I agree with much of what has been said. I also agree that if the school has a uniform, the school needs to ensure that girls arrive and leave dressed in the correct uniform. IMO that means speaking to the girls who break the rules directly. I don't understand the stretchy belt/skirt thing. If it isn't the regulation skirt, they should just be sent home to change or given something from the 2nd hand cupboard/lost property cupboard if they claim not to have keys.
I was shocked to receive a first class letter posted to the home of every girl from my daughter's school last term - it must have cost hundreds of pounds and at a time when the school has a huge budget deficit. It reminded parents of the uniform and took a very hard line indeed about skirt length. I was shocked principally because behaviour at the school is declining - only two or three weeks ago five girls were suspended for assault (in the street) on another pupil, and intimidation breached health and safety rules terribly. Even the two who pulled a girl down and bashed her head on the pavement are back at school.
It is time, in my opinion, that schools got their priorities back in the right order. The uniform issues are important. The right to exclude those who pose a danger to others is an even biggger issue. And I do not want to hear headteachers tell me it is because they come from difficult backgrounds - lots of children do - but they behave and they refrain from beating up quieter girls or indeed girls who might be more vulnerable than themselves.
When I went to school the head stood at the main gate every morning, welcoming the girls. At the end of the day the deputy was there to say goodbye. I would like to see more of that, I would like to see a reorganisation of priorities and a return to identifying the difference between right and wrong. In the meantime, for as long as a child who has assaulted another and been unspeakably badly behaved and intimidating for almost two years remains beyond consequence, I would advise any teacher not to attempt to discipline my daughter for forgetting a piece of homework, for having a button undone or for being late to school when there is a signal failure. It doesn't take a great deal of intelligence to work out that a detention for forgetting gym kit is wholly disproportionate when those who assault and potentially put the school at risk of fire are allowed to get away with it with nothing more than a five day fixed term exclusion. Had they been employees they would have been summarily dismissed - 12 months ago.
Unfortunately, my daughter is losing respect for the head; I lost it several months ago and I imagine that is being repeated in schools up and down the land.