Girls' skirts policed.

[ArabellaScott]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-64743377

'Girls have been made to enter Rainford High School in St Helens separately to boys and have had their skirt length inspected by male teachers, they claim.

Hundreds of pupils staged a protest against how rules, which have left some pupils in tears, have been imposed.'

Girls are really not allowed to wear trousers?! WTF?

This is outrageous. I am genuinely stunned.

Yes me too! With the sash that made everybody look like a sack of spuds.

We also had to present our hands/nails for inspection before going into the dinner hall. Not sure how that would go down nowadays!

According to the uniform guide for this academic year on their website. It's two columns, headed Girls and Boys. The girls column only has a skirt as a possible option. The boys, only trousers.

If have more "sympathy" (for want of a better word) with school uniform policies if it was applied as rigorously to the teachers as it was the pupils.

Most of the arguments for uniform applies just as much to staff imo.

Hopefully the school has the same hard stance against young boys who think they can grope or assault a female pupil

I'm guessing probably not

Jesus

clothes are clothes

all they need to do is keep you warm and decent. There are no items of clothing that males are unable to wear by virtue of being male. Ditto female

since when did schools get so regressive?

It feels to me like these kids are making a mockery of things like the Me Too movement. Their skirts are too short. End of.

//

If men behaved like civilised human beings w wouldn't even need Me Too.

We had uniform knickers at my school and regular "knicker checks"!

Only for the girls, though.

Their skirts are too short. End of.

the thing is, are they?

I agree that if someone can see your knickers your skirt’s too short. But no special rules or tape measures are required for that

they’re just legs

Now I'm having flash backs to high school pe and bloody horrible tight gym knickers. Lining up outside the gym as all the boys traipsed out to play football.

God I hated school.

A picture on social media of a skirt a mother has been told is too short is about half an inch above the knee. That’s not about ensuring decency. That’s about being power mad.

Legs that are ok to be exposed in pe knickers, skirts, etc. But not at any other time

You see local girls around here rolling their skirts up so they barely cling under a butt cheek. Often underwear showing cause the moment you start moving, the tiny skirt rides up. I don’t need to see some kid’s pants. It’s entirely inappropriate.
Funnily enough the girls on the train who are heading to the private fee paying school seem to manage to wear their uniform correctly!

Back in my school days…15 odd years ago…I got told off for my skirt being too long. I wore a maxi skirt to hide my chunky legs. There was no rule about a maximum skirt length though so I got away with it and at least nobody saw my undercarriage.

I think words like inspect are a bit emotive as they are almost suggesting that the male teacher is groping or ogling the girls. There is a school uniform policy at my dcs school where pupil's skirts, if worn must be knee length pencil skirts. You can tell just by a quick glance whether the skirt is too short or not. And yes, there are a couple of boys who wear skirts and plenty of girls who wear trousers. Kids don't like being told what to wear, so running out of lessons crying and almost claiming sexual harassment because they have been told their skirt is too short by their teacher is a little dramatic.

Yup, prancing around in knickers in front of boys is fine but wearing a skirt above your knee is just too much!

They're not running out of class. They're being lined up in a foyer, all the girls, waiting their turn to be inspected. Just the girls.

I can remember kneeling down in a row with my contemporaries, whilst a (female) teacher measured the shortness of our skirts with a ruler. In the 60s.
I think they weren't permitted to be nine inches above the knee, maybe six.
We all rolled our eyes about it but felt it was a bit of a giggle against our ancient teachers.
Very different atmosphere in an all girls' school, as we didn't have obvious sex based different treatment (within the institution, anyway)
But this business about not being a distraction to the boys and male staff is just another male centred outrage.
Having said that, it was rumoured that one rather dishy young male teacher was instructed by our headmistress to keep his jacket on “in front of the impressionable girls”
The younger forms also had the bosom flattening tunics. We all had the hands inspections too, and were checked for make up, scent and holding our cutlery correctly.
It seems incredible now.

I do wonder what the PE kit is like at this school

I’m going to guess girls don’t get to wear leggings or joggers

if they do enforce netball skirts and PE knickers they really do need to have a good think

’you may not display your body except when ordered to’

seems a little erm, patriarchal, no?

I think all uniforms should be identical and be only trousers in the winter. Knee length shorts in the summer and t shirts. Girls wearing micro mini skirts are ridiculous. It's unnecessary. Yes, it's down to the the boys not to be distracted, but we are talking about teenage boys and girls here with raging hormones. Let's not be disingenuous. There are better ways of policing this but I totally agree with no short skirts. I'm someone who did the skirt rolling up but only outside the school gates.

If you’ve got a relatively small waist and a relatively big bum, skirts just work better than trousers. I really don’t think it’s fair to stop girls wearing them

just make them available for girls and boys

I was 5' 8" at about 13, v skinny and all the school skirts available sat above my knee. I used to get regularly told off but there wasn't an alternative. I dread to think what they would be saying now and I can't imagine my parents would have been delighted with a male measuring my skirt length. I am surprised that isn't a safe guarding issue to be honest, in any other circumstance I can't imagine a professional male leaving themselves open to such interpretation?

And whilst I agree with standardisation to avoid people wearing trainers etc, I do think there is a very unrealistic work of what people wear to work these days. Most offices are far more relaxed.

People need to be taught to dress for the occasion. Oh and stop policing girls bodies would also be good.

Make uniform unisex. They claim to be a progressive school. Hideous.
What year 7 would wear a pinafore

Not a fan of school uniform myself but if you're going to choose to send your child to a school you need to abide by the policies of that school, and that includes the uniform one.

I do feel smart trousers and skirts/shorts should be an option for all. However we also all know that teens push boundaries, and they in turn need to know that those boundaries will still stay in place and applied consistently and fairly to all.

I'm not sure if the school has this on their website but a mannequin showing the required uniform, illustrating the length of skirt would be useful here so that both child and parent could be directed to it in the case of breach of uniform.

Someone up thread mentioned about staff sticking to similar rules. If staff are wearing revealing clothing that is inappropriate they should be reminded of the policy in their staff code of conduct.

Yeah it didn't make sense in the 1970s and 1980s it sure as hell doesn't make sense to police still growing, usually by inches seemingly overnight, school girls skirt lengths in bloody 2023.

And they wonder why girls suddenly want to be boys?. This shit! This is why!

If it really happened the way it's being told, the public segregation and humiliation is unacceptable.

I teach in a mixed school. Girls' clothing gets a wildly disproportionate amount of attention compared to boys'. But so many of the girls want to wear absolutely obscene "skirts" - essentially a band of elasticated material that often doesn't fully cover their bum cheeks. And non-uniform days/school trips, they want cropped tops, skin tight tops, boobs out etc etc. The boys wear t-shirts and knee length shorts/jeans/joggers.

I talk to the girls and the boys about this a lot. It's not right that we're battling with the girls on clothing all the time. But I don't see that solution is to let them wear (or not wear!) whatever they want and call that empowerment. To my mind, the solution is to keep pushing for this mythical, utopian society where young girls don't feel the need to dress for the male gaze in this way (I promise you - they're not doing it for comfort!)