Secondary school teachers probably feel they spend far too much time dealing with teenagers’ uniform transgressions. But spare a thought for the parents of a four-year-old boy in Texas who has been suspended from normal lessons since November for failing to comply with the school’s grooming policy.

His crime? His hair is simply too long. Floyd Elementary School’s rules stipulate that hair must be kept out of the eyes and cannot extend below the bottom of the earlobes or over the collar of a dress shirt.

Taylor Pugh has been forced to sit alone with a teaching assistant in a library while his parents and his school board still fail to come to a compromise.