an excuse to walk around barefoot for years without looking like a weirdo! I used to do lots of martial arts so my feet were pretty hard!

Oh yeah, you'll love it here that's for sure. You see people barefoot in the supermarket, IN WINTER! And, in general, the country is pretty tidy so you're not going to step on a needle or broken glass.

[sizzlingbadger]

Everyday last week my son came home with no socks just shoes on, obviously been walking around bare foot in the classroom ! ! !

Think it's definitely a kiwi thing, I know they're not allowed to wear shoes in the class room during winter because of the mud. Boys usually go and play where it's the muddest bit of the school playing field :uhoh Think it's also to do in part with them feeling comfortable in the classroom, a bit like home you wouldn't walk around home all day with shoes on.

[Beachcombers]

It's funny when we first arrived, we were aghast at the kids in bare feet marching off to school, in Winter. Fast forward six months and yours truly is driving the car and running around the supermarket in bare feet(cold walking around the dairy section, brrr).

"When in Rome!"

[Tanya]

Can someone explain this, why children at school have to take their shoes off before they are allowed go into classroom or library? what was the reasons behind it?
I can't remember why, is it something to do with moari? or always have been part of NZ's school custom?
(yep they can wear slippers in classroom if worried about kids' feet get cold but I have only see 2 or 3 girls wearing it, no boys...)


Sophia

No Maori custom or anything like that - its just a winter thing because of the dirty shoes on the carpet. The majority of my kids class all have their slippers there to keep their feet warm and more importantly to keep their feet dry from those who wear their shoes in and get the floor wet and muddy.:yes

Tanya

[dharder]

Ours only have to wear shoes on the way to school and back, they take off their shoes all year round (not just a winter thing) once entering the classroom.

Not a big fan of the whole barefoot idea (think hygiene). But in the German Kindergarten the girls attended for a few months last year, every child had slippers and you changed into them in the morning so you wouldn't run around in potentially muddy boots inside. And in general, I really like the idea of wearing different things inside and out, seems to much cleaner to me.

Mind you, mine play sports in school barefoot, so the much cleaner option would be to have them put on their shoes to ENTER the classroom, since their bare feet are all muddy...

Daniela

[Tanya]

Ours only have to wear shoes on the way to school and back, they take off their shoes all year round (not just a winter thing) once entering the classroom.


Daniela


Our school does not allow children to wear bare feet at school - that must be very regional? Too cold down here for that malarkey!!!

Tanya

[dharder]

Our school does not allow children to wear bare feet at school - that must be very regional?

Interesting! Every time I raise concern I'm being told that this is an NZ thing, so I should just go with the flow...

Mind you, looking at the state of their feet at the end of the school day, I'm glad I just put the kids in the bath and don't have to clean shoes as well. Oh, and thank god for crocs! Fashion disaster, but oh so handy. Can't think of another shoe that they put on with filthy feet and then just rinse them at then end of the day...

They'll be tightening the school uniform rules next term, I wonder if we can still put them in crocs then (here's hoping).

Daniela

[Tia Maria]

Our school does not allow children to wear bare feet at school - that must be very regional? Too cold down here for that malarkey!!!

Tanya

I suspect most schools will inevitably go that way. I listened to my sons teacher telling the kids quite firmly that they need to come to her class in shoes and suitable winter clothing or she would phone their parents.

I think in ten years very few schools will allow bare feet, except in the sandpit!

Cheers

Tia

[nippa&pippa]

Our school does not allow children to wear bare feet at school - that must be very regional? Too cold down here for that malarkey!!!

Tanya

emmm, I am in canterbury and my son's school got signs in every single rooms as well as library asking them to remove shoes (& coat) all year around. But have to say that my son's school is a rural school with just 180 kids, so must be muddy shoes issue? they are allow to wear slippers...but my son prefer not to wear slippers :exit

[Tanya]

emmm, I am in canterbury and my son's school got signs in every single rooms as well as library asking them to remove shoes (& coat) all year around. But have to say that my son's school is a rural school with just 180 kids, so must be muddy shoes issue? they are allow to wear slippers...but my son prefer not to wear slippers :exit

Sophia - I realise you are in Canterbury! - What I was referring to was dharder saying they take them off all year round upon entering the classroom - but I am only speaking from experience of the 2 schools my children have been to since we have been in CHCH - clearly not at all referring to your school - It was my thought process that said its too cold for that - and IMHO there would be no way that I would allow my children to run around all day in bare feet at school!

There is obviously a "regional" difference between city and Rural too!

[nippa&pippa]

Sophia - I realise you are in Canterbury! - What I was referring to was dharder saying they take them off all year round upon entering the classroom - but I am only speaking from experience of the 2 schools my children have been to since we have been in CHCH - clearly not at all referring to your school - It was my thought process that said its too cold for that - and IMHO there would be no way that I would allow my children to run around all day in bare feet at school!

