Is this punishment 'fair enough' and normal practice?

[youarenotkiddingme]

So a child in yr 7 is walking through school with friends.

See's older pupils wearing something non uniform policy. It's very obviously not in keeping with the school. The school have a massive image complex and drum it into the pupils.

Pupils makes a comment to friends about how come they get away with it, they don't like the image and then says it makes them look like (but not racist/ disablist or anything)

Teacher overheard the comment (or rather the context of conversation) and pupil out on harshest detention they dish out for using an unkind word.

I'm being vague as don't want to be outed.

But I'm wondering if it's normal to punish children so harshly for a comment made in passing to friends in a corridor?
(Teacher admits they didn't actually hear word first time and only know exactly what was said as pupil asked and she told her)

defy that social convention not connection

Yeah I've got the link between tarts and promiscuous now.

And that's exactly what I was getting at. I put short skirts and low cut tops in a night out wear box! I don't have the opinion it shouldn't be a choice to wear them. I just challenge the people who say the young girl shouldn't have 'judged' the choice if skirt length. I do not challenge the use of word -it's clearly offensive. I challenge it because I'm sure most people (whether they admit it or not due to not wanting to appear Unfeminist, victim blaming or whatever) wouldn't have an opinion on a bank manager (for example) dressed in a skirt shorter than jacket that flashes underwear.

Iys funny because when I watch programmes like Little house on the prairie () I'm grateful we've moved on in terms of what social norms were for woman's clothes.

OP: If I did go to a bank and the Bank Manager had a short skirt and competently sorted out my banking issues I would not mutter "tart" to my DH on the way out. Which is sort of what this girl did.

If she was a shit bank manager then I wouldn't mutter "tart" either because the skirt doesn't influence the managing. And I'm not living in 1973. I'd complain to her superiors about the shit management.

Was this girl really "flashing her underwear" anyway? Or have we just got your friend's DD's word for that?

Bojo: You sound totally superior in your earlier post. Our school is zero tolerance on many things, including uniform, and the teaching is fine in my DC's experience. As for not thinking tart is in any way associated with prostitution...

Why are you obsessed with bank managers? What does what someone wears for work have to do with whether one child should call another child 'tarty'? The issue isn't that the child pointed out a breach in the uniform policy, it is that the child made an unkind comment.

I think what PP's mean about the girl not judging the other based on her skirt length is a bit more nuanced than how you've interpreted it, and unpicking it might help you figure it out where you sit on situations like these.

So...
A teenage girl rolls her skirt up at the waist one morning.
Someone else sees it.
They judge 'that skirt is shorter than uniform policy'.

To me, this is not a problem. They are judging it next to objective criteria.

We can take that a step further... there are plenty of office environments where there isn't a set dress policy, so there is no objective criteria. But where nonetheless other people might judge a skirt as too short for the environment based on social convention of what constitutes professional clothing.

The problem comes especially where people extend a judgement based on objective criteria to making subjective judgements. Of which short skirt = promiscuous is an obvious example a subjective judgement that many of us have been on the receiving end of at some point. There are plenty of others, too.

OP, I actually agree with you in lots of respects. I think the school should apply their policy consistently and I do think it is important for girls and boys too, to wear appropriate dress. School is preparation for the outside world and it is a "professional" environment. Pupils can wear whatever they choose at home etc, but there's nothing wrong with being expected to stick to rules in school. I don't like boys who wear low rise trousers with their boxers hanging out and I don't think girls should roll their skirts up shorter than their blazer ! I also did not realise that tart was such an offensive word, where I grew up it was a polite term for a slag/slut which are much more offensive. I guess the child in question must have made her comment loudly for the teacher to have heard but given that I do not find tart too offensive then a detention seems quite harsh, perhaps a quiet word might have been more appropriate. I'd expect the girl with the short skirt to get in more trouble !

a polite term for a slag/slut

I see that as well as not knowing the meaning of tart you are also a big fan of oxymorons.

womanwithaltitude I can't be arsed to read the op again, but I got the impression that the girl was saying what it was she didn't like about the look, rather than being insulting.

In what universe is "tart" a polite term for anything?

a polite term for a slag/slut There is no polite term, the year 7 child has hopefully learned that.

if my son called someone in the hallway tarty because their skirt was shorter than other peoples skirts id hope to god he got detention. If he didnt and id heard about it id go up there myself and make them give him detention.
No one should be using words like that to describe young girls clothing. Fair enough to point it out if a skirt is shorter than uniform policy states. Not fair enough to then imply the girl looks like a prostitute because of the length of her skirt.

can't find tart described as meaning a prostitute in the Cambridge English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Oxford, Collins, Chambers and Macmillan."
Why would you make yourself look stupid and a liar with a fact like that which is easily checkable and wrong?

if you type it into google on all the different dictionaries it does come up as meaning prostitute. I just looked now but i knew thats what it implied anyway and i think most people would.

Angel the person who posted that came back and said it was a typo and they could find the definition.

