13 yr old DD rolling up school skirt

[vdbfamily]

Advice please.
My 13 year old DD is 6' tall . Her school uniform is a navy pleated skirt with a flat panel first from waistband and then pleats from below hip level. She hates the panel so rolls the skirt over at the top. This puts it as several inches above the knee. I ask her daily to unroll it, school ask her most days to sort it out. School rang DH this week to say they would escalate the issue if she kept disobeying. I have removed her phone and said she will not get it back until she conforms. She sys everyone else does it and you get teased and bullied if you don't. I suspect hers is more obvious as she is so tall so far too much thigh showing. Apart from this she is being fairly well behaved. When I got home today from work she had cooked us all tea,walked the dog and got the washing in. I gave her a big hug and said thanks and then noticed the wretched skirt hoiked up. It is making such a bad atmosphere and I really feel at a loss as to how to explain to her that she just has to follow school rules. Any ideas?

As everyone else has pointed out it has always been the same. They do it at DD's school, who also get their knickers in a twist about skirt lengths. A couple of schools round here have got round the problem by introducing a kilt as the skirt part of the school uniform. There are a couple of buttons at the top that have to be on show to prove that the waistband hasn't been rolled over.

I would just let the school deal with it and if your daughter gets detentions and isolations then so be it.

I recently read a school uniform that had culottes instead of a skirt. I can't imagine the outcry that went on at the introduction of it, but would make rolling pretty impossible.

Yes, it has always been so.

The girls at the local very prestigious private girls school wear the shortest skirts. I am not sure they are even rolling them up!

Tell your DD she has to follow school rules or face the consequences and then leave them to deal with it.

Does it even matter how long a school skirt is?

She says she hates the panel but at present not only rolls the top over but also tucks her jumper in which I think looks ridiculous (but what would I know?!) I have to say that she is a very capable girl but not generally so helpful. She has made tea a few times and walked the dog a few times and got the washing in a couple of times BUT these things increase in frequency when she wants her phone. The phone thing is about more than the skirt, it is an attempt for her to be in bed by 9.45 and out the door in time for school(we live so close she is always running late)
So.....I will tell her it is between her and school but that I would like her to respect her teachers. Yesterday she only rolled it once over instead of 3 times apparently.
I will leave school to mete out the consequences and I will look at possible alternative clothing. I do not want any unnecessary battles at home. She will get her phone back.

Pinkcan, she isn't defying teachers instructions when asked to roll her skirt down. No one has to follow customs/ rules blindly. Working out which ones are important, which can be subtly subverted is important. Kindness and being helpful are far more important blind obedience. We live in the UK not North Korea. Finding her way through the silly rules of a typical school whilst still maintaining good relationships with teachers, achieving good grades and not getting into any serious hot water will set her up well for life.

I used to roll mine up so much I had a sausage of material around my waist
Used to roll it down again before I got home so my mum didn't see.

I echo PP, let the school deal with it.

For a while I wore my netball skirt as a school skirt! Guess I was one of 'those girls'

not only rolls the top over but also tucks her jumper in

At the school where I worked there was another rule - shirts had to be tucked in. So what did the girls do? Of course, having their shirts out helped to disguise the fact their skirts (kilts, actually) were rolled over.
Personally, I thought shirts out looked better, and left senior management to deal with it as they thought fit. This was rarely more than a telling off, and the girl in question would invariably apologise and adjust her uniform with good grace - until the next day...

I would be so cross if school phoned me over skirts - unless it was to inform me of an after school detention. With teenagers it's really not something I'd want to get involved in.
My DDs leave the house with their skirts the right length, and I've intervened when we couldn't get a skirt which was both long enough and skinny enough (the eldest got out of detentions for a while until they could source a new supplier). And I might say "Skirt" when I pick them up.

Lots of schools are going to kilt types because they look awful when rolled up/are very very obvious - but obviously sometimes its just the hemline that is important.

We also used to sellotape the hems of our skirts up to make them shorter.

Of course that looked shit too. And not very subtle.

DSD1's skirt used to be so short and tight that I had to mend the side seam many a time. However, she's short so it never looked that bad. DSD2 on the other hand is tall and long of leg, so even the standard skirt looked too short. She used to rage at the injustice of being told off and resorted to showing the teachers her waistband each time.

I used to leave the house with a knee length skirt and it would be just below mid thigh by the time I got to school I'm also short and it was very much the need to feel in proportion as well as sticking it to the man lol. Unless you were flashing you knickers the teachers tended to leave us alone, and little was said about hair colour or style unless it was outrageous. We were known as the school with THOSE kids but the people who lived near the school never put in any complaints about our behavior out of school and the vast majority of my year went on to University and vocational schools. The headmaster retired during my last year and the new head brought in new uniform and a stricter policy, which didn't apply to the leaving year. By the time my brother left the same school there was a constant petty power struggle between the teachers and students.