There is obviously a "regional" difference between city and Rural too!

:laugh other things is even it was very cold one morning during school visits (Helen will remember this, the morning that she got lost!!) and teacher didn't put heater on, just put extra layer of clothes on instead, it was so cold in mobile classroom. Seem didn't affect the kids with bare feets!!

[Familyofmonkeys]

Daughters school are also no footwear in doors at all. They even send them outside to play on the field and in sandpit barefoot, so their feet are filthy by end of day.....yuck!! One of the new parents went mad the other day when the class teacher sent the kids out at the end of the day to clear up the buckets etc from the sandpit (as they do every day) in the pouring rain and told the kids off for 'messing around' putting their shoes and coats on. If it had been my daughters class I think I would have been furious too, but I have noticed since then they have been a bit more careful.

Since it got colder my daughter now takes slippers in....her choice, and she is the only one in her class to do so, but maybe it will become a new trend as some of her classmates think her cat slippers are 'neat'...:laugh

[Carol]

As a teacher - it was better to have the kids take their shoes off at the door than trail all sorts of dirt in ....but the school were equally adamant that the kids had shoes on while outside.

Makes me laugh STILL when i see people wandering around the supermarket in their bare feet!
You will never ever get me to do that......

Now pyjamas..........another story..... :nice1

[AndyR]

Oh yeah, you'll love it here that's for sure. You see people barefoot in the supermarket, IN WINTER! And, in general, the country is pretty tidy so you're not going to step on a needle or broken glass.

haha thats one reason i stopped wearing flip flops around town. My friend got a needle in his foot. Luckily we discovered that HIV and other worries do not live long outside of the human body.

[akp713]

I don't think the barefoot trend is something that is going to disappear anytime soon. The kids going to school barefoot now are raised not seeing anything wrong with it and they'll be the parents of the next generation feeling it's fine for their kids to do the same.

The reason things changed in other countries was probably the association of bare feet with poverty, an association which doesn't exist here. I know I've seen middle-aged men hopping out of expensive Mercedes to shop in bare feet.

At the high school I teach at the kids had a cross-country day and just about all of them chose to run barefoot. However every one of the British born students I know of brought running shoes and said they didn't want to step on glass, a concern that few of the Kiwi kids had.

There was a podiatrist a couple months ago who said Kiwi kids were harming their feet by running without shoes and urged schools to change rules but I read that all the principals asked just laughed the suggestion off and said kids preferred bare feet and it was better to keep them active than make sure they were wearing correct footwear.

[Tia Maria]

I don't think the barefoot trend is something that is going to disappear anytime soon. The kids going to school barefoot now are raised not seeing anything wrong with it and they'll be the parents of the next generation feeling it's fine for their kids to do the same.

The reason things changed in other countries was probably the association of bare feet with poverty, an association which doesn't exist here. I know I've seen middle-aged men hopping out of expensive Mercedes to shop in bare feet.

At the high school I teach at the kids had a cross-country day and just about all of them chose to run barefoot. However every one of the British born students I know of brought running shoes and said they didn't want to step on glass, a concern that few of the Kiwi kids had.

There was a podiatrist a couple months ago who said Kiwi kids were harming their feet by running without shoes and urged schools to change rules but I read that all the principals asked just laughed the suggestion off and said kids preferred bare feet and it was better to keep them active than make sure they were wearing correct footwear.

Interestingly enough my experience is the complete opposite, our school, (primary), recently had cross country and the children weren't allowed to enter, unless in suitable footwear.

Also the local Rippa Rugby club now insists on rugby shoes, apparently they used to allow barefeet until their was an incident with broken glass.

So I think it will be health and safety that becomes the issue, rather than the perception its linked to poverty.

Even on the basic level, of the WSB, which I drive, I don't like to allow bare feet as its bad enough checking they don't run out in front of driveways, without worrying about them stepping on broken glass or dog pooh.

I think another poster mentioned Crocs, which seem to be popular among all the children that had a hard time with shoes previously.

Cheers

Tia

[JandM]

There was a podiatrist a couple months ago who said Kiwi kids were harming their feet by running without shoesI can never quite understand this point of view, unless it's expressed by a shoe-manufacturer. To the best of my belief, nobody's ever been born wearing shoes, so the natural design is for human beings to go barefoot, surely? I understand the concerns about not wanting the feet to be damaged by treading on sharp things. But my Kiwi d-i-l says that the people who go barefoot very often, year in, year out, develop such tough skin on the soles of their feet that hardly anything has any serious effect on it (even broken glass).

BTW, I do understand that there is the question of cushioning for the bones when people run a lot, and that our lifespan (and therefore potential running 'life') is much longer than our remote ancestors', but that seems quite a distance from this issue.

[Familyofmonkeys]

I can never quite understand this point of view, unless it's expressed by a shoe-manufacturer. To the best of my belief, nobody's ever been born wearing shoes, so the natural design is for human beings to go barefoot, surely?

