Preteens
Daughter's school uniform question I can't answer
TallAndUnapologetic · 10/10/2018 21:11
DD (11) has just started secondary. So far so good but she's come home with a question I can't really help with. The uniform mandates a specific tartan skirt which, according to DD "like, almost everyone rolls up" to varying degrees. Refreshingly, the school doesn't seem to be too fussed by the trend (nor am I) but DD keeps asking why so many girls do it.
Trouble is all my schooling took place in the Netherlands and I'm not sure if any Dutch schools operate a uniform policy. DH thinks its something to do with rebellion, but that seems a little too rational to apply to so many pubescent girls. I always assumed they might be copying pop stars or something.
What can I tell her?
BackforGood · 11/10/2018 00:14
Fashion.
As it is a 'school uniform' skirt, it will be a "respectable" length, but fashion dictates that skirts are worn much shorter at the moment than the school uniform skirt is.
It is simple enough to roll the waistband over a couple of times and get the length the dc wants, but then it is easily 'rectified' as and when the school have a 'crackdown on uniform day', then, the next week when staff relax again, the skirts can get 'shortened' without anyone having to get a needle and thread out. 
It is a bit o do with 'rebelling against the rules' but all in a fairly harmless way, that then means they are having their bit of rebellion without any real harm being done.
tumpymummy · 11/10/2018 00:18
It's what teenage school girls do!! My daughter does it but I can't stop her doing it as I did it as did my mum! It's to.make the skirt shorter.
user1andonly · 11/10/2018 00:34
I agree fashion - plus everyone does it so no one wants to be the odd one out by wearing hers longer.
ChateauRouge · 11/10/2018 07:40
I wonder if it's actually something other than fashion.
In ye olde days, as girls grew and got older and taller, their families couldn't afford to get new uniforms every time they grew, so the older, taller girls had shorter hemlines (people were generally much slimmer, also many schoolgirls wore pinafore/gymslips which have a tabard upper body, so no particular shaping at the waist).
Gileswithachainsaw · 11/10/2018 07:43
I did it cos the skirts looked awful the "correct length"
Pleated skirts at the knee or lower just look like what your nan would wear . When you had short chubby legs and big hips like I do the added length just made me look and feel fat.
glamorousgrandmother · 11/10/2018 07:49
I used to do this in the 1960s. We used to line up and have our skirts measured - no more than 4" above knee when kneeling - then roll them over at the waistband immediately after. It's jut what happens.
Seniorschoolmum · 11/10/2018 16:59
Agree with Giles and Glamorous except ours was 2” above the knee when kneeling.
Teenage rebellion.
Can you imagine a teacher telling a girl to kneel in the corridor now? 
Soapay · 11/10/2018 17:03
I was driving home from work today and the local school was kicking out.
Hoards of teenage girls in below the knee baggy tartan skirts with blazers over the top covering their bum. Like little old ladies who’ve gone to the charity shop.
Simply looks better shorter. That skirt length isn’t flattering on anyone.
Gileswithachainsaw · 11/10/2018 17:45
That's just like what dd has to wear soapy
The blazer is thankfulky a fitted jacket but it does have shoulder padding so they look like American football players 
It all makes even the tiniest child look like a sack of potatoes no wonder they are all so desperate to try and make it look half way decent.
Rockbird · 11/10/2018 18:11
DD1 starts high school next year and both our options have kilts. Her cousin has offered to come round and give her skirt rolling lessons and she was horrified when I said she didn't need them as I can show her myself!
Urbanbeetler · 11/10/2018 18:14
I just don’t get it why girls have skirts and boys have trousers. Why don’t all uniforms have trousers for everyone? Much more practical.
Gileswithachainsaw · 11/10/2018 18:18
Dds school has trousers for girls.
However only specific ones which in the smallest size didn't fit dd
The approved obes from m&s were awful unless you like not being abke to bend knees and looking like you are wearing a nappy.
It may well he they look worse than the skirts
shearwater · 11/10/2018 18:21
Dd1's all girls school gives a choice of skirts or trousers. All wear skirts, even in the depths of winter.
Elzbells · 11/10/2018 18:38
My daughter has just started Y7 and has to wear tartan skirt.
Rules stipulated it must be below the knee but after a week of being laughed at by the older girls she started rolling it up.
Think it's just peer pressure and wanting to look the same. None of the other girls wear it lower than the knee but the school doesn't seem to enforce it.
Aventurine · 11/10/2018 19:10
I swear people didn't do this at my school in the 80s. Long skirts were fashionable at my school, but we could wear any navy skirt, so maybe we got to be fashionable by buying a fashionable skirt so didn't need to make it mini
FoxyDog1234 · 25/11/2018 19:46
Mainly because some girls depending on who they’re friends with are made fun of due to the length of them .
bimbodoc · 10/12/2018 19:16
Fat girls in short skirts yuck. May be its just yorkshire, but not the best look surely.
Bestseller · 10/12/2018 19:22
Girls have done it for years. My mum, now 76, recalls having to kneel on the floor and have the distance of the hem from the floor measured (one inch) at her grammar school. Then when they got up they rollled the skirts up again.
It is rebellion, but as with most youthful rebellion "everyone's" doing it.
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