And no - not obsessed with bank managers! Its just i'd happened to be in bank yesterday and they wore skirt/blazer so the reference came to mind!

The thing is that it's the school's obsessive attitude to uniform that fosters this sort of attitude. I very strongly suspect that someone has told them that if they roll their skirts up short they're going to look cheap, everyone's going to think the worst of them etc etc. If schools would unclench about uniform then this sort of incident wouldn't happen anyway.

Megatherium that's ridiculous, where in any uniform policy does it say skirts must be a certain length to prevent looking cheap? I presume this isn't an all-girls convent school in the early 80s where pupils kneel before the Headmistress brandishing a ruler?

Agreed someone may have told this girl informally to judge girls on their short skirts but this may be from home.

Our uniform policy is zero tolerance but is clear and boys and girls look very smart. The policy is used to inspire pride not prevent shame in the way you imply. If the school "unclenched" then they wouldn't look as uniform and that's sort of the point, isn't it?

I also did not realise that tart was such an offensive word, where I grew up it was a polite term for a slag/slut which are much more offensive.

Where I grew up, women were not expected to use bad language. Calling someone a "slag" was bad language and people would have condemend the (female) speaker for using the word, whereas calling someone a "tart" was allowed. But the meaning of the words was similar and the insult to the person you were talking about was the same.

It would be unprofessional to wear nightclub or beachwear to a job in a bank, and schools try to teach pupils to look professional. But that doesn't mean that someone who weras beachwear or nightclub gear in the bank is sexually promiscuous or a prostitute. And it's a misogynist insult to say it does.

It brings to mind the old feminist slogan "whatever we wear, wherever we go, yes means yes and no means no!".

And from what the OP says, the girl got her ignorance about why she shouldn't say other girls look "tarty" from her mother, not from the school.

Oh there's no doubt she got the word tarty from outside school. As I said I've even asked if I look tarty before when wearing a short skirt. It's clear from this thread the word is used and understood differently - but is far more unacceptable than some of us realised.

But the attitude of noticing and commenting on the older girls uniform (which ill remind everyone was bought to her attention by her friend) has come from the school attitude.
They are highlighting massively the need for knee length skirt and are zero tolerance in year 7.

She actually has an older sister in the school (who's a short skirt wearer!) and hasn't ever called her a tart or commented. She actually just responded to her friend questioning why they got away with it and her saying "meh - wouldn't want a short skirt anyway as hate the look" but with less than acceptable choice of words!

I mentioned up thread she's mortified. That's because she's actually a quiet and well behaved girl who will wear what she's told and wouldn't ever dream of doing anything else!

she's actually a quiet and well behaved girl who will wear what she's told

She was punished for what she said, not for what she is. And if she realises it's not OK to call her own sister tarty but she'll say it about someone else then that makes it worse, not better.

I mentioned up thread she's mortified. That's because she's actually a quiet and well behaved girl who will wear what she's told and wouldn't ever dream of doing anything else!
But she will judge another girl who is wearing a short skirt as looking like a tart, and she will voice that opinion in front of others.

She's being punished because she made a misogynistic comment about another pupil, OP. She may be a perfectly nice girl in every other way who made a mistake due to picking up shitty attitudes from adults and in that case hopefully she will learn an important lesson from this very standard, mild punishment. Have you grasped why what she said was wrong yet?

All this tart/tarty/slutty etc wording is vile.

No child looks like a prostitute ffs.

As fir uniform well these days schools have gone bat shit.

What kind of deviant thinking goes into making kids wear clothing that covers every inch of skin or isn't tight etc. What happens if someone shows a bit of knee for heavens sake?

But of course on MN if the "rules" were to throw your child under a bus people would literally be elbowing each other out the way to get to the bus stop first.

Control and victim blaming is apparently ok if its dressed up as school uniform..

No one bursts into flames waking down the street fir heavens sake. Sure they could cope with a pair of shorts or a mini skirt in school.

The rules say alot more about the school and the adults behind them.than breaking them.coukd ever say about the kids.if the adults can't handle the site of children showing an arm.or a knee or a a bra through a shirt then they are in the wrong job

My original question was about is it usual for punishment for things overheard when it was a personal comment about how someone found something.

The remark was made about the kind of clothes worn by another girl who had been pointed out. An individual, not just a group. And it was made openly enough to be overheard. So what do you expect?

Oh there's no doubt she got the word tarty from outside school. As I said I've even asked if I look tarty before when wearing a short skirt.

Are you quite sure you're not her mother? You use the same language as her mother, you know an awful lot about exactly what the girl has and hasn't said about her own sister, and you aren't half making excuses for her.

**I just have a situation and asked opinions

OP you've admitted this isn't your child so not your situation...why are you so bothered? Let other people get on with their own situations, it's not affecting your life so leave the school to deal with it how they see fit. They're trying to teach the yr 7 child it's not ok to make derogatory remarks. What the older child was wearing is nothing to do with the year 7