A 6-year-old boy was sent home from school because of his ‘extreme’ mohawk haircut His mother isn’t happy – even after reaching a compromise by getting rid of the spikes

A mother has criticised her school’s headteacher for threatening to send her six-year-old son home for having “too punk” a haircut.

Charlie Chafer fell foul of a ban on “extreme” haircuts at Bletchley’s Drayton Park primary school in Milton Keynes when he arrived to school on Friday.

Charlie had begged his mother for months to get him a mohawk, with a spiked top and closely shaven sides. But the headteacher was not impressed.

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“I was called into the school office and told to shave his hair off as it was too ‘punk-ish’,” Charlie’s mum Kirstie Bomsel told the Milton Keynes Citizen.

‘Okay. Bye’

Ms Bomsel said no – on the basis that other children at the children have what she perceived as equally radical styles, with shapes shaved into their hair.

She claims headteacher Jo Alikhan told her: “Okay. Bye. You can take Charlie home then.”

Kirstie left with Charlie, but returned minutes later and allowed a teacher to flatten his hair to his head with water so he could join his class. This happened on Friday, and on Monday Kirstie kept Charlie off school in protest.

She said: “They kicked him out of school because of his haircut, which is a small, neat mohawk that’s not affecting his work or other pupils. It’s just not right.”

The school’s uniform policy, available online, bans “extreme haircuts” because they could be a distraction to other pupils.

Outstanding behaviour

Headteacher Mrs Alikhan told the Citizen: “Drayton Park has been rated by Ofsted as having outstanding behaviour and wearing the correct uniform is part of ensuring that this is maintained. This also includes not allowing certain kinds of haircuts and guidance on this is clearly published on the school website. Parents are very supportive of this.”

She added: “We had a conversation with Charlie and his mum on Friday morning and we agreed a compromise. He went on to spend the whole day in school .

“We were therefore very surprised to see the claims that he had been ‘expelled’ on Facebook on Friday night which is clearly not the case.”

What can parents do if they disagree with uniform rules? Every school has its own behaviour and discipline policy, and is allowed to set its rules in terms of how to enforce it. Schools have the right to send children home to remedy the breach – in this case, shave off the mohawk – and this counts as “authorised absence” rather than exclusion. Changes to appearance – haircuts, jewellery, etc – that took place during school holidays must still be adjusted to fit with term-time policy when the child is back in school. Complaints are to be resolved by the school in line with its complaints policy. Above the headteacher, a complaint could go to the chair of governors, but with the headteacher in charge of enforcing uniform policy day by day, it seems likely that the the board of governors would side with the original decision. Problems there can be appealed to the Department of Education. Parents as a group have occasionally prevailed on schools to back down, however. One Doncaster school loosened its uniform supplier rules to allow parents to buy generic versions of clothes after a campaign.

A version of this story originally appeared on our sister site, the Milton Keynes Citizen.