Do all private schools require girls to wear skirts/dresses?

[mumofCR]

Hi, I'm thinking of sending my daugher to a local private school - with a pretty heavy heart. And when I went to look at it, during that freezing cold snap, realised that all the girls were wearing skirts. They even have to wear skirts over their gymn leggings! I've been informed that skirts are standard in ALL private schools in the UK. Is this true?

I thought this kind of thing disappeared in the 70s? Can't see the logic of demanding this, especially during cold periods. All that faff with tights which make your legs itch. Let alone the inconvenience when running or undertaking any kind of physical activity. The only benefit is for the boys who can spend infinate amounts of time looking up skirts. Or have a missed some great advantage?

I think many things (boaters etc) that look cute on 5 year olds don't really work on older children, but re OP's point, tights are just as warm (if not warmer) than trousers. School trousers for girls are generally vile anyway.
We had no choice to wear skirts at my school, but since there were no boys the 'looking up skirts' issue was non-existent.
I cannot get over a school making pupils wear red dungarees though, tell me it's just for infants?!

no choice but to wear skirts

At risk of outing myself, my dd wears the boys' uniform rather than the pinafore and tights she should wear. She also has a cap not a hat. Her choice, and the Head was totally unfazed. She looks like Just William, but with better hair.

happy- um did I hit a nerve?! Sorry but I do think you're being a tiny bit disingenuous. Everybody in Winchester knows that the gangs of boys in suits'n'ties, Gieves an' all, wandering the lower reaches of town are from Winchester College, don't they? They don't wear jeans and sweatshirts, do they?

At risk of outing myself, my dd wears the boys' uniform rather than the pinafore and tights she should wear. She also has a cap not a hat. Her choice, and the Head was totally unfazed. She looks like Just William, but with better hair.

GreyGardens quick look at the website for red dungarees crowd looks like its all the children even bringing ponies in from the fields I've seen it all now!

LittenTree no nerve to hit I'm afraid to say. I was in Winchester the other weekday and the boys were easily recognisable because they were the only teenagers wondering around at 2 in the afternoon in jeans and sweatshirts. In fact my DS has got more scruffy since he arrived! Suits are for chapel etc and some wear them when up to books (lessons) but certainly among the younger boys I know of no Gieves and Hawkes suits, my DS's, which he has grown out of in two terms, was £15 from the M and S children's sale!

They have to wear bonkers uniforms- how else will other people know you're going private when you're doing a quick nip to Tesco?

Obviously in Waitrose it's diffeent......

Morning seeker your right I really think this is the main reason parents love these "bonkers uniforms."

"up to books"? who needs a specific uniform when 'doing lessons' is called that?!

Tell: Do 'scholars' wear academic gowns at WC, yes/no?

I'm pleased about uniform. In London the more anonymous the better, as kids dont like to stand out on the tube. Putney's purple is the exception. Oddly some of the blazers from new Academies appear more determinedly "posh" than those of private schools.

There is some real creativity, and tailoring of school skirts to improve the shape kicks in at about Yr 9. Add a trendy Parka on top of the blazer, trendy shoes and tight, and a handbag rather than a school bag and you dont know you are travelling with schoolkids till they all get off at the same stop.

SPGS have a uniform of sorts....supplied by Hollister and Jack Wills, with some very short shorts in summer. Some though are incredibly stylish and develop an enviable confidence and dress sense at quite a young age. One of DDs friends claimed to have acquired 30 pairs of shoes in her first year there. We instead have a real struggle finding something that falls within a small subset of: meets school uniform code; is deemed acceptable to DD, or rather meets the approval of her friends; are robust enough for me to believe they represent sufficient value for money. Luckily brogues work and I am pleased that she is young to have missed the ballet pumps era. And better than 30 pairs!

The Lycee Francais in Kensington does not have uniform either, and some schools don't require uniform in sixth form. No wonder Westfield is doing so well.

I smiled at the WC reference. I had a work-mate whose lovely, odd ball, offbeat son went there and it was like a forrin language, all 'div', scholars and commoners, houses, up-to-books etc. She was, by her own amusing admission an out and out snob (which is why we got on, really, no faux 'down there with the common folk' with her!) and she said re the suits and stuff- 'It IS a uniform' (dahlink!) 'it states 'We are beyond the need for such trifles'', and 'you don't need a uniform to spot a Winchester Boy' (or some such nonsense! I'm paraphrasing). I admit I never saw her son in jeans and sweatshirt, mind, so the 'rules' must have changed since then.

But I don't know about gowns and scholars!

"They have to wear bonkers uniforms- how else will other people know you're going private when you're doing a quick nip to Tesco?"

We don't do "quick nips". That is what the maid is for, Dahlink.

Yes scholars wear academic gowns but not with jeans.

I love how you always use the Special Words, happy, with little translations in brackets for the Likes Of Us

Almost all the girls at dd's state secondary wear trousers, some of them very unsuitable. Trousers seem to be in vogue round here at the moment, I think they're horrid.

All the private schools have skirts only for girls - even the liberal-minded quaker co-ed, where they roll their kilts up to their arses and wear them with hoodies!

My DS now talks an incomprehensible language when discussing prep common rooms etc before going he said he'd never use these words but within 2 weeks he now knows no other terms. Fortunately for parents we got a list of "common terms" before arriving. But its the same in my profession no one uses an alternative language and abbreviations like we do. I could write a whole essay and no one else would understand it.

colleger Chetham's School of Music certainly have uniforms.

DD's prep school has a strict uniform and yes it is a skirt in winter and a dress in summer.

However - it is NOT cold. It is not the case that trousers = warm in winter and skirts = cold. I have never found that myself and DD and her friends have also never found that.

Skirt and tights is by far as warm, if not warmer than a pair of trousers and socks.

Also, trousers is horrible wet weather are not nice. the bottoms get wet and then it travels up the material. You don;t get that with rights and skirts.

i personally chose to wear skirt/dress and tights all winter as it is, ime, warmer and more practical.

Likewise I have yet to see any child hampered physically by wearing a skirt or dress to school. They all seem to manage the climbing walls, playground equipment, they do skipping and handstands, they run about and clambour. It doesn't slow them down in the slightest!

At DD's school the gym skirt is only worn over the short black leggings, and that is for things like netball, hockey and tennis. If they are wearing their red sport's shorts - no skirt. If they are wearing their tracksuit - no skirt.

Actually - re what seeker says - there are times when I remove DD's more obvious uniform parts - such as her hat. This is because sometimes on our way home we come across people who are quite nasty even to very young children - inverse snobbery can be very unpleasant, esp when aimed at a 5 or 6 year old!

Fortunately most people are nice. But there are times when I have taken DD's hat off and put it out of sight.

Private schools also have odd uniforms so that the boys will be happy to wear those odd rust/red/pink cords that posh rich people have to wear at the weekends. Oh, and the pink coats for unmentionable activities too........

It is beyond ridiculous - the girls and skirts thing. None of the women teachers wear skirts, even sodding SamCam disembarked in the States wearing trousers.

Aggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I always wear a skirt or dress when in the classroom.

At DD's school almost all the female teachers wear skirts. Can only think of a couple who don't - one is the PE teacher and one other who sometimes wears them if on an out and about type day.

seeker you are correct in your use of the word "coat" but as that well know hunting expert Willy Poole states: "hunting pink only exists in the tabloid press! It is not a scarlet coat, it is red."

Nothing to do with the colour- it's to do with the tailor.

Ask your son!