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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think this is the cruellest DM sad face yet

71 replies

fastdaytears · 09/09/2015 12:56

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3227485/Mother-blasts-school-daughter-15-sent-home-slightly-larger-legs-trousers-tight-just-weeks-headmistress-banned-skirts.html

Mum bought trousers (from Next so must be ok )
School said were too tight
Mum said how can that be when her skinnier friends are wearing the exact same trousers and aren't in trouble.

What is the mum thinking. She's basically announcing to the country that her daughter's thighs are chunkier than her friends'.

How can it matter that someone else has identical trousers if they don't fit that child?

Am I missing something? Does this lady just not like her daughter?

OP posts:

slithytove · 09/09/2015 17:03

Those trousers look fine and I would wear them to work no problem.

Should really write to the school, I think this is sexist (both ways) and that head has serious victim blaming issues.

State schools should really just have colour guidelines for uniforms, and maybe fabric. Trousers and polo tops for all.

I doubt a pair of skinny or cigarette trousers ever rendered a male incapable.

DadOnIce · 09/09/2015 17:05

Why is that article accompanied by a photo (further down) of a mother and daughter in South Shields, who appear to be completely unrelated to the article and not mentioned anywhere in it?!

balletgirlmum · 09/09/2015 19:31

They've had to call the police at home time today because the media descended so the kids could leave & get home safely.

Original poster

fastdaytears · 09/09/2015 19:44

ballet that's awful. Hope the kids weren't too freaked out.

OP posts:

ladymalfoy · 09/09/2015 19:51

Maybe she should concentrate on recruiting staff who can control a class of pupils.
Maybe she should not blame unacceptable uniform standards as an excuse for poor behaviour in classes.
Maybe she shouldn't have ousted seasoned staff with proven track records of good to outstanding teaching in an effort to reduce a huge financial deficit.
In my years of teaching experience once the Head starts blathering about uniform standards it means there are other more pressing issues that they are unable to tackle.

EasyFromNowOn · 09/09/2015 20:38

On the upside, they are allegedly picking on boys for the same thing now : www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Police-called-Trentham-High-School-pupils-face/story-27768517-detail/story.html

^ "One of my son's friends was told to go home as his trousers were apparently 'too tight' across his private parts.

"These are adolescents. It's outrageous to sexualise them in this way when all they have done is come to school." ^

Ladymalfoy - it was a house of cards for ages at that school, they coasted on reputation and location for a good few years.

ladymalfoy · 09/09/2015 20:59

And the location is worth an awful lot if the council wanted to sell the land for re-development.
Didn't they try to close the school once for that reason? Allegedly of course.
So if the school goes to the wall due do mis-management and bad press the council get what they wanted six/seven years ago.

balletgirlmum · 09/09/2015 23:06

Wernt they and St Joes the only ones who escaped the close, knock down, merge relocate Academy debacle several years back.

ProcrastinatorGeneral · 09/09/2015 23:28

It took me pretty much all summer to find a pair of trousers to fit my daughter. She's only a size six, but is hourglass shaped not jealous at all, nooo not me so her thighs are a little bigger than the current school trouser trends allow for. She's ended up in the Tesco ladies work basics trousers in mega-super-seriously short length. If I, hater of all clothes shopping ever could manage it anyone can!

ValancyJane · 10/09/2015 06:48

The thing that annoyed me most about that article was that it's only for the sake of male teachers they shouldn't wear tight trousers! At our school the girls wander round in skintight trousers (which usually ride up when they sit down and you can see the top of their knickers!), and those tiny stretchy skirts (you can see the top bit of their tights sometimes) and quite honestly it's just not appropriate for school. I think it's right to enforce the rules, but not for the 'male teachers' just because it's generally inappropriate for the environment.

As a female teacher I can deal with this; ie will tell girls to pull skirts down/tights up, point out that I shouldn't know what colour knickers they are wearing each day etc! But it's more awkward for male colleagues as it has a different connotation in the children's eyes. I wish our head would be stricter about this.

