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.

I dont think its healthy for schools to focus so much on skirt length and I think it sends a very negative message about what we value about girls. Young women in offices are mainly wearing skirts above the knee or much shorter. A knee length skirt looks frumpy and can accentuate areas of the body that girls are not comfortable with. Maybe if schools were more relaxed about length if skirts they would have less of the really ridiculous bum cheek showing skirts.

My kids stayed at their state grammar. At some point dress codes and decency exist. You shouldn't be showing off your bits at school

She was threatened detention? Most like she’s lying.

I think most people discussing the ‘arse skimming’ skirts were discussing current skirt lengths in general rather than the OP’s daughter’s specifically. Granted that wasn’t the point of the thread but that is how these sort of topics of conversation go.

Also, if not wanting to see arse cheeks on the school run makes me a pearl clutcher then you can wrap me in fucking pearls as long as you make sure my arse is covered.

Young women in offices are mainly wearing skirts above the knee or much shorter. A knee length skirt looks frumpy

But they are not wearing skirts which show their knickers.

And please can we drop the word 'frumpy' to describe women's appearance? It's just as judgemental and mysogynistic as anything else that's been said on this thread.

I’ve seriously never seen arse cheeks on the school run. Short skirts yes, glad I’m not looking hard enough to notice buttocks flesh

Sorry, what did you mean?

Presumably you are not looking at them bend down to pick up a bag, climb stairs, get on and off a bench seat. Our Y8/9 girls are appalling at the moment for this and they genuinely don't realise how short it is because they are looking from above. Regardless of the feelings of boys, male teachers, random men on the street, in our society, we don't expect to see some body parts on show unless on the beach and these are the same girls who make a massive fuss about swimming in front of boys, changing for games in front of each other sometimes. They don't realise what they are showing so we have to try and help them get it..they do eventually. It doesn't need to be knee length but anything more than about six inches above and they cannot move without flashing their underwear.

'Regardless of the feelings of boys, male teachers, random men on the street'

Male teachers and random men on the street should be able to control their 'feelings' .

How to these poor male teachers cope at college and uni where they don't dictate skirt length??

I have never seen young women of college or uni age watching the kind of 'skirts' that I see girls wearing walking to my local secondary school. Thank goodness it's something they grow out of.

And while male teachers are, of course, controlling their feelings of awkwardness and embarrassment at their pupils flashing their pants, that doesn't mean they should have to feel that way in the first place.

It beggars belief that there are mothers on this thread who think that it's healthy and right that their daughters are flashing their genital areas to their male schoolmates and teachers.

Actually, no, it wasn’t. But you don’t need my history. But surely it’s not beyond your wit to realise that some locations don’t have an abundance of schools?

Since we have been in a position to choose we have chosen to live in town where there are two schools. One being a grammar. Both of which have similar uniform rules to the rural school anyway.

The problem is, if they say above the knee (as at our local school) most girls push the boundary and wear it mid thigh.
I see some of them walking past the house with their skirts barely covering their bum cheeks most days (assume they pull it down once they arrive at school)
Why do they feel the need to expose themselves to this extent?

'And while male teachers are, of course, controlling their feelings of awkwardness and embarrassment at their pupils flashing their pants, that doesn't mean they should have to feel that way in the first place.'

'Feelings of awkwardness and embarrassment! They are working with underage girls their feelz should not come into it.

The sexualisation of school girls on this thread is appalling .

Our didnt 'flash their knickers' or have 'arse cheeks hanging out' when at school, I still used to fume over the silly letters from school dictating trouser styie and measuring skirt length. Just teach our kids, that's your job.

I walked ro the village yesterday lots of girls with shorts on and skimpy tops, luckily the 'random men' all seemed able to conduct themselves appropriately 🙄.

This. Anything that is not revealing is “frumpy” these days it seems.

That's not what I meant at all. I meant leaving aside that part of the argument and focusing purely on the girls themselves. I don't for one second think men or boys should be excused from poor behaviour if they are behaving inappropriately but over my decades long teaching career I have witnessed perfectly decent male colleagues placed in difficulty because they had their eyes open while teaching and were accused of "looking".

Interesting responses on both sides! Just to be clear, my daughter’s skirt is not so short anyone can see arse cheeks! I think the key thing is that it seems to be destroying any kind of positive relationship between the girls and the school and I truly wonder whether it is worth it.

I was on the bus a few weeks ago right in the middle of of a load of kids going home from school ,there was one girl with a ridiculously short skirt on she was prancing around like kids do and didn't leave much to the imagination, I'm far from a pearl clutcher
I didn't want to look at her but she was right in front of me on a crowded bus and I couldn't go anywhere
If boys were going round
Leaving nothing to the imagination there would be far of on outcry.

I was following a couple of probably Year 9 girls on the high street last week. All had rucksacks and one girl’s already exceptionally short skirt was being hitched up further by her rucksack revealing her bum cheeks to the world.

I honestly felt really uncomfortable for her.

Thank you. I hate that word. It's never used against men.

Because they need one standard rule that everyone understands and is hopefully easier to follow. They don’t want girls inadvertently flashing their bums walking up stairs or when wearing their rucksacks.

It’s much easier to say knee length than “Ava, that is too short, it needs to be a few centimetres longer please” when Ava will respond with “But Miss! Sophie’s isn’t any longer than mine and she isn’t in trouble”.

I have had 4 go through secondary (3 girls) I didnt say much about a couple of rolls but if they got into trouble from school about it IMO they took the detention they knew the rules and chose to not go by them.

However i now live near 5 secondary schools and 1 in particular (all girls) the girls roll their skirt so high that in several cases you can see the gusset of their knickers if you are walking a little behind them. I dont like that. I would not have allowed my girls to do so. I dont see the reason to roll that high.

The other 2 schools with girls close by are both church schools and seem to have a different take on uniform as their girls while they roll do not go that high. (Both use kilts where as all girls doesnt so could be that they cant really idk) dd3 and ds attended one of the church schools and often complained about how strict they were on uniform standards.

However, the kids from that school always look smart and well presented I cant say the same about the all girls school. (Or one of the boys schools who allows them to leave in sports gear that then means the boys are trailing their blazer on the ground)

There are several things here. I find it highly improbable that she had 5 hours of mocks yesterday. Schools don't do that, because they replicate GCSE situations as far as possible. Complain if that happened.
Secondly, I doubt she got "threatened" with a detention outside school. Was it a general warning?
Thirdly, where I teach, the girls wear those little tube skirts. Micro minis. Yes, you can frequently see their underwear. Boys never, ever have so much flesh on display. If they wear shorts, they're long and baggy. So it is a gender issue. Perennial.

The sexualisation of school girls on this thread is appalling

Some of the girls I see on the way to and from school are sexualising themselves, frankly.

As I said in an earlier post, it's disingenuous to pretend that girls don't know what they're doing when they roll up their skirts to the point that it's a belt.

Stick by the rules. It is a standard disagreement for most schools, we rolled up our skirts in the 90's and were often in trouble for doing it.

Tube skirts are the issue at your school but the OP describes a kilt like skirt, my DD's school is the same, in fact they got rid of the black skirt to overcome the issue you are describing and as far as I can see it works.