Teenager refusing to follow school rules on make-up and piercings

Her behaviour suggests she isn't very happy though, otherwise she'd be able to tolerate the rules.

The poor girl. She just wants to assert her individuality and when she does she feels better about herself. The stupid school rules. It makes no difference to her education if she’s wearing eyelashes or not.
maybe she needs to change schools.
I would leave her to it. Let her fight her own battles. You cannot control her.
let the school deal with it.
if they expel her she can go to a college where she’s free to be herself

If she’s generally happy there she’ll need to suck it up for 12 months.
If she’s going to go there for yr11 then she needs to abide by rules. If not then you’ll save your money and she can join college in September.
If she wants the nice advantages of private then she needs to put up with their rules. She’s 16 old enough to realise she’s at risk of being expelled and impact on her future plans.

State schools generally go down one of two lines in response to this

if she is using make up because she genuinely feels she can’t cope without it and feels ugly etc they may refer her to the in school counsellor. In one case I am aware of where the girl had burns on her face they did exempt her from the rules but asked her to do more natural looking.

if there are no major issues and she keeps doing it they’ll assign someone to check on her each morning and take her to the loos and wash it off.

you can expect a lot of emails.

a private school might get very fed up with doing the second and might start making noises about this not being the right school for her.

To be honest, I don't like this rule now where a teenagers appearance is more important than their education. Academies are like this too. When children get to a certain age they start to develop their own style.

As you're in between a rock and a hard place OP, I'd encourage her to obey school rules but perhaps promise at the end of the week to buy a little make up treat if she goes the whole week without wearing any while at school, and promise to take her for her piercing once she's finished next year if she still wants it (she may not by then!). Perhaps too try and find other ways that lift her self-esteem, drama class? Something in the arts which she seems to love perhaps.

If she won't take on board that we all chose our battles and this one isn't worth a fight over, then she will just have to take the consequences. She may tire of those naturally...

If she is very self conscious about her appearance you could offer to get her natural looking eyelash extensions and a good skincare routine if she doesn't get the lip piercing and stops wearing makeup to school.

Give her another outlet for her self expression at school. You said she is arty and interested in fashion, so maybe get her to design and make her own school bag. She could pain a design on a canvas tote or something?

In the long term work with her on self confidence. Help her understand that she can be an individual and express herself without makeup, clothes, piercings etc.

I know lawyers, accountants and insurance brokers with piercings.

But surely you can see that at some level she really isn't that happy if she repeatedly breaks the rules. A really happy child would toe the line. I think you are trying to convince yourself that she is still a little girl you can persuade to be compliant like her older brother but by her attitude over the makeup she is trying to tell you that she is a stifled young woman. Has she been in the correct school year she could now have plans in place to go to a sixth form environment suitable to her personality. I think the next 12 months are going to be very hard.

Why are these against school rules though? Why does it have any bearing on ability or readiness to learn? People in professional jobs don’t these days can have piercings, tattoos, non natural hair colour etc, so why are there schools with archaic rules?

Does she work? A fast food pt job might curtail plans for piercings. Mine worked in McDonalds pt from 16 and had to take piercings out from memory.
I was thoroughly over school and some of the petty rules by 5th year and ready for college.
It’s a disadvantage of being held back a year. She’s ready to leave school but because of being held back she’s got another year.

Trouble is that because she is a year behind at school she will be 18 in year 12 of school. So even if the parents make her wait until 18 she'd still be in school with more than a year to go when she got it done. In my experience, if you make them wait it is more likely she will go and get it done the day after her 18th birthday just to prove a point.

Don’t send your child to private school then let her behave like a spoilt brat. If she wants to wear loads of makeup and flaunt the rules, send her to state school and save yourself the money.

Oh, you are one of those parents! Let your child do whatever they want so they will like you.

She should back the school up so that her dd learns a life lesson. Sometimes you need to follow the rules. The alternative is teaching her she doesn't need to follow rules if she doesn't like them.

She sounds ready for college, I guess that's the downside of being held back

I would limit her access to cash for now, so she can't buy piercings, and come up with a compromise for her around make up

Is she unhappy at school maybe? I would explain you will let her switch at 16 but she has to toe the line for now

It does, but if she fails her GCSEs because of a disrupted final year then the chance she has to end up in a uniform and with a name badge goes up.

What happens if she keeps breaking the rules, will it be escalating sanctions all the way up to exclusion?

It’s not good in the year she’s going to be working towards her GCSEs. Does she understand the possible longer-term effects if it reduces her exam grades through exclusion, and that it could be a very high price indeed in order only to show some people who she’ll never see again that they’re not her boss?

This she needs money to buy makeup and false eyelashes so stop giving it to her. And ask family and friends please not to give cash for birthday presents until this issue has sorted itself out.
Id also be taking her phone off her - cancel the sim card you presumably pay for if she refuses to hand it over - until she decides shes going to behave

You need to lay down some boundaries and pdq as its obvious she has no respect for your authority. Im guessing you havent been consistent with real consequences over the years and its now coming home to roost.

Also if you wanna scare her lip piercings can fuck up your teeth.

Well in terms of aesthetic rules I support that entirely depends upon where she works?

You need to make this explicitly clear to her.

Shes 16 and more than able to understand the consequences of her actions, she needs to weigh up if the makeup and piercings are worth the risk of being kicked out and not being able to stay at this school with her friends right through to the end of next year as per the current plan.

She also needs to know the impact to you, the stress and frustration of having to deal with the schools complaints, the possibility of losing her school fees and her not actually being able to attend due to suspensions, the cost to you in sending her to a private school is high, it’s presumably for her benefit to give her access to the best education possible and she’s pissing it away for eyelashes and lipstick. She can wear that stuff straight after school, at weekend, during holidays.

Ahaha she sounds like me. My mum just said okay for your last year of school if you grit your teeth and get on with being a “sheep” (my words) I’ll pay for your piercing the day you finish year 11 because the college don’t care. I do think she assumed it was a phase and I’d have the piercings a year or two but they are still there 10 years later.

If it’s a private school, they can expel her-is that what she wants?

So she’s well behaved ? Doesn’t drink smoke vape etc? How is she doing with her school work?
I wouldn’t be bothered about make up if all of the above is in order. The school sound like control freaks