pix - // In private schools- they can choose what they like and anyone paying will agree. In "public" (state, in the real sense of the word), they have no right to tell people what they should look like..or encourage children to judge on clothing. //
My wife was Head of a private prep school, for children from 3 to eleven, and it had a school uniform, and still does.
Uniform fulfils two functions - it ensures that everyone is identified with the school equally, and it means that school does not turn into a daily fashion war of one-up-manship, where the better off families can send children in a new outfit every day, and the less well off families struggle to clothe their children adequately, with no chance of being included in the latest fashions, making the children instant targets for bullying.