School Protests

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I'm just curious as to what everybody thinks on the recent school protests that have been going on?? One happened at my DD's school just today. They have been inspired by Rainford High School in St Helen's who started the first one.

Basically students refuse to go to lesson and protest for things like skirt lengths - teachers asking kids to roll their skirts down and demanding them to be knee length, and also protesting for the rights to go to the toilet and for the toilets not to be locked at lesson times.

What are your opinions on this?

Student opinions should be taken into consideration; but that needs to be balanced with the fact that the students don’t always have all of the information available, or have the same priorities.

Yes, some students may think that not being able to go to the toilet mid-lesson is unkind, undignified etc. Others want to skip maths and vape.

Students are likely to see things only from their own perspective; with no consideration of practical issues like safety, behaviour management, staff supervision, cleaning rotas etc.

In terms of students refusing to go to lessons - no, that’s not acceptable. It’s disruptive, detrimental to their own learning, and very very unlikely to result in the changes that they want. Discussions with the student council or letters to the governors would be more acceptable ways to raise issues.

Part of the learning experience of school is conforming to rules and self-regulating. There’s plenty of workplaces where you can’t wear certain clothes or nip to the loo whenever you feel like it. This is preparation for adult life.

I’m actually beginning to think that they have a point. I don’t like the whole “your skirt is so short it’s distracting “ message.

And a full on locking the toilets up during class time is also not good. I get that having a constant stream of kids going to the bathroom is hard to manage. But maybe deal with individual kids if it’s suspected they’re taking advantage?

I really do agree I think. The skirt lengths is awful honestly, just sexualising young girls - knee length is a bit much!

As for the toilet thing, I know that many will go to skip and vape. But I do think locking them is a bit much, couldn't they just monitor who is obviously going every lesson and skipping?? It's just unfair on girls on their periods for example.

I also understand students really don't see the other perspective and a lot of the rules are put in for their safety. It's just a confusing situation really.

Can't believe anyone would support pupil protests. All schools have opportunity for pupils to air problems, and parents are welcome to get in touch. Not by encouraging refusal and disruption.

Everyone will complain when behaviour is poor and staff leave due to it.

Skirt length - I agree with the school. I really cring when I see achoolgirls walkig home showing their crotch, it’s so much shorter than some of them realise.

Refusing students toilet access - this is notnok, I have IBS and unpredictable periods and that would be a huge problem for me. If toilets are locked during lessons then I support student strikes over that.

Some schools are run like prison camps, there’s one where students get detention if they look around in class. It’s ok for students to object to being treated like crap.

My local school had had 50% of the staff leave over the last few years because of bullying by the head / low morale, and also a very high percentage of pupils have left. The head still refuses to listen to parents’ concerns, and the governors are her personal friends so 🤷‍♀️

All very well saying parents can raise concerns with the school but the problem is that only works in a good school. In a bad school parents are ignored.

The skirt length thing is a genuine issue - not because girls are being sexualised but because when they walk up the stairs they have them rolled up so short that they have to hold on to the bottom edge so that it actually covers their bum cheeks or anyone going up the stairs after them (usually a couple of hundred other kids) gets an eyeful.

I mean seriously. We aren't telling them to do it for any reason other than protecting them. We are not weird or sexualising them in any way shape or form - if you're walking up the stairs behind them its ridiculous (and uncomfortable) to watch. They are clearly paranoid about it in the way that they walk but feel like they have to conform to the "cool" length of skirt.

Maybe (crazy thought) schools are trying to safeguard children from peer pressure and feeling uncomfortable and not enforcing a series of draconian rules for no good reason.

As an aside I personally think boys (and girls if they wish) should be allowed to wear PE shorts or smart uniform shorts in the summer heat.

They always aspire to run schools like work places -

Now work spaces are more casual and flexible - school isn’t teaching the skills for this.

I would let them ditch the uniforms, girls would cover up more and be more comfortable. Less likely to ‘bend’ the rules of hair and makeup/nails etc as they can express them selves in the same hoodie as everyone else.

Let the toilets be safe spaces - kids need to go when their aren’t crowds of others and it’s often not safe at breaks.

Pay more staff - a couple of extra bodies to do the toilet runs -

Behaviur police’s need to be former on behaviour and not ‘rule’ breakers! Someone with an extra earring is different to someone throwing chairs.

Students are likely to see things only from their own perspective; with no consideration of practical issues like safety, behaviour management, staff supervision, cleaning rotas etc

They see more unsafe aspects than any teacher - what teacher is scared to use the toilets? What teacher sees the behaviour inside those toilets or round the back of the playground?
Kids need to be heard and schools need an overhaul and more money to deal with root causes. And parents need to be fined or more specialist schools to deal with behaviur or feral kids .

Keeping them from going to the toilet is really unacceptable, no matter that a few might drag their heels, or vape.

I wet myself in my first week at school. My parents said to ask and if refused, to go anyway and if the teacher stopped me, to piss there and then. Not in my pants, obviously!

In my last school some of the the toilets had to be locked during lessons because there weren't enough staff to police all the blocks and someone was smearing faeces on the walls.

The school before that some of the toilets were locked because a group of boys ripped a toilet off the floor, so anyone allowed out of lesson had to go to the reception ones.

Schools desperately need more funding for adults on site to safeguard our young people. It's simply not safe for them to be out of lessons unsupervised now.

Not going to lessons is unlikely to get the school extra funding to make unlocked toilets viable.

I don't teach in schools anymore, I couldn't deal with having to decide who could go to the loo when and getting it in the neck either way.

Let them go and SLT are on your back. Especially if they get up to something. Don't let them go and it's against their human rights. Ask them to wait 10 minutes (to reduce the chance they're meeting their mates to film a tiktok) and they'll disrupt that ten minutes of the lesson moaning.

