13-year-old boy told to cover up after going to school in his mother's pink bikini

A 13-year-old boy was told to cover up after turning up for school in his mother's pink bikini. Tyler Pickering was told to change into his sports kit by teachers. The Year 9 student at Lipson Co-operative Academy in Plymouth, Devon, decided to wear the outfit for the school's mufti day on Thursday to raise awareness of breast cancer. Tyler, who has lost grandparents to the disease, completed his usual 15-minute walk to school in the bikini with his 11-year-old brother in tow. But when he arrived at the school he was told to change because the outfit was inappropriate.

The teenager's dad, Scott Pickering, said he understood the school's decision but said Tyler was not trying to cause offense. He said: "I understand where they are coming from but he wasn't doing it to laugh at cancer – he did it because he's 13 and he doesn't care what he looks like. "The whole point was to raise awareness of cancer so, with the amount of people that saw him and stopped him, that's what it was for. He's a good kid; he doesn't get into any trouble in school. He just doesn't care what people think of him and that just amazes me for a kid of his age." Mr Pickering, 34, said Tyler came up with the idea the day before the school's mufti day.
"He told me he was wearing it for school and I said he wasn't, so then he said if I put a picture [of Tyler in the bikini] on Facebook and it got over 100 likes then he would wear it," said Mr Pickering, who lives in Efford. "Within about seven minutes it got about 150 likes." Tyler's dad said this was not the first time his son had worn an eye-catching outfit to school before. In primary school Tyler turned up in a bumblebee costume complete with a tutu to raise money for Children in Need. "Tyler is Tyler so he is looking for the most outlandish outfit in the house to wear to school," said Mr Pickering. Principal Steve Baker said staff at the school were not "killjoys" but that Tyler was "revealing too much".

He said: "We've done a series of assemblies on breast cancer awareness and we felt that it wasn't appropriate. In terms of the seriousness of what we were trying to do, even though we aren't killjoys, the students still need to be aware of decency and respect and we felt it was less discreet than it should have been. These things occur regularly in schools but, as with all organizations, there are boundaries and we felt he had just crossed the boundaries. It's not a huge issue; it was just a mistake." Staff and students at the school were all dressed in pink on Thursday as part of Breast Cancer Now's Wear it Pink campaign to raise money and awareness for breast cancer research. Despite the incident, Mr Baker said he was proud of his students and that the school managed to raise £1,000 for breast cancer awareness.