Faith school where women are banned from wearing trousers becomes state funded

[ArabellaSaurus]

https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2025/09/faith-school-which-bans-women-wearing-trousers-becomes-state-funded

'The National Secular Society has expressed alarm that a London faith school which bans women from wearing trousers and penalises families who attend non-kosher restaurants will now be funded by the state.
Nancy Reuben Primary School re-opened as a voluntary aided (VA) state school this month, after operating as an independent school for 26 years. Its decision to join the state sector follows the Government's move to charge VAT on independent school fees.'

'Women may not wear trousers, mini skirts, shorts, low necklines or sleeveless tops
The school's dress code for parents and visitors says men "must have their head covered at all times" and women "must wear skirts of knee length (a maximum of 2" above is acceptable)". It says trousers "may not be worn" by women.
Additionally, women must cover their underarms and may not wear cap sleeves. Women may not wear clothes with necklines lower than "4 fingers from the collar bone" either "in front or back of the garment".
Trousers are permitted for aupairs and nannies but they may not wear mini skirts, shorts, plunging necklines or sleeveless tops.'

Something about it being Jewish brings out their defensiveness.
Same rules - Islamic school, they’d be outraged.

"Disbanded and banned from openly existing" ffs. Yeah, no-one's ever attempted that before...

This school serves an area where there's a big enough community who might want to use the school; I can't see that it disadvantages anyone else and who else would want to attend? The dress requirements are extremely toned down compared to the rules that community mostly follow (No collarbone, elbow or knee on show).

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/nyregion/orthodox-jewish-divorce-custody-ny.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/nyregion/hasidic-yeshivas-schools-divorce.html#commentsContainer

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/nyregion/ultra-orthodox-jews-shun-their-own-for-reporting-child-sexual-abuse.html&ved=2ahUKEwiru9Lo-fqPAxUZVEEAHUneD8EQFnoECCkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3xMfL4t1BEe2xHr2-YMql6

These were the articles I was thinking of. The NY Times & more liberal Jewish papers seem good at covering the more worrisome aspects of the community. I'm not sure if our papers do similar, or maybe they do.. I should have a look at the Jewish Chronicle.

Ah, thank you. That's important info. So it's not Ultra-Orthodox then? It still seems iffy to me but agree should not all be conflated.

You are missing the point that these regulations apply to parents, staff, and even visitors.

Don’t compare the Nancy Reuben school to the Hasidic schools they have nothing in common. The Hasidic schools are a serious problem to the education of particularly boys who inevitably leave school with next to no secular education, no GCSE’s, often very little English and no skills to support themselves financially. This leads to a cycle of poverty and reliance on state support often enhanced by young marriage and multiple children. It’s not great.

Nancy Reuben school is a modern orthodox school which has always offered an excellent secular education and the children go on to mainstream, albeit usually Jewish, secondary schools where they do their GCSE’s, A levels, uni etc.

Their ethos is such that unless you’re very observant it’s not somewhere anyone would want their child to attend and they can fill it 15 times over with orthodox children.

personally I tend to question if it should be a state school with such stringent rules and I suspect that may be challenged but it’s definitely not one I would be getting my knickers in a twist about.

the Hasidic ones though, they do present a real problem because they’re simply not offering even a basic education to boys. Girls tend to be a bit better

In this country, we are supposed to have universal values that we uphold in all areas. Dressing 3 year old girls in tights so they arent arousing for men should be firmly against said values. We seem to get it when we speak about burkhas. We don't get it when we are speaking about little Hasidic girls (probably because they are white and we think white people can never be wrong).

I dont think you can enforce a sexist dress code and then claim you offe ran excellent secular education. Teaching children that they should cover their bodies lest they be a temptation for men isnt part of a secular education.

Thank you, this clears a lot up. Still not ideal but sounds much better.

My DN school doesn’t allow girls to wear skirts. The uniform is trousers only. Should we get upset about that?

Mmm, I don’t know, but it would be in their interests to educate people about their faith and build strong community ties? Not necessarily convert them all.

No it isnt. But the fact that you can have these restrictions and make it as a secular school should terrify us about what goes on in the hasidic schools.

It’s often useful to consider the converse idea - what if this were a school forcing pupils and visitors to wear religious clothing eg the hijab? What’s the difference between this school enforcing “no trousers” as religious wear? I’m not sure what the answer is but I’m not keen on religious reasons for enforcing a dress code but I can’t quite put my finger on why… will have to think. Apart from anything it’s not inclusive maybe?

I wish all state schools were secular, but that’s not happening any time soon. But religious schools must be open to non religious parents and if they enforce this for them for parents evening out drop offs etc I think that’s wrong. It just keeps purple in silos and stops integration.

It’s a VA school. Which means that if they don’t fill all their places using their own admission criteria they must accept other children. Just like a village CoE school must accept non-religious children to make PAN.

I think a lot of the burka panic (which according to BBC, at least, less than 1% of Muslim women wear) was because it was associated with terrorism. I think if there had been no Isis, people would have ignored it, as well as other mistreatment of Muslim women. I don't think it's nonwhite racism, I think it's that sadly people tend to care about things which affect them but turn a blind eye if they don't.

The main thing appears to be that girls can't wear trousers. Yes that is regressive in this day and age but the plus side is they're probably going to enforce the skirts length as well and as long as they're knee length (and not long as in some very old fashioned Catholic schools in Ireland) I think that's a plus.
The other dress criteria isn't extreme and wouldn't be hard to follow if you either worked or visited there.
If you were of a different faith and were devout you'd have grounds to reject a place. To be honest I have no religion, but have respect for others who are, if the school was a good one and my daughter was happy and made friends I wouldn't have a problem.

Does the school enforce a dress code on parents and visitors too?

Yet a lot of state schools have a dress code that is enforced by peers that tells girls they must wear skirts that barely cover their bums and being objectified by men is necessary…

@Ratafia I don't understand your assertion that the kids of the religion of one school would have more choice than another. If there's only one (in this case) Jewish school in an area and the rest are secular, surely that would mean the Jewish kids have less choice. And why would more money go to a religious school than secular schools?

No school says girls must wear miniskirts for men. In your quest to defend this, you are agreeing that 3 year old girls are sexual temptation for grown men. Stop that. That's not who you want to be.

Ther would be very few schools left where i live in that case. Church schools, either Catholic or C Of E are in the majority, and people, generally like them and choose them.

But this school isn't saying that. The girls can wear jogging bottoms for PE, and can wear shorts or leggings under skirts if they want. It wasn't long ago that plenty of secular schools didn't have trousers as part of the girls' unform, or indeed let boys wear skirts.

I suspect women’s dress codes have been tailored around the male gaze for so long we don’t notice it.

Boys/men in clothes worn by women look ridiculous partly because the clothes are ridiculous. Women’s clothing is skimpier than men’s.

I’ve been trying to shift my perspective on various expectations on women that men don’t have - body hair etc- but realised that men don’t show their armpits and calves in the workplace. They also generally groom their facial hair, which was the start of my journey as I was finding mine hard to manage!

So while I get the concern, I think we need to rethink dress codes generally.

I feel more sorry for the little boys having tzitzit on all day, tbh...