The girls in my year 8 tutor group telling me daily they did not have time to go at break because there just aren't enough toilets, at one point being scared to go in because they shared with year 10, and no hot water for months, passing it up the chain and nothing ever being done.

Skirt length, I don't care but I do think it's pretty disrespectful to themselves and others to be showing their underwear. They had the option of trousers in both schools I worked in, if a skirt that fitted and covered the areas that needed covering was an issue. Boys weren't allowed to have their underwear on display either. If they don't like the uniform I don't think protesting by not going to lessons is a productive method of changing that.

Thought the thread was going to be about the protests at Astor School, Dover.

I'm a parent at the school.
The protest is against how its been implemented. A barrier has been put up so that girls and boys enter separately. The boys can go straight to form the girls then have to join an airport style queue (it's a big school, over 1600 on roll).
They queue and eventually have to walk, 4 at a time in front of 4 male members of staff? Who actually bend down to examine the skirts length, check it hasn't been rolled ip amd isnt riding up.
Tall girls who are wearing a bog standard m and s skirt in their size have been given detentions.
It's part of a wider culture at the school (a high achieving school, with good behaviour) which is increasingly oppressive.

I have attached pictures so ypu can see how confrontational this has been handled (remember this is all girls at the school, not just those blatantly contravening rules).

The First picture shows staff separating boys and girls.

The second picture shows a number of other issues as well as the protest... this includes the fact that toilets are lo ked with barriers in lesson time so that teachers can't ever use discretion to allow a pupil to go to the toilet in an emergency. I think it is probably as oppressive for the class teachers as the students.

I am very glad the students are making a stand.

I agree about skirt length. Only objection is if trousers are not an option.

It should be female teachers judging only.

We have terrible trouble with vaping and hiding in toilets. We are looking certain ones at certain times to avoid missing pupils who are just vaping and truanting. We can obviously use our discretion.

Locking not looking!

Skirts that cover your arse are worn in almost every profession so I don't see why this is not a reasonable expectation if they won't conform mandatory trousers and shorts no need for skirt inspection

The skirt length thing is insane - on the rare occasions I drop my DC off at school I’m embarrassed for some of these girls. They look ridiculous. You can see their pants. It’s not remotely appropriate and I would not support any stupid protest to protect their right to walk around like that.

The toilet thing is much more complex - all of you who think they should be allowed unchecked access to the toilets should go and work as a secondary teacher for a week. You’d change your mind bloody quickly.

Good for them.

Skirts to the knee? Ha! My skirt had to be BELOW the knee. I was stopped by the deputy head one day (male) who told me my skirt was too short. We used to roll our skirts up as soon as we got outside the school gates. I went to a very strict and high-performing grammar school though where we even had to ask to take our blazers off in class.

I'm for strict dress codes. I'm not in agreement with the toilet restrictions though.

Although i could never condone violence part of me supports their protest .
I hate that so many schools are locking toilets ,surely that cannot be legal .
The relatively new head at my school is about to implement similar toilet rules and the email detailing his plans makes me think our school may have similar protests as some of his ideas seem quite unfair.
The previous head -who retired ,was a great man , firm ,fair and kind , the kids knew where they stood and they respected him, there were no petty rules and the school ran well , i know what kids get up to but surely if toilet behavior was monitored better during break times and kids weren't nervous about using the toilet then there would be less kids going during lesson time.
I hate how schools can be so oppressive .
Scatterbrainbox - i can understand everyone's objections ! i hope commonsense wins !

If you could see the mess some of the girls in my school make in the toilets, you would want them locked too. Absolutely disgusting.

All comes back to serious underfunding in education.

We need to invest so much in our schools. I disagree with children protesting BUT I think a student voice is important.

I recently asked the head of my DDs secondary how students should voice ideas / concerns and she said 'they could speak to their form tutor'. There needs to be a student voice - head person/student council etc.

Yes but a student voice protesting that girls should be allowed to wear their skirts as short as they like is just nonsense 🙄.

And yes agree about the state of the toilets.

Behaviour in secondary schools is terrifyingly bad right now - I don’t think some parents realise quite how bad. All well and good for students to protest “my rights” but what about their responsibilities? This seems to be lost all the time. Their responsibility to behave themselves and not make their teachers lives a total fucking misery on a daily basis 🤬.

That isn't what they are protesting about. The key issues are that
1.school sent home a letter saying girls neeed longer skirts for 'their dignity' and so as not to distract others (ie. Making boys actions the fault of the girl for her clothes choices).

1. They made every single one of the 800 odd girls who attended the school line up and wait for their turn for an adult male teacher to bend down and closely inspect their skirt. No such inspection was made of the boys.
2. Their insistence that the skirt is 'on the knee' exactly. It's a standard grey skirt... no reasonably priced shops will sell them in different lengths, so if a girl is tall and slim it will sit a little higher. This is also the case for skirts sold by the school's official uniform supplier... they sell the skirts by waist size not length.

It's a school in a pretty conservative village with high standards...there really aren't girls going to schol with mini skirts there. Girls who are well behaved, wearing normal school clothes are being treated confrontantionally ... herded into a 'holding pen' by multiple adults in high viz jackets, essentially having bodily autonomy removed.

Part of the learning experience of school is conforming to rules and self-regulating. There’s plenty of workplaces where you can’t wear certain clothes or nip to the loo whenever you feel like it. This is preparation for adult life

School in no way reflects real life as a working adult

I left school years ago and from having to follow set rules and getting detention if I didn’t follow exactly the set of rules to the letter it was a relief when I finally went to work and apart from being at work at a certain time in the morning and when I came back from lunch the rest was pretty much, do the work. Spent most of the day chatting and making coffee and going shopping in my lunch break.