School skirts? Why is it such an issue?

[jobadoo]

I don't have daughters and my sons are still at primary school so I don't understand why secondary school girls' skirts are such a massive issue that there are silly measuring by ruler and pupils protests and drastic school decisions to remove skirts from uniforms??

What's the solution?

The solution is probably to make less fuss about the sort of skirts a school chooses to include in its uniform, to allow students to choose a skirt that suits their body shape or perhaps to have a decency rule e.g. no underwear should be visible (including when walking up stairs), bum cheeks should be covered and design/length must enable students to sit cross-legged on the floor without displaying their underwear.

One of my DDs is tall, has a very small waist and very long legs. In Y11 her skirt was considerably shorter than the regulation length so one of the senior teachers told her to unroll it. She explained it wasn't rolled up and showed them the waistband to prove it! The teacher was surprised that such a short skirt wasn't the result of being rolled up but apologised for doubting DD and agreed there was little to be done. It wasn't mentioned again and didn't seem to adversely affect her ability to learn or to perform well in her GCSEs. That feels like a fairly sensible approach. Had she been told to go and get an identical regulation skirt from the school office as described by a PP, it would have still been short.

How on earth can it possibly impact a teenage girls education if her skirt is above her knee?

I went to secondary school in the sixties, of course we rolled out skirts. 50 years later, we seem to be having the same conversations.

Is it because adults (teachers in this case) need to impose their superiority by inventing rules for these teenagers? If so,it smacks of the beginning of a need to control. So if you cannot control the class room, at least you can set arbitrary rules, and punish if they aren't followed. Makes no sense to me.

But then, I've never understood rules like these. What does your haircut have to do with your education, for example? But many schools appear to have such rules, for reasons of ???? I've never been quite sure what those reasons are and how they help a child's development.

It’s not as simple as measuring a skirt. My DD and her friends from high school, pictured, could wear the same skirt but it would be considerably shorter on DD as you can see how high her waist is.

Very true.

I've always said schools should have a colour code for tops - maybe just a school logo jumper and/or hoody.

Then let them wear black bottoms of any type. They wouldn't roll their skirts up imo if they didn't have something to revel against.

I'm absolutely against the idea that girls should have to conform to prefect the men or themselves from men.

But I do wish they'd realise how ridiculous they look with their skirts rolled up shorter than their blazers!

And I wish school HTs would realise how ridiculous it looks to have girls in shirts ties and blazers.

I often think if they didn't make them dress up in stereotypical menswear from waist up they wouldn't revel by rolling up their skirts to make a point from waist down!

I live in a country where all schools have uniforms however it’s only the private/religious schools that measure skirt lengths and punish for them being short. My daughter’s skirts are very short though she does have extremely long legs. I used to think I would care but she’s 16, it’s her body and this is her choice. It definitely feels sexist and body shaming to carry on about it.

I took DD to a clothes alteration shop recently to have a formal dress altered. While she was in the changing room a girl came in with a private school uniform to have it let down as she’d got into trouble for it being too short because it was above her knee. She was with her boyfriend and wearing the shortest skirt I’ve ever seen. There was full bum cheek exposed. It just highlighted to me how ridiculous these clothing rules are.

I have never seen skirts as short as I have nowadays and I lived on a road with 2 high schools, so I've seen lots of girls pounding the pavement past the house.

It is now the norm to see the bottom of their arse cheeks. Or front the front, the top of the thigh that is a bit more fleshy before the groin.
Lord only knows how they get upstairs whilst retaining any decency!!

I often think if they didn't make them dress up in stereotypical menswear from waist up they wouldn't revel by rolling up their skirts to make a point from waist down!

This is a good point. I never work a skirt to school past age 6, I'm not a skirt person, but I always felt so frumpy at school. I didn’t want to look like a model but not having to wear an ill-fitting shirt, a tie, and a heavy blazer that was always too big for me would've really improved my day.

from the replies there are two main reasons skirt length is an issue

one is teeanage rebellion. It's always fun to break the rules. Girls have rolled up skirts since like forever.

two is schools are not ignoring this rebellion now because they would be considered letting the kids sexualise themselves and creating a sexual culture at the school.

the decency rules are great (no bums no boobs no underwear etc) but policing them require subjective observation so to enforce the rules on a large number then a ruler is simplest and quickest

I imagine the offenders is always outnumbered by the abiders. So can we let the girls democratically propose their own length and then let them police themselves?

It should be a plain tshirt, joggers and a hoodie for uniform or non uniform. It is pathetic all this stuff with uniform and just distracts from the education they should be receiving. Stop having uniform monitors and let them teach the students ffs.

Uniform is not a leveller, people still know who the poor kids are, It doesn't prepare them for work as most work places now don't wear blazers and ties etc..... it just makes it a battle that doesn't have to be had.

I imagine the offenders is always outnumbered by the abiders. So can we let the girls democratically propose their own length and then let them police themselves?

Based on our local secondary, and the comments from teaching staff here, it's quite the opposite. The rollers are the vast, vast majority.

Girls have rolled their skirts for decades. I know I did, and in hindsight it was because of peer pressure and tied up in a culture of problematic female socialisation.

