Should skirt length matter in secondary schools?

[Holdonforsummer]

My daughter is 15 and in Year 10, she attends an all-girls comprehensive secondary school and they are obsessed with the girls’ skirt length. The skirt is like a tartan kilt and is supposed to be ‘on the knee’ but most of the girls roll their skirts to make them a bit shorter (think mid-thigh). I’m a bit on the fence about this but her school go on and on and on about it. They stop girls all the time, give detentions for short skirts, have assemblies about it, and have even been known to measure skirts and give girls long ones from the list property cupboard to wear instead. Yesterday, my daughter had just finished 5 hours of mock exams in 28 degrees and was walking home - outside school property - and was stopped by a teacher threatening detention even though she had left school. She came home furious and fed up of the whole thing. I can’t decide whether the girls just need to toe the line or whether behaviour from the school is bordering on a sexist, misogynistic obsession. YABU: the pupils need to obey the skirt rules, YANBU: The school should calm down and stop obsessing about skirt length.

Ask yourself this - is there any benefit to your DD for rolling her skirt over having it at the correct length?

And is there any downside to her rolling her skirt?

And then ask yourself why you don’t think supporting the school in enforcing their uniform rule?

(I’m not a fan of uniform and uniform rules but the only people who benefit from girls doing this are the creeps and perverts who get off on schoolgirls. I’m not in the business of facilitating them. And no, this doesn’t equate blaming girls for male behaviour.)

Once they cover all areas, there should be no issue.

When arse checks begin to show, there's a problem.

In school stick to uniform rules, outside of school grounds the teacher can piss off

I was horrified today I was doing the food shop and saw a girl in secondary school uniform and she might as well not of had a skirt on! She was with her mum and I was horrified! If that’s the school rules then it’s the rules. Setting a good example early on is important.

My DD's school insists on below the knee. It annoys me so much - it wouldn't be a rule in the workplace. They never give their justification for it either because they know they can't put into writing "so the boys don't get distracted". There is a middle ground between inappropriately short and convent.

Just stick to the rules. Probably the school have a rule about what you shouldn't do while wearing uniform, whether you are in school or not, so teacher was not being unreasonable.

It's hygiene. If the skirt can't be ticked under the gusset when sitting, then presumably your gusset is directly on the chair seat. In this weather, that's a bit gross.

You both agreed to the rules when you joined the school.

My ds keeps complaining about the school dress code in the lower 6th but he agreed to it. He signed up for it. Whining now is pointless.

Skirt length is a continually isdue. They should be a reasonable length. No one want to be able to see someone's underwear.

Or bumcheeks falling out!

It always baffles me when I see the girls with tiny skirts walking to the local secondary they spent the whole walk constantly pulling it down! Just get a longer skirt!

I wish we didnt have school uniform or just a basic one.

It's not complicated to just wear a skirt at a reasonable length.
Why teens can't seem to do that I really don't understand.
To be honest though I think schools should just stop caring.
If these girls want to look incredibly unflattering with their knickers showing - up to them.
They'll grow out of it eventually.

Below the knee is silly. It’s entirely possible to have a very smart skirt sitting just above the knee (I actually think just above the knee is a far more common formal/workwear skirt length than below the knee). Below the knee sounds like it would actually be quite hard to shop for as most school skirts are not designed to be as long as that, and if you start going up in size, you’ll be too wide round the waist.

My DD wears amid calf length skirt and for sixth form it is ankle length. The girls love it as no pressure to hike skirts up.

Personally I don't care what length a skirt is as long as I don't see underwear. I don't think a lot of girls realise just how much they are revealing for example when walking up stairs.

The uniform is an ankle length skirt?

They roll them up where in the school I'm in. Have learnt not to look up as you go up stairs. There's nothing left to the imagination. Boys are equally embarrassed.
Then in the morning you see girls rolling them up as they leave home (live in the same area as lots of school kids), and I often see the girl next door unrolling her skirt a bit before she walks through her front door at the end of the day.
So i imagine parents just don't know how short their daughters actually wear them.

Why do you think that’s the reason? Though no one should see anyone else’s underwear at school or at work.

The reason, if one needs to be given, is that rolling your skirt is of zero benefit to girls. They spend their time clutching at the backs of their skirts because they know a slight breeze and their undies are on show. Do boys spend their time fretting about their uniform like this? No. So it’s disadvantaging girls.

I think it’s a dignity issue. Girls don’t realise that rolling it up to what they think is a good length when they look down at the front, they don’t realise that they are showing off their entire backside. They may not care. But as adults we have a duty to safeguard them from their own naivety.

I’d institute a summer uniform of long knee shorts or maxi skirts like they have at (£30k a year fees) Rugby school. They had a vote whether to update them and girls voted to keep them.

I think school are being excessive but I also think skirts should be a reasonable length after following a school party up some stairs.

I also went to see the school drama group which had lots of dancing, sitting on the floor, standing on a chair, etc and the girls all felt the need to have one hand holding their rolled up skirt down so the audience didn't get a glance at anything they shouldn't. It looked so awkward and self conscious, why are they doing that to themselves?

What school shouldn't be doing is humiliating the girls or applying any judgement about their character other than being unable to follow a rule.

I do think if they pay no attention to it half if them will end up in pelmets.

It's good preparation for adult life. Many workplaces have dress rules. Laws are rules. She needs to learn about picking her battles. This is not a hill on which to die.

A couple of uniform rules from my day were not removing shoes when on the school playing field during break and not brushing your hair when on the school service (in uniform). Absolute nonsense, but rigidly enforced.

If you’d seen how short we wore our skirts, you wouldn’t ask this question.

I wonder why young girls get the idea that they need to show quite so much of their body, and why they don’t want to wear clothes that are slightly more practical ie you’re not constantly checking. Older women don’t, generally, unless they are going for a run, or going out for the night.

Good on the school. The skirts at my local school are so short that I’ve seen arse cheek before when they’re walking in. When most of them sit down, it must be their underwear touching the chair instead of their skirt.

I don’t get why girls wear their skirts so short that they spend their entire time pulling the hem down or that quick sweep down the back to make sure it’s still covering their arse, self-consciously.

Just sit in slow traffic as a group of Y9-11 girls pass and tell me if you agree!

When students are in school uniform everything they do reflects on the school. She can go home and change into whatever she likes.