Constant detentions for skirt length

[Falcon1]

My DD is 13. Since starting year 8 she’s had weekly detentions for rolling up her skirt and has been on report. She was also on report twice last year for the same thing. I keep getting emails from the school about it, but really - what can I do? This last detention we’ve said enough is enough and have grounded her but she is entirely unbothered. Her take is that she wants to wear her skirt the way she likes it and will keep doing so, and that the teachers should stop being so obsessed with her legs being on display. I kind of agree to be honest, particularly as she is doing fine academically. But I worry she’s going to be in detention her whole school career and it’s making her hate the school.

any advice most gratefully received!

My DD is in an all girls school so no boys to impress. They still all wear their skirts obscenely short.

If anyone on here has suggested "yelling and screaming", that would be foolish. I obviously missed those posts.

It wasn't intended like that, I was asking a question out of genuine curiosity. Are you always so combative?

well the school wants the parent to work with them, you can't expect a parent to work with you and put in discriminating rules just due to her being female

id give the trousers to the school and tell them to make her change into them daily and take them back after lessons at the end of the day

lots more work for the school and not to be expected, but sometimes needs must and its a battle

the best advice is mum to walk to school in the mini skirt every time she gets a detention

Working from home with no meetings isn't the same as being in an office though, is it.

The truth is that, in general, people who dress smartly and who don't show off their assets to all and sundry get more respect than those who do the opposite, and come across as more competent. Probably because we all know it takes effort and organisation to scrub up. This is the way of the world, and I don't think we do our young people any favours by not letting them know that.🤷‍♀️

No, many don’t. The idea of the formal business suit being the norm isn’t true any more.

They exist because the UK is still wedded to its colonial past whereby schools trained kids to became civil servants of the empire. It’s notable than many counties around the world that have uniform are ex-British colonies/commonwealth.

Most Brits have zero experience of no uniform as see it as a Wild West of bullying. But given that bullying most certainly exists in schools with uniforms, that’s obviously nonsense.

Having experienced no uniform I would ditch uniforms (especially at primary school) in a heartbeat.

Yep . As a teacher, feel your pain . It doesn’t matter how much we tell them , threaten them etc . The sad truth is girls feel ugly and unvalued with long skirts . Something has gone wrong with society to make them feel this way . Same with false lashes and nails . Btw, I don’t blame you at all or any mums battling with this . If you send her in with trousers or a long skirt she’ll only change it .I see girls who have sewn their skirts up or wear hair bobbles to pull them in tight . It’s massive to them and teenager’s psyche is so delicate. I wish I could advise but she will probably prefer detention! Make sure she has some shorts under her skirt for decency and insist she does all her homework and private study in detention? You could take her phone and give her a Nokia or something but they can get round that too . Good luck … first 18 years are the toughest and then they bugger off to uni and you long for an argument about uniform or homework. At least I only had a boy and it was just the blazer and tuck your shirt in fight . And I was his Head of Year!!!

She’s being a little shit but teens are there to push the boundaries and we all did similar when we were young.

Its a tricky one because I think with teens you have to pick your battles.

But I think her behaviour is quite concerning - saying her teachers are obsessed with her legs on display, potentially buying her own skirt to change at her friends before school - these are quite extreme and it’s a concern the lengths she’ll go to to try and sexualise herself.

She obviously wants attention, which isn’t bad in itself but young girls thinking the only way to get attention is by showing their body, can quickly turn into a bad thing.

I personally was hard on my DDs skirt length because kids have phones and when I was working at schools there were several instances of photos being taken, either intentionally up-skirting, or just accidentally in someone else’s photo.

There was one instance where a girl fell over and had period stains and of course it quickly did the rounds on the internet.

It was also mainly other girls taking photos.

There's a lot of ground between formal business suits and tracksuits/hoodies. Most offices these days tend to be smart casual.

ETA: And when it comes to school, what about the issue of poorer kids wearing far different clothing from wealthy kids? School uniform takes designer gear out of the equation. You might say that uniform costs money, but places like Next do great school skirts for about 15 pounds, and school uniform shops often sell secondhand items in good condition.

