Is this punishment 'fair enough' and normal practice?

The Year 7 thought she was a "holier than thou"and therefore felt in an ideal position to judge the other pupil as not coming up to their standard of dress - hopefully the detention will teach her that her judgey ways are maybe something she needs to work at - imo she is not well behaved and saintly as she might like to think.

"It is not the business of some random Y7 kid to make comments about whether they do or do not find other pupils dress attractive."

This. The sooner she learns that she is not the uniform police the better.

And as far as adult life goes: I am in a profession where a certain decorum is expected. If I turned up in revealing clothes I would probably get a quiet word from my HoD. If I made audible comments about my colleagues' clothing in a public space. I'd probably be up for a disciplinary. Public name-callin absolutely not allowed. Very bad for morale, very poor impression on outsiders. (And incidentally, exactly the kind of thing that would pull a school down in an Ofsted inspection.)

So yes, she does need to learn about the adult workplace.

But this is an 11yo who was describing a 'look' and not even calling the other pupil the name. An 11yo who didn't realise the full meaning of the name. And 11yo who was just reacting to a comment made by a friend as a response to a whole school attitude encouraged by school.

That's all well within the normal bounds of detention. She insulted "the look" of a girl who had just been pointed out, whether she named the girl or not. She said something she knew was insulting, even if she didn't realise just how insulting it was. And it's not the friend's fault for commenting on other girls breaking the dress code, nor the school's fault for having a dress policy, because the friend and the school didn't say anything about "tarty". She did.

And she certainly won't be doing it again. She's really upset and horrified at herself.

Lesson learnt then, which is the purpose of a detention. And she'll get over the upset. One detention hardly makes her the school delinquent.

I do hope someone explains to her about the misogyny though. Her own mother can't because her own mother doesn't understand it.

That's good. You've been educated as to why perpetuating misogynistic ideas about women is wrong, and so has your friend's daughter. Win win! So the punishment was sensible, proportionate and fair enough. I have no idea whether or not it is normal practice.

Dcs secondary sounds very similar - mad strict uniform policy and different 'harshnesses' of detention.

If a pupil was overheard using a misogynous term towards or about another pupil then they would likely get a 'headmasters detention' or if they were very lucky, a HOY detention.

It is not the business of some random Y7 kid to make comments about whether they do or do not find other pupils dress attractive. It is not their place to say they look like a prostitute. Girls should be free to walk about school without their uniforms being fetishised, and no, the other kid was not 'asking' for misogynous abuse by rolling her skirt up. She is not a lovely girl, she is a judgey, sneery girl and the fact that her mother thinks it's fine speaks volumes.

Hint - it's not because some other people think it's more of an insult than you do. It's because it's a misogynistic comment about another girl. I'm sure you would expect her to be punished if she said something racist, for example?

I have RTFT. But I still don't think you've fully grasped why what she said was wrong.

I wouldn't walk into a board room wearing a micro mini, but equally, I wouldn't expect to be called a tart if I did.
Inappropriate for the context, fine. A wardrobe malfunction, if you like.
A judgement on my sexual availability? Absolutely not.
I'm with school on this one.

**I just have a situation and asked opinions

OP you've admitted this isn't your child so not your situation...why are you so bothered? Let other people get on with their own situations, it's not affecting your life so leave the school to deal with it how they see fit. They're trying to teach the yr 7 child it's not ok to make derogatory remarks. What the older child was wearing is nothing to do with the year 7

My original question was about is it usual for punishment for things overheard when it was a personal comment about how someone found something.

The remark was made about the kind of clothes worn by another girl who had been pointed out. An individual, not just a group. And it was made openly enough to be overheard. So what do you expect?

Oh there's no doubt she got the word tarty from outside school. As I said I've even asked if I look tarty before when wearing a short skirt.

Are you quite sure you're not her mother? You use the same language as her mother, you know an awful lot about exactly what the girl has and hasn't said about her own sister, and you aren't half making excuses for her.

