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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

male teachers distracted by school skorts

142 replies

Deadringer · 17/09/2020 21:41

i have read similar stuff on here but am gobsmacked that this has happened at my dd's school today. Dd goes to a fee paying girls only school, they have a strict uniform policy which i am happy with. On pe days, because of covid the girls have been told to wear their sports uniforms as changing rooms have been closed, so they are wearing their tracksuits, and the badmington and hockey teams have been wearing their skorts on training days. This morning one of the girls was stopped at the door and told that her skort was too short. It is a compulsary uniform for the hockey team, and they only come in one length. This girl is particularly curvy which is presumably why she was singled out. A couple of hours later, she was called out of class and told that her skort was distracting to the male teachers and she wasn't to wear it again. Then an announcement was made to the pupils that the skort was no longer to be worn in school or at training, but might possibly be worn at matches. This seems utterly ridiculous to me, that an item of uniform chosen by the school has been deemed inappropriate. I can't believe too that the principal was stupid enough to tell the girl that she would distract the male teachers. Surely ianbu?

OP posts:
AriesTheRam · 17/09/2020 22:32

Let's all give info on the length of our dc school uniform Hmm

MomToTwoBabas · 17/09/2020 22:32

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Original poster
Deadringer · 17/09/2020 22:33

I don't know why anyone would think it's bullshit, it seems to happen all the time. The students are all rightly up in arms about it and i am sure the parents will kick up murder. My dd doesn't play hockey so i have no skin in the game so to speak.

OP posts:
BigBadVoodooHat · 17/09/2020 22:38

I don't know why anyone would think it's bullshit, it seems to happen all the time

Well, on MN it seemingly does. Earlier this week there was a post about a 'distracting shoulder'.

Whether or not it is ever really the case in the real world that naughty school girls are regularly humiliated by teachers for their sinfully distracting physical allure is a different matter of course. Hmm

DdraigGoch · 17/09/2020 22:39

@Deadringer

The girl in question is 16, i forgot to mention that. The only explanation i can come up with is that the principal is quite new, and for the first time in the school's history, is male.
I'm going to take the charitable view and assume that this is a case of a new head wanting to make their mark by throwing their weight around with the uniform, as many new heads do. At least I hope that they didn't really believe what they said about distraction.
LovingLola · 17/09/2020 22:46

Are you happy for your daughter to be educated by these people?

Maireas · 17/09/2020 22:51

Two stories about girls clothing distracting make teachers? Hmm

Maireas · 17/09/2020 22:53

male

Mumsnut · 17/09/2020 22:55

Does the school begin with a T ?

Itsokthanks · 17/09/2020 22:56

So the school are basically saying they employ peadophiles? Are you sure that's what was said?

Original poster
Deadringer · 17/09/2020 23:11

@Mumsnut

Does the school begin with a T ?
No. The girl involved told my dd, so unless she is blatantly lying that's what was said. I find it astonishing tbh. If they had just told the girls that they should wear their tracksuits for training no one would have batted an eyelid, it's just mad that they would say something so stupid.
OP posts:
LadyGAgain · 17/09/2020 23:18

If this is legit (and I have no reason to believe it isn't), then this is reportable to the authorities and actually I'd tell the news.

RiseoftheSeahorse · 17/09/2020 23:46

Well, on MN it seemingly does. Earlier this week there was a post about a 'distracting shoulder’

And don’t forget that last week it was long hair distracting boys

PineappleUpsideDownCake · 17/09/2020 23:51

Im not sure it is bs. I know a school near me where girls are told to come in pe kit and some year groups have been told leggings/tracksuit with the skort. Of course not been told because the skirts too short directly though. It does look with the blazer like some haven't got anything on their bottom half walking to school though.