Keeptrudging · 10/09/2015 19:30

DD has no school uniform. It's brilliant - the unofficial uniform is jeans and a sweatshirt/hoody. They're wearing comfortable, decent clothing. No enforced synthetic fabrics and no more awful shopping trips trying to find uniform which fits my very slim daughter. High - achieving school, very few behaviour problems. I don't get this obsession with uniform.

EasyFromNowOn · 10/09/2015 21:22

Lady - yes, but v vocal Trentham parents put a stop to that - the very idea of being merged with The Mitch/BerryHill! Probably not a bad call on the part of the council, albeit accidentally, it'll be worth more now. Although it'd be St Modwen that bought it, of course...

Balletgirl - at that end of the city, yes. Although St Joe's is fucked at the moment, since their dynasty building crashed down around their ears, which is the risk you take if you spend money before your expansion plans are approved. I guess crowing about your wonderful results, whilst not allowing for the double-selection (religion/entrance test) in your cohort actually doesn't win you a lot of friends, especially when you breeze into a terrible school at the other end of the city, claiming to have all the answers and fail to achieve anything of note!

Valancy - I would put a lot of money on there being some artistic licence in that article. Our local rag is not a shining example of fair and balanced reporting.

ladymalfoy · 10/09/2015 21:45

Easy. Not just parents but the staff who worked there under the Head who turned the school around.
Image you wanted to sell the land. Wouldn't you wait for the last cohort who remembered the previous head to leave,so their parents were no longer invested in the school?
Bring in a head who will run the school in to debt then one who will run it in to the ground?
But maybe I've spent too long watching The X Files and see a plot where there isn't one........

EasyFromNowOn · 10/09/2015 21:53

Lasy - I wish the council had the brains for that. I'd love to believe they are capable of that kind of low cunning, but if that ends up being the outcome, and I think there's a good chance it will, I honestly don't think it will have been planned

balletgirlmum · 11/09/2015 01:00

Lol Easy - I went to birches myself - good luck to Mrs m with that one!

KanyeWestPresidentForLife · 11/09/2015 01:37

I don't really get this. People complain about the sexualisation of children but when a school actually takes steps to prevent it then the school is 'sexualising children' by pointing out that the parents allow children to wear clothes that sexualise them. It doesn't make sense.

Personally I support the school taking a stand against parents who allow children to wear clothing which sexualises them.

These are children, it's just inappropriate.

HamaTime · 11/09/2015 07:18

An ordinary pair of school trousers isn't sexualising children. The constant policing of girls appearance is damaging irregardless of whether you are saying they should be looking pretty or looking sexy or should be covered from head to foot. The uniform is black school trousers, the girls is wearing black school trousers and an adult is telling her that her body is too distracting for adult males and it's her responsibility to ensure that men don't notice her. That's the thing that's sexualising her, not some ordinary black trousers.

TittyBiskwits · 11/09/2015 08:35

Normally I would support school enforcing uniform restrictions, but those trousers look absolutely fine to me.

And as for banning skirts because it distracts the men

Besides, it was a rite of passage at my school to keep rolling the waistband of your skirt over to make it shorter and shorter and to see how much you could get away with.

Andrewofgg · 11/09/2015 08:40

The HT making "distracting male teachers" an excuse does not mean that they are being distracted or saying they are - even if they were they would be committing professional suicide by admitting it. Did the DM make it up, did the mother make it up, did the HT make it up? Who knows, but all of those are possible.

allwornout0 · 11/09/2015 08:53

Out of interest I was wondering what others views were on this.
A local comp has introduced a logoed skirt for the girls, the idea is that the logo must always be on show so then there is no chance of them rolling up their skirts.
A mum with a daughter at the school made a comment that once their daughter has left her house in the morning it is out of her control what she does with her skirt ie: roll it up.
Is it the parents responsibility or the schools?

CarlaJones · 11/09/2015 12:25

Just googled St Josephs Trentham pp mentioned as i hadn't realised some schools select by ability and by religion too. The second result that came up (about one if its recent pupils) did rather show that even being doubly selective doesn't give any guarantee of its pupils not being a truly vile piece of work!

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