All this tart/tarty/slutty etc wording is vile.

No child looks like a prostitute ffs.

As fir uniform well these days schools have gone bat shit.

What kind of deviant thinking goes into making kids wear clothing that covers every inch of skin or isn't tight etc. What happens if someone shows a bit of knee for heavens sake?

But of course on MN if the "rules" were to throw your child under a bus people would literally be elbowing each other out the way to get to the bus stop first.

Control and victim blaming is apparently ok if its dressed up as school uniform..

No one bursts into flames waking down the street fir heavens sake. Sure they could cope with a pair of shorts or a mini skirt in school.

The rules say alot more about the school and the adults behind them.than breaking them.coukd ever say about the kids.if the adults can't handle the site of children showing an arm.or a knee or a a bra through a shirt then they are in the wrong job

She's being punished because she made a misogynistic comment about another pupil, OP. She may be a perfectly nice girl in every other way who made a mistake due to picking up shitty attitudes from adults and in that case hopefully she will learn an important lesson from this very standard, mild punishment. Have you grasped why what she said was wrong yet?

I mentioned up thread she's mortified. That's because she's actually a quiet and well behaved girl who will wear what she's told and wouldn't ever dream of doing anything else!
But she will judge another girl who is wearing a short skirt as looking like a tart, and she will voice that opinion in front of others.

she's actually a quiet and well behaved girl who will wear what she's told

She was punished for what she said, not for what she is. And if she realises it's not OK to call her own sister tarty but she'll say it about someone else then that makes it worse, not better.

And from what the OP says, the girl got her ignorance about why she shouldn't say other girls look "tarty" from her mother, not from the school.

I also did not realise that tart was such an offensive word, where I grew up it was a polite term for a slag/slut which are much more offensive.

Where I grew up, women were not expected to use bad language. Calling someone a "slag" was bad language and people would have condemend the (female) speaker for using the word, whereas calling someone a "tart" was allowed. But the meaning of the words was similar and the insult to the person you were talking about was the same.

It would be unprofessional to wear nightclub or beachwear to a job in a bank, and schools try to teach pupils to look professional. But that doesn't mean that someone who weras beachwear or nightclub gear in the bank is sexually promiscuous or a prostitute. And it's a misogynist insult to say it does.

It brings to mind the old feminist slogan "whatever we wear, wherever we go, yes means yes and no means no!".

Megatherium that's ridiculous, where in any uniform policy does it say skirts must be a certain length to prevent looking cheap? I presume this isn't an all-girls convent school in the early 80s where pupils kneel before the Headmistress brandishing a ruler?

Agreed someone may have told this girl informally to judge girls on their short skirts but this may be from home.

Our uniform policy is zero tolerance but is clear and boys and girls look very smart. The policy is used to inspire pride not prevent shame in the way you imply. If the school "unclenched" then they wouldn't look as uniform and that's sort of the point, isn't it?

The thing is that it's the school's obsessive attitude to uniform that fosters this sort of attitude. I very strongly suspect that someone has told them that if they roll their skirts up short they're going to look cheap, everyone's going to think the worst of them etc etc. If schools would unclench about uniform then this sort of incident wouldn't happen anyway.

if you type it into google on all the different dictionaries it does come up as meaning prostitute. I just looked now but i knew thats what it implied anyway and i think most people would.

can't find tart described as meaning a prostitute in the Cambridge English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Oxford, Collins, Chambers and Macmillan."
Why would you make yourself look stupid and a liar with a fact like that which is easily checkable and wrong?

if my son called someone in the hallway tarty because their skirt was shorter than other peoples skirts id hope to god he got detention. If he didnt and id heard about it id go up there myself and make them give him detention.
No one should be using words like that to describe young girls clothing. Fair enough to point it out if a skirt is shorter than uniform policy states. Not fair enough to then imply the girl looks like a prostitute because of the length of her skirt.