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Short School Skirts.

(156 Posts)
Calendargirl Sun 26-Feb-23 13:10:03

Nothing new, a Merseyside school is pulling schoolgirls over and measuring skirt lengths, too short.

This was being done when I was at school, in the 60’s.

The main difference it was our senior mistress who did the measuring, not male staff, which seems to be happening now. Don’t agree with that (the males measuring), but looking at some of our local girls on their way to school, they’re skirts hardly showing below their blazers.

‘‘Twas ever thus” I suppose.

(My parents, by the way, would totally have backed the school).

Lizbethann55 Sun 26-Feb-23 15:14:06

We had to kneel on a chair so a teacher could measure how many inches there were between the hem and the chair. We had to be sure our navy blue knickers could not be seen. Also not allowed to wear patent shoes because of the reflection. There are several high schools near us and the length of the skirts really is very very short. They scarcely cover their bottoms. I travel to work on a bus. Girls on the bus cover their bottoms with their hands when going up the stairs, so they must realise that they are displaying everything.

Granmarderby10 Sun 26-Feb-23 15:14:21

Trousers: hum….“They” whoever they are would manage to find problems with those too. You’d think teenagers had only just been invented
Fact: people aged say from 12 to 18 like to experiment with style especially within the confines of a school uniform.
I don’t believe it’s to rebel at all it is just following the fashions and wanting to blend in with their peers.
I personally didn’t give two hoots what anyone over the age of about 20 thought about my clothing when at school, they simply did not figure in the equation.
As long as there are not real issues of inappropriate exposure, just leave the kids alone and stop being fuddy duddies😆

Granmarderby10 Sun 26-Feb-23 15:22:28

Oreo it seems that adolescent and adult males are challenged by so very many things and a short school skirt worn over dark thick tights or leggings ought to be the very least of these.
Interestingly though, you don’t here of many lads wanting to wear skirts or dresses (yet) it’ll happen I’m sure.

Granmarderby10 Sun 26-Feb-23 15:25:26

Lizabethan good job we mainly have only single deckers round here then.

Cold Sun 26-Feb-23 15:36:01

Strangely enough when I was at high school in the early-mid 1970s it was the era of the Midi-skirt and girls' skirts were deemed too LONG!! So pupils cannot win ...

However my school allowed a trousers option for girls in 1976. I find it very odd that the school in Merseyside prohibits girls from wearing trousers which seems very old fashioned in 2023.

My DDs attended a non uniform school in Scandinavia and seemed to have few of these issues

Granmarderby10 Sun 26-Feb-23 15:38:13

Cold precisely that.

Oreo Sun 26-Feb-23 16:18:48

I think they already are in some schools Grandmarderby
😄

Callistemon21 Sun 26-Feb-23 16:35:21

GagaJo

As a teacher, I used to get fed up with girls in skirts so short I could see bum cheeks. With protests of 'body shaming' if it was brought up.

All, boys, girls, trans, should wear trousers. IMO. Cut out all the problems.

Good idea.

Girls aren't allowed to wear trousers at DGD's school.

I can remember when DD and her friends fought for the right to wear trousers, at least in the 6th form; that was 30 years ago. They won, but we seem to have gone backwards since then.

Callistemon21 Sun 26-Feb-23 16:40:15

You’d think teenagers had only just been invented
😁 I can remember when they were in the 1950s.
Before then we dressed like our mothers.

Thank goodness they don't have to wear gym slips

Granmarderby10 Sun 26-Feb-23 16:43:17

“Oreo” I would be tempted to make it a rule (if I was head) that boys have to wear their dresses with white ankle socks in summer and their skirts with flesh coloured tights irrespective of weather. Clark T-bar sandals and brown lace up low healed brogues would be the only acceptable footwear
Just kidding !😉

Oreo Sun 26-Feb-23 16:52:29

I think you’d make a great Head then😂 yes, all those things and hair in neat plaits too.

grandMattie Sun 26-Feb-23 17:01:21

Oh, yes! Us too. Single sex school too. And no patent shoes allowed, in case our knickers were reflected in them! Hair below the collar had to be tied up…. No one complained, least of all the parents.

Esmay Sun 26-Feb-23 17:06:37

We had to kneel and the hem had to touch the floor .
Hair wasn't allowed past the top of your collar and if it did was tied up with rough scratchy string .
Nail polish removed with acetone .
Faces were scrubbed clean of all traces of make up .
.
School uniform had to be worn properly and that included hat wearing .
Failure to do so meant a detention and lines to write out .