I don't think school uniform is connected to colonialism at all!

You've jogged my memory about Continental school kids...I think they look a mess when all together too, all of them wearing different things, many of them looking like they've just rolled out of bed in their baggy tracksuits.

"Obviously nonsense" and "utter drivel" Are you this rude and dismissive of others' opinions in person?

Girls have always worn short skirts to school, it’s part of being a teenager.

Sounds like the school is living in the last century and focusing on the wrong things, as usual. Is it an academy school? They seem particularly backwards thinking.

Luckily the school my DC attend is far more modern in it’s approach to keeping discipline.

At my girls’ school, same era, skirts had to touch the floor if we were kneeling. During my sister’s era (before mine) they did actually check this.

But The worst thing about our uniforms was the vile brown colour. There do exist ‘nice’ browns - this certainly wasn’t! Eventually a new head changed the uniform altogether - still brown, but a reasonable shade of chocolate.

Encourage her to abide by the rules.

I would not be impressed if I was a parent visiting a school where most of the girls had tiny skirts. You can understand where a school is coming from.

The school are making the rules. If the teachers don't want to enforce them, they shouldn't work at the school. Presumably they signed a contract before they started.

(see what I did there 🤣)

I am happy for her to sit in repeated detentions if she chooses to break uniform rules. I'm also happy for her to face whatever knock on consequences. But she's not an idiot, she has a plan for her life and I trust her. She's intelligent, dilagent, ambitious and well liked by the staff. She's sensible enough to be pay just enough lip service to the uniform rules to not cause a problem for herself.

You’re her parent and should be enforcing the school rules . She can always be home schooled that way she can wear her skirt as short as she likes.

You've never seen them wear them unacceptably short?! Hello, do you open your eyes?!

In the school I work in - inner-city, state- they are getting shorter and shorter again. Many are shorter than their blazer, and there's plenty that I can see arse cheeks as they walk along the corridor (not just up the stairs). Parents defend it with 'but they have sports shorts underneath', but the tight sports shorts are themselves hot pants. It's bloody awful.

Do non of us have mothers who were teens in the 60s? This isn't a new thing. Fashion goes round in circles.

Yes, we rolled our skirts up in the '60s.

We did not wear them so short our knickers and arses were on display.

We did not wear micro tube skirts because such things didn't exist.

Often rules change once you have started working there. Believe me, it's difficult to get change when the HT has made new rules and is determined to keep them, although sometimes staff have had a measure of success.

I'm surprised at all these reports of bum-cheeks showing. I don't see it because I'm at work when the kids go to school and are let out, but surely this is an exaggeration?! There were no bum-cheeks on show when I was at school!

It’s a school uniform. She can “wear her skirt how she likes it” when she’s not at school. However, at school she obeys the rules. The end.

no, ive seen far more than ive wanted when cycling home at the same time as the last bell at school rings.

in some cases not wearing a skirt would't be any different

How can you say she is not spoilt and then say she would act deviously and procure a skirt behind your back if you have her trousers to wear.? My take is that you don't like her getting detentions but you don't want to actually parent your child and tell her to stop breaking the rules. I would be taking her skirts and her phone off her until she can show that she is mature enough to behave sensibly. The fact that you know she would be devious means you do know deep down that your daughter is not as well behaved as you want to believe.

She’s probably picked up that you basically agree with her.

There are always going to be rules in her life that she disagrees with but needs to follow if she wants to avoid the consequences. If the consequences are making her hate school, that’s entirely her choice. Is it really worth it?

But I don’t believe you couldn’t impose a sanction she really would care about, if you wanted to. Who pays for her phone? Who gives her pocket money? Who buys her treats? If you’re still doing all those things you’re not serious about trying to encourage her to follow school rules, and she can tell.

It's NOT an exaggeration at all. I've been teaching 31 years & I've never seen this before, but the last year or so it's happening.

Yup. Just the hot pants sports shorts would be the same in some cases.

I think even rolling your eyes is seen as harsh these days!