Maybe I'm one in a hundred, but I do wish schoolgirls would dress more appropriately and modestly for school. I went to a girls school in the 70s and I can honestly say none of us made our skirts short. It wouldn't have been tolerated by the school, but also none of the other girls were doing it, and nobody gave the whole subject a moment's consideration, TG. This was the days before Kardashinan or whatever that family is called.

But if parents don't support the school in their policies, its hard to see what the school can do, I realise now, seeing all these posts. I think the problem the OP has is that perhaps the "mini school skirt" has become a uniform in itself, and maybe your daughter is now just conforming to what everyone else is doing (so much for rebellion). Parental authority and school authority seems to have gone down the toilet in recent years and some of the results are not good. One of the downsides is the constant exhausting negotiation between parties over little things - like skirt length - that a few decades ago were just things you did or didn't do. I am sorry I don't have an answer for you . A quiet chat when you're both relaxed might help? I did this late one night with my son over some issue and it did help a little.

soundofthenightingale - do you have teenagers? If you did you would know as a parent - to learn which battles are really important.

Actually the girls locally with the shortest skirts, go to the highly successful and very disciplined all girls private school. And I do feel sorry for girls who feel they have to wear skirts shorter than they would be happy with. And I'm very happy to see lots of girls now choosing trousers for one of our local schools (after the skirt was changed to a rather unflattering one).

In the 70s the fashion was for mid calf length skirts - and friends actually complained about being forced into short knee length ones.

I'm all for the 'let the school sort it out' scenario - just back them up, or it becomes even more of a battle.

I have a leggy 14yo in my tutor group (must be 6', I'm nearly that & she's taller than me) who also has an expanse of leg on display. She's the only one who even wears a skirt - other 8 girls are all in trousers. Other arguments there re tightness, jeans style etc.

I have to say as a teacher I couldn't care less personally. Having had that ruck with Leggy on several occasions, I can honestly say that she knows everyone can see her knickers when she goes up a flight of stairs, & she's not arsed that they can.

Good enough for me - it's her pants she's flashing. However, the Head sees it differently so I am professionally obliged to be a jobsworth.

Her mum is not terrifically supportive of any of this. She's scared of her dd & is the one who has to deal with the screaming tantrums when Head of Year puts her in uniform detention weekly. She's very happy for me to be the villain here!

Complete waste of everyone's time. Stick 'em all in black cotton onesies with a school badge on the front, or let them wear what the chuff they want, I say.

if there is bullying going on, that needs to be reported to the school.

if it is just that she thinks that she is above the rules, let her take the consequences.

ok, so a teen in a short skirt is not a major issue, but she gets to make her own decisions on that when she's older and pays her way, or out of school.

and a flash of the usual tatty knickers or backside (covered or not) isn't pretty on anyone. Put it away, love.

I don't think the majority of parents disagree with the school it is just that they cannot enforce the rule if they are not present. I personally would tell my daughter to wear the skirt as she should and would support the school in any punishments but if you're not there you can't enforce it yourself.

Parents can make sure they buy skirts that fit the uniform requirements. They can make sure their DD is wearing it correctly when she leaves in the morning.

They cannot stop her rolling it up the second she goes out of sight.

So if it's worn incorrectly at school because she has rolled it to make it shorter, that's the school's business to sort out and the pupil needs to take the consequences.

Exactly, Stella.

They all do it! DD's is supposed to be 'on the knee' and it most certainly isn't. She says she's only been told off once for it being too short though.

There exists one very well-known public school where the girls have to wear ankle-length skirts. So long, in fact, that they have to hitch them up a bit whenever they want to walk anywhere, else they would be treading on the hem.
It seems to work. Can't see it catching on generally though...

I would be quite sad to see a stop to red-blooded young women rolling up their skirts. Both of mine do it. It's what you do.

Although actually back in the late 1970s our act of rebellion was to go braless. This has the advantage of not being against school rules.

At my school the focus was more on blazers - collar up, sleeves up, socks down.

I might be misremembering but I'm convinced that pupils at a near by more fashionable school got away with safety pinning the holes in their black tights.

At least we all wore 'sensible' shoes - DMs.

This was the eighties.

We've been told DD's school is introducing knee length culottes, transitional introduction by 2017.

I'm actually looking forward to observing the ingenious ways in which the girls will get round this!!

Getting round the uniform is part of the game, and then of course there are the skilled practitioners who artfully get away with it on a daily basis. Both of mine do/did this, paticularly in the y8-y10 rebelious stage. Girls at the school I work in do this, I did it, who cares.

Uniform is an outdated thing now anyway, it was supposed to make sure everyone looked the same and the fact that children who didn't have much would be protected against identification. Almost everyone now has access to primark or can buy bags of second hand clothes online. In fact thats a lot more accesible than expensive uniforms for some parents.

Let her roll it, its a right of passage, it certainly isn't a sexual thing, they do it cause "every other girl does".

I buy the right length skirts, the right shirt, the right tie and the right blazer

What she does with it after that is between her and the school

I would back up the schools punishment but not impose my own

I dont understand how i would end up in 'hot water' over it and what it has to do with the kardashians