MrsKen33 Sun 26-Feb-23 17:21:06

We wore gingham shirtwaisters in the summer. It was amazing how many stiff net petticoats you could get under a skirt. In the winter it was GoRay skirts and the Senior Mistress might get you to kneel in the corridor to measure its height above your knee. Similarly you might get stopped if she thought you’d bosom was hitched too high . Different times but the same ideas. Subtle rebellion

Kate1949 Sun 26-Feb-23 17:25:01

Not at school but in my first job, someone said to me 'That's a nice belt. Where's your skirt?'

BlueSapphire Sun 26-Feb-23 17:30:27

I remember when I was teaching in the 1970s, our headmistress refused to let women staff wear trousers as she thought they were unprofessional. We managed to wear her down and she saw sense and gave in.

Alioop Sun 26-Feb-23 17:30:45

We rolled the waists of our skirts over to shorten them a little bit, but nowhere near how short they are today. Our Home Economics teacher used to stand at her classroom door with a cane and you got whacked across the back of your legs and told to lengthen your skirt as you went passed.

Grandma70s Sun 26-Feb-23 17:36:49

At my granddaughter’s prep school they wear culottes. That seems very sensible to me.

Pixieboots Sun 26-Feb-23 17:41:01

I remember wearing the almost ankle length school skirts with chunky shoes and the stubby tie too 😍

saltnshake Sun 26-Feb-23 17:46:13

The problem seems to lie in the length of skirts; I've seen some so short that I worried they might strangle the wearer. This is from someone who wore very short minis. I wore a simple 4 gore skirt to school, there was no waistband to turn over, the skirt sat on the hip bones. Schools could think about asking girls to wear skortles; these would be difficult to turn over.

Yammy Sun 26-Feb-23 17:50:08

TerriBull

I did see a picture of a schoolgirl wearing ankle grazer type trousers who was admonished for showing her ankles, I think she was told they could be deemed some sort of "sexual turn on" good grief! clearly in the mind of someone who is back in the 1890s shock

Another waist roller here, as short as we could get away with, outside of school, the nuns at my convent were of the opinion that patent shoes some sort of deviant/sinner's footwear, one's knickers could be seen in them allegedly! I think one smart arse said "oh well I just won't wear them then" the nun who was advising us on the appropriateness of our footwear was temporarily speechless, trying to work out whether "I won't wear them" referred to the shoes or her knickers shock

My friend was told the same by nuns about patent leather shoes, they were also told to sit on a telephone directory if sitting on a boy's lap. We all fell about when she told us, imagine people going to a dance or party with a telephone directory.
At our school, we had to kneel on the floor and our skirts had to touch it as did our divided skirt shorts. Under which we had to show our navy knickers by hanging from the wall bars. A friend had the class in an uproar when her mother had managed to get her a pair with pockets in and she insisted on lifting her skirt to get her hanky out of her pocket.
I was personally reprimanded for wearing flesh-coloured tights which left too much to the imagination. My mother had got a job lot cheap from the Co op and would not buy me some darker ones. So I had to revert to the old knees socks which were bright red!!! Of course, they didn't insite any boys the school was co_ed, especially when you had your skirt turned over three times aged 18. They were school uniform.blush

Yammy Sun 26-Feb-23 17:57:45

BlueSapphire

I remember when I was teaching in the 1970s, our headmistress refused to let women staff wear trousers as she thought they were unprofessional. We managed to wear her down and she saw sense and gave in.

Same here I was an infants teacher in the 70s and where did they gather in the morning for registration on a rug in front of you. She eventually gave in and let us wear tailored trousers.
One older teacher I worked with told me when a probationer "Only infant teachers can sit on the floor without showing their knickers", now I would ask" Why did we do it so much?"

annodomini Sun 26-Feb-23 18:22:13

First DGD used to wear trousers to school - they were optional and she preferred them to skirts. Younger DGD was of the opposite opinion and I was most concerned when I saw her cycling off to school with a skirt that barely reached the saddle of her bike. Surprisingly, she survived and now, at 20, she's rarely seen in anything but jeans or leggings.

Debbi58 Sun 26-Feb-23 18:41:49

I drive past our local high school every morning, I see girls hitching their skirts higher and turning the waist band over to shorten the skirt . Pretty sure it's nothing new

Katie59 Sun 26-Feb-23 20:05:27

The school I went to had a strict dress code, all obeyed it, you would be sent home if you didn’t, even on the way to school you were expected to be dressed correctly. All my kids were sent to school with proper uniform it was up to the school to enforce it, some couldn’t be bothered.

At work I have also had a strict dress code, as a nurse uniform was and is compulsory, no uniform no job