Would it be such a bad idea to just allow smart trousers to be school uniform, and not skirts?

[Stanky]

I've seen many debates about school skirts being too short, and head teachers sending pupils home if their skirt is too short. The primary school we go to has had battles over girls wanting to wear shorts under their summer dresses. They say that this is not allowed due to "hygiene reasons". I still don't really understand what that means. I remember being at school myself and feeling peer pressure to roll my skirt up short, and look as much like Britney Spears as possible.

AIBU to think that it would just be easier to have all the children wear smart trousers or shorts for school uniform? Would that be such a bad thing? No more worrying about flashing underwear whilst playing or bending down, and ladders in school tights. Wouldn't really have to be so worried about shaving legs. Just seems like there's really no need for skirts. They're not practical at school, and they seem to open all sorts of cans of worms.

Oh yeah. You have pricey private schools without uniforms and shitty inner city comps who kick up a stink about colour of socks.
And kids looking scruffy - what's a big deal? They're kids. Especially in primary. They'll have a lifetime to conform to dresscodes at work, looking "presentable" to clients and all that shit.

Gym skirts in particular should be a thing of the dim and distant past. Shorts for all.

All the schools around here have shorts as their PE kit.

There's a really easy solution to all this angst. Get rid of uniforms.

I would hate this. Uniforms for my kids schools are as cheap as normal clothes.

Both my kids take ages picking what to wear on a weekend. Even 5 year old ds. His socks have to match his outfit etc. Uniform stops all that.

Uniform makes my life easier

My daughter would not entertain wearing trousers to school at all, she much prefers her skirts. The battle over length/tightness is nothing new and as others have said if skirts were banned the girls would be competing to see who could have the skinniest jeans.

No schools here have skirts for PE, the children all wear shorts, leggings or jogging bottoms.

i don't get it

just give everyone the choice- black shorts or black skirt or black trousers plus whatever shirts, ties, jumpers etc

is this not what every school does?

Uniform makes my life easier
Oh i wish. In my dc's primary uniforms are also cheap and available in a local supermarket.
But primary is primary. Kids lose stuff all the time, fall over constantly, are messy eaters, etc. So if DS has fallen over and damaged his black trousers beyond repair, it means i have to go and buy new ones. Cannot send him in jeans or tracksuits. So it means an extra expenditure on top of buying normal clothes.
Plus it makes all the non-uniform days a show-off event.

Myself i didn't have to wear uniform. Jeans and trainers most of the time. "Smart" clothing only for special events. Life was so easy.

My dc's High School only allow trousers, no skirts. The pupils themselves voted for it. Not really noticed any issues with it.

Gym skirts

My DD school has a "skort" for PE (skirt with shorts attached) and normal uniform is a one style only straight skirt with a split up the back which makes rolling up really hard as the split is quite deep and reaches knicker height before skirt becomes satisfactorily short. It's also bottle green so not a lot of choice in styles anyway. I think they look very smart and it is strictly enforced. Non uniform days are a nightmare in our house so glad both my DC have uniforms.

Non uniform days are a nightmare
Of course. Its an EVENT. You must have something to show

Nataleejah I don't have any of those issues with ds (5), he comes home having fallen over all the time but the uniform from asda seems to hold up.

I have a few pair of trousers etc, then top it up on the weekly shop if needed. I haven't had to buy new shirts or jumpers all year and replaced two pairs of trousers. So it's not been issue for me.

I think there shold be a choice of both but that skirt length should be better controlled.

At dds last school they had a uniform regulation skirt. It had to be worn closer to the ankle than the knee. It wiped out the pelmet option.

I admit when we first moved to the area and saw all these girls in long skirts I thought they looked odd but that rule worked and despite the option of trousers 99% of girls opted for the long skirts.

I thought the closer to ankle than knee rule was a very clever idea and think it should be rolled out across the country along with a trouser option.

