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.

My DD’s school is the same. She also rolls her skirt and I tell her that if she gets a detention for it then I’m not arguing it. She knows the rules and has to live with the consequences of breaking them. And plenty of work places also have uniform or dress codes you must adhere to as an adult so teaching them that rules don’t matter or punishments for things you know were wrong can be ignored doesn’t do them any favours in the long term.

It’s long been the case that girls are encouraged to bare as much flesh as possible - for the benefit of men, of course.
The difference nowadays is that too many authority figures - teachers and parents - don’t bother to act like adults, and allow children to witter on about slut shaming and other such irrelevant nonsense.

So good for the teachers in this school. Be better if the parents supported them instead of questioning it - but they’ve also been persuaded that if you put a girls’ benefit and wellbeing first, your policing her clothing etc.

@ShesTheAlbatross most "office worker" women I see seem to wear ankle or calf length skirts (with trainers or sandals).
Above the knee style seems quite dated.

girls round here wear tiny skirts to school. I mean tiny. I would say many of the skirts fall at bum cheek level. Most girls wear tights even if very hot weather. Some wear very thin leggings.

And it seems to be all the girls, regardless of their height, size, shape, personal preference etc. I’m genuinely baffled.

Out of hundreds of pupils, surely some girls might not want to wear such a short skirt.

and I live in a ‘naice’ area. We have a Waitrose and everything!

I agree with this completely

School are absolutely right to enforce the uniform code. It isn't appropriate to wear mini skirts at school (or at work, or a funeral, or any number of other situations). It also looks really sloppy. And, from memory of being a pupil at a girls' school, rolled up skirts do unfortunately attract disgusting comments and attention from men on the way to/from school. Not the girls' fault, but IME it's just a fact that it happens more when more leg is on show. I'd rather my daughter just not experience that.

Can I ask why they do it - is it to attract boys? I never even thought about hoisting my skirt up at school?

I think the students just like to be contrary to what is expected. We had a school in our town that used to where quite long midi length skirts when other local schools all had the knee length kilts. Most of the girls weren't happy with that length so as they were too long for the normal roll up at the waist they all wore them down to the ground. Kids have just traditionally wanted to alter the uniform rules. In the end the school got fed up with them trailing on the ground so they changed to a kilt like the other schools. So now of course they roll them shorter. It's the same with ties, the boys don't like the traditional length they like to vary it.

Horrified 😂 So Mumsnet

I had a detention once because I had wrapped my hair band around my wrist to keep it safe after it kept coming out of my hair - because our school had a nothing around the wrists except a watch rule 🤣Skirt measuring was commonplace as well of course as was keeping an eye out for any obvious makeup (concealer or foundation they pretended not to notice as I’m guessing they were sympathetic to spotty teenagers but any hint of mascara or lipgloss…. 😱).

Basically what I’m getting at is, yes it seems stupid and petty in many respects (and it did at the time too) but it didn’t do me any kind of lasting damage and as an adult I do kind of get the schools position of “give teenagers an inch and they will take a mile”. Skirts above the knee can become skirts that barely cover the bum- and I guess in my case, a hair band around my wrist becomes another girl wearing a bracelet 🤷‍♀️ Your DD needs to learn which battles are important to fight imo - I’d say a schools uniform policy insistence isn’t one of them, however petty it seems.

Which is why we have to buy the expensive school kilt, another point of contention.

I used to roll over the waistband in the early 70s some teachers didn't like it. My mother hated it. But we only went a bit above the knee. This week I saw basically a black bandage stretched tight like a girdle, daft. At DCs school it's kilts or black trousers. Most girls prefer the trousers

It’s like that near me . All wear very short skirts. I guess the difference to when I was young, is that now they often wear skort type skirts or black gym shorts underneath especially if on tube. When I was at school we could be caned for repeatedly wearing out skirt hitched up 😱
I quite like the fact the girls feel confident to wear at the length they want

What would you think about a teacher having a mico skirt on? Male or female ugh 😑

I think a bit above the knee should be fine, but around my area you see girls where the gusset and underwear are often showing and it looks horrendous.

I'm a female teacher and sick of getting and eye full of bum cheeks when going up the stairs etc. It's really uncomfortable and just not nice. And like someone else said they don't seem to care about size/shape etc when they are rolling them up.

And like someone also said, there is a dress code for staff and that's how the world of work tends to be. Imagine if I had my bum cheeks out around school...

I've long had the opinion that school rules regarding uniform or hair style have very little to do with academic education and everything to do with learning that not every rule needs to be understood or agreed with to be enforced.
The world is full of rules that we neither understand nor agree with, but we adhere to them because that's the rules!
School are there to educate, and educating also includes teaching that rules are to be followed and consequences happen when rules are not followed.
It's all to prepare kids for adult life as much as possible.

Teaches them to follow rules. Let's face it, when it comes to work you wouldn't want to be treated by a doctor or nurse with their labia hanging out. It if they worked in M and S do you think it would be appropriate to roll up their uniform? They can wear what they like outside school. But in school, dress appropriately.

Teens have to rebel against something.

1. I saw a girl with a skirt belt on walk up the stairs on the bus and everybody got on the lower deck got a full gyney review. The skirt was just below her knicker line & she was wearing extremely tiny pants. There's a reason why you shouldn't wear a skirt shorter than knee length going up the stairs.

1. On the train to work, a woman got off and her bag has caught into the hem of her mid thigh skirt and lifted it up. She was oblivious to the fact that we could see her bottom as she had a thong on. Although surely she'd have felt a breeze down there, she moved too quickly for me to mention it.

That is absolutely not the reason 😂

Because it’s easier to police this than once it’s above the knee, otherwise measuring skirts which is worse is needed,

Sorry but the length of most school girls’ skirts in my area looks more appropriate for pornhub than school! It’s ridiculous & most don’t wear tights year round so you can see the v bottom of their bum cheeks when they walk

I honestly haven't worked anywhere with stringent dress code rules, well nowhere where a mid thigh skirt would be an issue. Smart casual or just casual is the order of the day in my alone in my London office and my DH's Architect's office, he would be the one pulling anyone up and a) he would think this is extremely inappropriate to address with a woman, dated and frankly sexist. b) it never comes up as a mid thigh skirt is not noteworthy at all and is very much expected in western cultures.

At my daughter’s school it is so common to have your skirt rolled up that she was regularly teased for wearing it normally. If the staff had been stricter with their uniform standards she wouldn’t have been peer pressured into wearing a skirt that was far shorter than she felt comfortable in.

I work in a school (different one to daughter’s school) and the skirts are so short that bottoms are regularly on show.

Teens love to push boundaries. When skirts were supposed to be knee-length, an inch or two above was sufficient rebellion. Now that the standards have relaxed the skirts have shrunk to minuscule bands that barely cover a thing.

It looks even worse when combined with a blazer longer than the skirt, so that from behind the girl looks like she’s got nothing at all on her bottom half.

I’m not a fan of expensive exclusive uniforms. I believe school clothes should be affordable, practical and durable. Mini skirts are neither practical, nor appropriate.

I think schools always have these outdated views of office wear, it isn't the 1990s or even the 00s with pencil skirts and court shoes and men don't wear ties and suit jackets often even in law firms, in more design orientated offices it is almost fashion faux pas to be so conventional.