School uniform

is a hotly debated topic.
Some people love them. Other people hate them. Most parents seem to welcome them.
Schools around here use them. Ms W has one. I wore them. My siblings wore them. 
I was once a housemistress in a boarding school which dictated the entire clothing needs of the child - down to the sort of underwear they wore.  And, should you think that is  unusual, the mother of my godchildren was once sent home from school as a six year old for wearing non-regulation underwear.
Yes, that is going too far.
School uniforms have changed over the years. I remember my mother, then principal of an "infants" school, having a meeting with parents about uniform. What they came up with was eminently sensible. Tops with the school logo and shorts or trousers (for either sex) or skirts - all of which you could throw in the washing machine. The school provided the tops at cost price. There was no compulsion to wear it - but everyone did. 
Several other schools did the same thing at the same time and now it is much more common.
Most parents like it. Children may have mixed views but it saves arguments.
Uniforms are of course supposed to be the great equaliser. They are also supposed to be a matter of pride.
I went through a variety of uniforms as the Senior Cat was moved from one school to the next by the Education Department. (It was the way the Education Department worked.) Mine were always secondhand. We were not going to be there more than a couple of years so my mother saw no point in buying any of us new uniforms. 
I don't think I felt any particular pride in any of them. It was just what you wore to school - like everyone else. I suspect most children feel the same way now. 
Ms W's uniform is, on the whole, practical and easy to care for. It has changed since she started school but even then it was fairly practical and easy to care for. There was a discussion as to whether the girls in the last two years of school needed to wear uniform. The girls were consulted at the time and, oddly perhaps, decided to stay with uniform. As one of them said to me, "It's easy. You don't have to think about it. There's no competition."
As Ms W's school is a fee paying all girls school that might well be an issue. It would be an issue for Ms W who is there because she needs to be a weekly boarder.  She would be "competing" against girls whose mothers spend more on one item of clothing than I would spend on my entire wardrobe in a year. 
But something much more interesting came up about uniform  yesterday. The head of the boarding house said to me,
    "It's a security issue now. When all the girls are in uniform then we can tell at a glance if there is someone else on the school property who shouldn't be there."
I have to admit I had never considered that. It makes sense. Yes, someone could "borrow" a uniform - but that's unlikely.
As for Ms W? Her attitude is a shrug and,  yesterday, "It means I don't have to bother. All I have to do is sew my own buttons on."