Sadly were back to mini skirts in her current school.

school uniform should be a regulation tracksuit and pair of comfy trainers, with training shorts and t-shirts in summer. I don't understand UK school uniform rules. They are more trouble than they're worth.

Girls should have a choice. I used to play a lot of football at break times and skirts weren't practical for me so I wore trousers, as did some other girls. My school viewed it that as there were a lot of Muslim girls who were given the option of wearing trousers, they needed to apply the same rules and options to everyone. Worked fine as far as I could tell.

So sorry but... Seriously, I can't imagine anything worse than sending kids to school in tracksuit bottoms?!!

Skirts should be allowed for girls, they can be very self conscious about their figures and for those with a larger bottom half / pear shaped figure, trousers can be very unflattering. They can hide more and reveal less in a skirt.

Kittywindbag, I would agree to that. I think that most kids would too.

The UK education system ranks around 20 of the best performing countries, for people achieving in science and maths. I don't think that the school uniform rules are a benefit.

I think uniforms are a nightmare. I didn't have a uniform at school (rural Scotland), my kids do (primary school in England). The school uniform includes trouser and shorts options for girls but both my girls have felt social pressure to not wear trousers (comments about trousers just being for boys etc. Thankfully most adult women wear trousers so they will wear trousers sometimes) and both flat out refuse to wear shorts except for sports. Oh, and jumpers are for boys as well apparently, girls have to wear cardigans .

In their life outside school they are quite happy to wear jeans and jumpers so it's only the school uniform that enforces these gender stereotypes. In addition buying a uniform (plus black shoes) required me to spend a lot of extra money on clothes that wasn't required. They had full wardrobes before they started school, and they still need all those clothes for weekends and holidays. At this time of year if it wasn't for the uniform they'd live in shorts and t-shirts and we'd all be happy.

So agree with the PP who said best option no uniform and second best option no gender based differences in uniform.

I cannot get my head around schools that ban leggings as part of normal uniform but allow them for sports. The same for short skirts.

If they are OK for PE then why are they not OK in class?

My children are in a non uniform system. It's much easier as the rules about what they can wear are pretty minimal and so it's really not an issue. One thing I noticed, especially at primary is that very few of the girls wear skirts, in fact dd back in her more 'girly' phase was often the only one in a skirt.

Now at secondary the girls wear a real mixture, but jeans or leggings seem most popular. When the weather gets hot shorts will appear, mostly on the very short side, but I don't really get the angst. It doesn't seem to stop them learning, which to me is what school should be about.

I just read that school uniforms first appeared in England in the 16th century. I did not know that.

Be careful if googling school uniforms. Remember when night clubs used to do "School nights", and university students would dress up in sexy school uniforms? Now that I think about it, it really doesn't seem ok to dress up as sexy school girls. But I suppose that's a whole other issue.

Well, school uniform is quite a popular sexual fetish. Porn stars wear them

Indeed. I suppose that's why the night club owners organised those nights, and the students were happy to oblige and get dressed up. Does that still happen?

I so agree that uniforms should be abolished. It is ludicrous how much teaching time gets wasted by teachers having to faff around obsessing about skirt lengths and whether ties are done up properly. I particularly dislike it when, regular as clockwork, every autumn some new broom head (usually in a new academy) decides to throw his weight around by sending droves of children home because, horror of horrors, they're not wearing the right thing. Who knows, if they couldn't do that, maybe they would have to concentrate on improving teaching and learning in their schools.

On the no uniform days the clothes that girls choose to wear are often far less "inappropriate" as they tend to wear jeans instead of rolled up skirts.

I think imposing skirts on girls then moaning about them rolling them up is unfair. Either let them wear trousers or ban uniform all together.

They're just kids and caught up in this peer pressure tug of war: if I roll up my skirt my knickers are on show (and people make all kinds of judgements about me) vs if I don't roll up my skirt I look like a dweeby square. It's not their fault.

Yeah. Especially with constant whinging that schools are understaffed, under resourced, teachers overloaded with work. Yet they still have energy to faff about sock colour or trousers being wrong shade of black