MJMG2015 · 17/09/2020 23:57

@mollypuss1

Not sure what the relevance is if it being a fee paying girls school.
Not sure why you're so bothered by it
CrowBones · 18/09/2020 00:02

@PineappleUpsideDownCake

Im not sure it is bs. I know a school near me where girls are told to come in pe kit and some year groups have been told leggings/tracksuit with the skort. Of course not been told because the skirts too short directly though. It does look with the blazer like some haven't got anything on their bottom half walking to school though.
I'm not suggesting that it's bullshit that schools have been asking girls to wear trousers for PE (and I'm not getting into the rights or wrongs of that now). I just do not believe that one "particularly curvy" girl was told that she cannot wear a skort because it distracts male teachers. My fucking foot that happened.
SquashedSpring · 18/09/2020 00:02

I find it quite awful that a skort would be compulsory uniform. As an adult I would hate to wear a skort - I would refuse to take part in any activity that required me to do so and I find it quite upsetting that girls and young women are not given the same autonomy. Tracksuit bottoms or leggings should be an option.

PineappleUpsideDownCake · 18/09/2020 00:05

Its skort with optional leggins/tracksuit normally here.

PineappleUpsideDownCake · 18/09/2020 00:06

Its much better than the netball skirts I wore as a child. Theirs is like a skirt with sewn in cycling shorts - much nicer!

AllieCat26 · 18/09/2020 00:08

This is definitely true. When I was at secondary school 2005-2012, so not that long ago, girls were repeatedly told to pull their skirts lower as they were distracting to the male teachers, and made the male teachers uncomfortable. We were also repeatedly told that we were not allowed to show shoulders (fair enough from a professional standpoint) but the reasons given was that it was distracting to the boys and male teachers. I went to two secondary schools and this was very common in both. In fact we would regularly have assemblies telling the girls to make sure not to make male teachers and boys distracted by wearing our skirts too short etc. 😩

Bikingbear · 18/09/2020 00:10

@CrowBones

I call bullshit on this.
I'd agree!
SquashedSpring · 18/09/2020 00:12

MJMG2015, mollypuss1 didn't say she was bothered by the mention of the fee paying school, she asked what the relevance was.

I would also like to know this, is it that fee paying schools usually have a stricter uniform policy? Something else?

Original poster
Deadringer · 18/09/2020 00:24

Why the hell would i make it up? Anyway i mentioned the fees because in my area at least the state schools are all very casual about uniforms while the private ones tend to be very strict. I don't know why this particular girl was spoken to, but dd assumes its because she is very curvy, there doesn't seem to be any other reason why she was singled out. I reckon fur will fly tomorrow and the new policy will be reversed. Anyway off to bed for me.

OP posts:
Goosefoot · 18/09/2020 04:45

It seems like the problem came up because an item of sports-ware that was appropriate in a game context was being worn outside of that.

It's not difficult to see how that could happen - wearing a bathing suit at the beach is fine, wearing it in school, or the equivalent, would be really inappropriate. Very short shorts or skorts seems like a similar thing to me. (I used to have a boss in the army who wore a pair of shorts for PE that came straight out of the 70's. That was bad enough, thank goodness he didn't wear them elsewhere.)

Unfortunately the women's fashion industry and media make millions of $$ out of sexualising women's fashion and women's bodies, and so many fashionable women's clothes are designed to seem sexual. It's not someone's overheated imagination, designers purposefully choose to push those buttons. In certain environments like schools or many workplaces it's not really appropriate. Sports ware is generally practical, but it suffers by being similar, and often too being influenced by fashion.

FWIW I think a lot of the crazy ideas they are having about not changing etc will be short lived. My kids aren't being given lockers this year, and aren't supposed to use the coat cubbies for the yonugers. They sit on their jackets, carry their bags with them, wear their regular shoes for gym. Rain has already been a problem with dealing with wet coats, and once winter comes and we are in parkas and heavy boots, it's just not going to work.

IHateCoronavirus · 18/09/2020 04:47

@SquashedSpring

I find it quite awful that a skort would be compulsory uniform. As an adult I would hate to wear a skort - I would refuse to take part in any activity that required me to do so and I find it quite upsetting that girls and young women are not given the same autonomy. Tracksuit bottoms or leggings should be an option.
You would have hated my school then! We were only allowed to wear the skirt part of our PE kit for: netball, hockey, tennis and cricket/rounders. For gymnastics/athletics we were only allowed the hideous gym knickers! We protested often!

I practically cried with relief for my DD when I saw her PE skort.

I completely agree with you though. Especially as girls learn to cope with their periods etc!