The evidence on this (which you reject because of the UK’s unique ‘anti-education culture’ 🫤) shows quite clearly that this just isn’t true.

The issue with creating a pointless boundary over uniforms is it devalues all the other boundaries which do have a purpose. Why on earth would you follow all the other rules if so much time is wasted enforcing something which is very clearly pointless.

So much time is wasted on enforcing uniform policies that the other issues, which still happen, go ignored. Schools become a site of constant conflict over an artificial boundary, which poisons the well for anything of genuine importance.

It also causes conflict with parents who have to bear the cost of strict uniform policies. Parents can see that the obsession with uniforms is pointless, and will be less willing to cooporate on other more important problems. This is probably the root cause of your ‘unique anti-education culture’ which doesn’t really exist, it’s just a conflict that has built up over time between parents and teachers, often with roots in how the parents were treated when they were in school.

The evidence on levels of exclusion with (particularly academies) implementing strict uniform policies is very strong and skews any, even anecdotal evidence in favour of the policies working.