to talk to headmaster about skirt lengths?

[Redhillibilly]

DD is in Yr 1. I have noticed that quite a few of the older girls are wearing very short skirts and I am thinking about speaking to the HT about it but don't want to come across as a wally.

My thinking is that a) it is just not appropriate and b) I would imagine that over the course of a year, once the cool girls start wearing short skirts, others may wish to follow to look cool; I don't want that pressure being around at primary school.

So, would I be a total wally to make a comment and if not, what's the best way to go about it?

I was a primary school child in the 70s. Looking back at school photos I am always struck by how short the skirts were. I do not remember anybody thinking children's legs were shameful things that should be hidden away!

Very true.

YABU

These girls will obviously be long gone into secondary school by the time you need to be worrying about this. I think it is hard to gauge to be honest it depends on the style of the skirt. They are probably to little to be buying adult sized clothes so these must be being bought from a proper school uniform range? In which case they are more than likely an acceptable design as I couldn't see any reasonable store selling a mini school skirt for a 9/10 year old! As long as you think what your daughter is wearing is acceptable I wouldn't interfere. It only becomes an issue in secondary school when girls start to want to decide what they are going to buy and wear themselves . Prepare yourself!

I was at primary school in the sixties/early seventies.

Our skirts and pinafores wery very short. I also recall that the teachers' skirts were extremely short. One in particular had to hold down the back of her red mini dress so that it didn't ride up over her underwear when she wrote on the background. It was hysterical to watch the boys' faces trying to catch a glimpse of something!

Outside school we not only wore very short skirts, dresses and "hotpants" but they were made of a weird PVC stuff. Oh sooooo trendy, especially when worn with elasticated kneehigh white boots - or, in the seventies, hugh platform boots and coloured nylon tights.

(I digressed there, sorry!)

Many primary school skirts have totally or partly elasticated waists.

Consequently, my exactly average 11 yo could still get into her age 8 ones quite easily. They were not what you would call long. I was not going to buy longer ones for 6 months. In any case if I had DD would still have worn the old ones unless I'd thrown them out.

Fitting in with others at school and how she sees the wider world gives her security. I may be totally mystified by this attitude, but I'm learning to pick my battles.

When I started teaching we had lectures as students about the lengths of our skirts when we went into schools! Even then they were fairly short.

Interesting that this afternoon DD brought a newsletter home containing the following paragraph:

"Could parents of girls please be aware of the suitability of the skirts worn, especially KS2. Although we would not wish to dictate how many inches above the knee, several are wearing skirts which show underwear, which is not acceptable."

So it would seem at least one HT is concerned.

Note that he is leaving it to the parent's better judgement-in the hopes that they have one.

Yes, but it's the fact that it bothered the HT enough to actually make a point of it that I thought worthy of mention, given some of the posts on this thread.

I expect it would BUT I doubt that anything will be done in a primary school if the parents don't agree.

My DD's secondary has very nice below knee length skirts (pleated), and I think that's so much better than many schools who go for above the knee styles
YANBU to realise that skirt lengths are an issue in school uniforms.

YANBU OP. I think the head mentioned above is right to say that wearing skirts which show underwear is not acceptable, regardless of whether he can legally enforce this.