But feet are designed to walk on softer surfaces. Doing cross country running on grass would be fine, but alot of the damage comes from walking on harder surfaces such as pavements/roads/tarmac sport courts etc where there is no give at all. It can lead to problems such as collapsed arches as well as the types of damage some runners get from constantly jarring their knee joints etc when they don't wear good quality trainers.

[JandM]

As I said, I know about the long-term sports argument, and that's different from some people's wish for a blanket ban on just living (playing, trotting about) without bothering to put on shoes. There seems sometimes to be a tendency to borrow statistics from what would be true for a serious athlete, and apply them to every average schoolage child, for every area of their life.

[akp713]

Interesting to hear about the school that wouldn't let kids run cross-country barefoot. It seems to hint at the general tendency in NZ to vary between a no worries attitude, as seen in the popularity of thrill sports, and nanny state tendencies as seen in the anti-smacking bill or the junk food advertising ban. It reminds me of all the media attention there was when that primary school, up near Albany I think, banned birthday cakes.

Personally I think running cross-country barefoot, when the route is taking kids along cement sidewalks and streets, is probably not a great idea. As someone mentioned earlier human feet weren't intended for pavement. A one-time run would be no problem but at least at our school the kids trained for the cross-country day with increasingly long runs at PE every day for a week, enough to give some people pretty sore feet.

That being said I see no problem with kids going to school barefoot and doing PE barefoot in the grass. I think that probably is healthier for constantly growing feet than being stuffed in hot sweaty shoes all day. Some Auckland schools may, in the name of safety, ban bare feet, just as some will ban junk food. But going barefoot, especially as kids, is so central to the Kiwi identity, right along with jandals and gum boots, that I doubt the majority of schools will ban the practice and I think it would be even harder to do so in the rural areas out of Auckland. Especially so with Kiwis so keyed up about their culture being suppressed by the immigrant hordes these days.

One last thing I have to say. People keep saying there is a danger of stepping on a used hypodermic needle if you walk around barefoot. Having lived all my life in a city I have never once seen a needle actually laying on the ground in any public place, let alone a supermarket or school. Nor has my flat-mate, one of those crazy Kiwis who walks around barefoot 24/7 all year.

[Caniwi]

My Canadian OH gives me grief for taking my sandals off and driving around barefoot! Granted it is illegal here, but it's a terribly hard habit to break having grown up with it. I go as barefoot as I can. A few years back a friend of mine from Canada, travelled down eith me, and got the hugest kick out of walking into a shoe store in barefeet.

[Mels]

My Canadian OH gives me grief for taking my sandals off and driving around barefoot!

Just to go from one extreme to another... Many years ago I remember looking on in disbelief at a ski instructor getting into his car and driving off wlth ski boots still on :exit
At least he had taken his skis off..

Mels

[JandM]

My Canadian OH gives me grief for taking my sandals off and driving around barefoot! Granted it is illegal here, but it's a terribly hard habit to break having grown up with it. I go as barefoot as I can. A few years back a friend of mine from Canada, travelled down eith me, and got the hugest kick out of walking into a shoe store in barefeet.It's illegal? I wonder why? I had some Scholl's sandals with wooden soles, and I always used to drive in bare feet on days when I wore them, and that was in England.

[akp713]

I'm pretty sure that it's a myth that driving barefoot is illegal. I know it's legal in the US because my parents always used to give me grief when I slipped off my flip-flops when driving. They always warned me it was illegal, so I looked it up and turned out someone has written letters to the agencies in charge of highway safety in every state and found out they all said driving barefoot was legal. Canadian provinces, however, I don't know about.

Now driving with flip-flops on, that always seemed quite dangerous to me.

[dharder]

One last thing I have to say. People keep saying there is a danger of stepping on a used hypodermic needle if you walk around barefoot.

Not worried about needles, it's the glass. The roads in Auckland seem full of broken glass, the closer you get to the curb, the more of it. My son slipped and fell at some point, and managed to land in broken glass and got a really nasty wound in his hand where the dirty glass had lodged itself.

Not pleasant. Not sure why they don't sweep that up more regularly, I have been cycling past the same car collision headlight debris for two weeks! (and yes, I did do one of those online council submissions, where you let them know if you spotted an issue).

Anyway, not a big fan of the whole barefoot thing (hygienic reasons more than anything), but the glass is a bit of a worry.

Daniela

[nippa&pippa]

My daughter just been walked around the town in bare feets (well she wore socks on) after had wee accident (totally out of character for her to have accident so I had no spare clothes and shoes!! just wrapped her around in light pram blanket like african women :laugh), nobody said anything about her feet, just remark on her "skirt" :laugh

For my son's school rules, it is very rural school, so risk of broken glass and needles is non-exist, more of muddy issues as I have seen sport fields!