Spreydon primary sock height dispute enters third week, PTA "unrecognisable"

A dispute over the correct height of a Spreydon Primary regulation grey sock has now consumed three PTA meetings. The Year 4 parent WhatsApp has split into two hostile factions.

The policy, updated in February, states socks must sit "mid-calf, folded once". Parent Alison Rutherford-Beek, whose daughter Piper is in Room 12, told The Daily Yarn the wording was "deliberately ambiguous". She has been rolling Piper's socks to just below the knee since Term 2. Nobody, she said, has produced a ruler.

Another parent, Deb Halligan of Barrington, said she was "honestly buggered" by the whole thing. "My boy loses one sock a week. I'm buying them from The Warehouse in three-packs. If they want mid-calf they can come round and measure his calf. It's the width of a carrot."

The board of trustees issued a one-line response on Tuesday. The policy "remains as written", it said, and parents should "please consider whether this is the hill". A follow-up email clarified it was not.

Deputy principal Karen Wetere said the school had spent "a not insignificant amount of the term" on sock correspondence. Asked about enforcement, she said the school did not have a sock officer and had no plans to appoint one.

The next PTA meeting is Thursday. Piper's socks, at last sighting, were at the knee.