The major difference is that when we did it, our parents didn't get arsey with the school and demand our right to ignore school rules and argue it's empowering for us to do it.

In some schools I've worked at the parents /teachers/students do the same thing that has happened for decades: students push the uniform expectations, the adults remind them of it, they correct it and the cycle goes on. There was a minority of students/parents who would be awkward but most people were fine.

In some schools I've worked in the parents regularly would argue that certain rules didn't apply to their children, or would buy non-uniform items and then complain when school staff said a non-uniform items is clearly non-uniform. Some parents are more concerned with being cool with their kids and arguing with school than they are parenting.

Senior teachers are still telling girls legs and over knee socks are ‘provocative’.

agree that crazy short is not on.

the girls should be told there is a reason why they never see billboards showing females in short skirts or exposing clothing on the highway. It's distracting. It's not attractive, it's not sexualised, it's just distracting.

Same logic applies to schools and workplaces etc.

Of course rule breaking is still the joy of teenage life. But at least having an understanding of the reason may help some sensible teenagers.

Have you got a cite for that 🤔

This.

Blazers and ties are particularly ridiculous. Barely any men I know wear ties on a regular basis and certainly no women I know wear ties.

I know of schools wear blazers must always be on show even at the height of summer. You might be allowed to remove your blazer during a lesson but then have to put it on when moving between lessons and in winter you must take any coat off before entering the school buildings no matter how cold it is because having your blazer on show at all times is such an important lesson to learn.

Absolutely this. My dd wears school uniform black/ white. Her skirt is unfortunately up her arse as I would describe it, she wears thick black tights and “big” black pants.
I work with kids who wear white knickers and or no tights and I’m like😱
However when I was a a teenage girl in the 80,s I was exactly the same as was all the other girls in school. Somehow despite my very short skirt I have managed to acquire 2 degrees and a very successful career.

Blazers and ties are particularly ridiculous. Barely any men I know wear ties on a regular basis and certainly no women I know wear ties.

I know of schools wear blazers must always be on show even at the height of summer. You might be allowed to remove your blazer during a lesson but then have to put it on when moving between lessons and in winter you must take any coat off before entering the school buildings no matter how cold it is because having your blazer on show at all times is such an important lesson to learn.

Couldn't agree more. I work in a school where it's polos and sweatshirts. Many kids don't even wear their jumper to school in height of summer.

It's totally fair enough because I wear tailored knee length shirts and a t shirt and usually wear a thin cardigan just for travel in the mornings.

I'd feel so wrong making the pupils wear something impractical for the weather just to make some undefined point.

Girls have always rolled their skirts but as others have said they unrolled them when they got to school. Now they don’t because it’s their way of saying fuck you to the teachers - fully supported by their adoring parents.

And we wonder why we have a teacher recruitment crisis 🙄.

(And before anyone says that skirts don’t cause teachers to resign, I clearly don’t mean that, I mean the general “my rights and I can do what the fuck I want and you can do nothing about it” is what’s helping to cause a massive issue with behaviour in schools).

Of course, it is now a given n modern society that a child’s ‘rights’ will always be held above a teacher’s attempts to impose reasonable rules. It is not unreasonable to ask girls to wear a reasonable length skirt for school. Yet parents pounce on this as a violation of human rights. Please go to Afghanistan!

My kids school had a 'protest' it was a feral riot, with lots of out of control boys joining in. The some of the girls wear skirts so short you can't help but see their arse cheeks as they go up stairs.. the uniform includes 2 different skirt styles and trousers for girls, all of which are easily bought in m+s. The swearing, and abuse of teachers was mind blowing... this was not about rights and everything about rude entitled children thinking they shouldn't have to follow rules or do anything they are told. My daughter is fairly robust but was genuinely scared and hid ffs..

Perhaps we should return to the old fashioned gymslip (pinafores) dresses 🤣
Can't really roll them up.
I actually know a few girls who loved their pinafores in primary and were disappointed they couldn't wear them at secondary.

This little bunch of gals actually look more flattering than some of the modern uniforms.
I am definitely for Bring Back Gymslips 🤣

To put girls of all shapes, sizes & heights in the same style of uniform is ridiculous, imo. I had big breasts from the age of 14 on, and the cut of my school uniform somehow emphasised them. (You couldn’t see any skin, of course. It was just the most unflattering cut for me) Girls with smaller chest size looked good in the uniform. I was embarrassed by my breast size as it was, but having to wear a uniform that made me look twice my size was torture - every single day. God I hated school days.

@Morestrangethings exactly. The amount of poor girls I see with school shirts literally straining over their breasts.
Boys uniforms often look ridiculous too. Some Year 7 boys are teeny tiny things and even the smallest blazers and jumpers drown them.
I really cannot see how wearing clothes that simply do not fit looks smart in anyway. It doesn't.

This is a big part of why I left, it's unmanageable when children know they are above any sort of punishment and that their parents will support their bad behaviour regardless. It makes teaching really challenging, and whatever people think about the role of a school in shaping children, having a thousand plus teenage children doing more or less as they please isn't easy to manage on a day to day basis let alone considering the effect it will have as they enter adulthood. Lots of entitlement, ill do what I want when I want and little thought for others, a largely spoilt generation.