E&S readers have their say after school sends home pupils in cadet uniform
Scores of Express & Star readers have been having their say after it emerged four students were sent home from school for turning up in their air cadet uniform on Remembrance Day.
People have been logging onto the paper's website in their droves to speak out after bosses at Smestow School in Wolverhampton said it was policy for children to wear school uniforms at all times.
The students, who are members of the 1047 City of Wolverhampton Air Training Corps squadron, were asked to return to school once they had changed into school uniform.
But the story has divided readers, with some branding it 'disrespectful' but others saying the pupils did not have permission to wear their cadet uniforms.
One wrote: "I find it disgusting to send children home who are trying in their way to pay the utmost respect to the fallen.
"Have previously been a cadet in the armed forces myself I am very proud that they should have the desire and wish to honour men and women who have worn the uniform and fallen.
"Their parents should be rightly proud."
Another added: "I get that it may have been against school policy but given the nature of the change of dress and the genuine sentiment behind it, wouldn't a warning and a statement making it clear to all the other pupils that this would not be allowed in the future sufficed in this instance?"
Some readers said they believed it had been the right decision.
Reader 'Alfred the Great' said he understood the school's decision.
"Permission should have been gained first," he said.
"If you allow one to break rules, it allows others with less good intentions to break it also. It would set a bad precedent."
Another added 'school policy is school policy'. If it gets broken once then the pupils push it," they wrote.
"This is just complicated by the nature of what day it was."
