Parents have hit out at a school for forcing their children to do PE barefoot – to protect a newly refurbished gym.

Pupils at Inchinnan Primary, in Renfrewshire, Scotland, have spent the last 18 months doing PE outside or in a local church while their school built a new gym.

It reopened last Tuesday, but parents were told their kids would have to wear gym shoes with white soles to protect the gym’s floor, The Gazette reported.

If children did not have the right shoes, they would have to go barefoot, parents told the local newspaper.

One parent said: ‘Over the past year, we have been told about the exciting new gym hall being built and how good it’s going to be for our children going forward. 

‘They’ve been told that, as it’s a brand new floor, if they don’t have ‘white soles’ on their trainers then they have to take their shoes and socks off and do gym in their bare feet.

‘This is happening to kids as young as five, putting them at risk of getting cuts on their feet.

‘This is all to “preserve” the new floor and is causing outrage amongst parents.’

Eventually, the school’s headteacher Nicola McGlynn cleared up ‘the confusion’ and promised that ‘moving forward no child will be asked to undertake PE in their bare feet’.

Instead, kids without the right footwear will be allowed to borrow shoes from the school for that day.

It is understood the school had opted to make children go barefoot, as opposed to staying in their socks, to avoid slipping accidents.

But this resolution did not come without making parents angry and worried first.

Another parent said this all could have been avoided if the school had said to buy trainers with white soles at the beginning of the term.

They added: ‘The parents and pupils have been waiting for ages for this new gym and now it causes all this drama when it does open.

‘But that wasn’t our fault, it was a lack of communication from the school.’

Metro.co.uk has contacted Inchinnan Primary for comment.

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