School uniform kilts

I think tartan pinafore looked lovely on primary school girls. My friend has a grand daughter who goes to a school in a deprived area but has a kilt and blazer as her uniform. Most of the pupils receive funding to help purchase the uniforms. as their parents are on low incomes. Our local primary has a polo shirt in an uncommon colour and one polo shirt costs the same as a supermarket pack of plain white or light blue ones which does seem ridiculous. As regards skirt lengths there was a teenager from one of the secondary schools wearing a lycra skirt in town last week. It was so short it showed her buttocks - she must have been wearing a thong as several inches of her k ickers would otherwise have been visible. It was the shortest skirt I have ever seen and made worse as she was bare legged.

When I was in my county youth orchestra in the early eighties, the girls wore long skirts in black watch tartan with white blouses while the boys wore black trousers, white shirts and black watch tartan ties. I still have the skirt but my chances of ever getting into it again are somewhere between fat chance, slim chance and no chance whatsoever! We looked very smart and the uniform was nice and warm for our winter concerts as the tartan was pure wool but the summer concerts could be guaranteed to be on the hottest day of the year.

A lot of the "kilts" worn as uniform aren't really kilts, just a tartan pleated skirt with plain front. Doubt they are made from pure wool either
If the schools wants to create its own tartan then yes, it would have to be approved as a tartan and would be costly. Look at the back of the skirt, box pleats usually instead of the sharp knife pleats in a kilt. Primary girls in Scotland used to wear their kilt to school not as a uniform but as it was warm, stood up to a lot of wear and only needed washing about once a year. No mean feat pressing a kilt after cleaning. Can't imagine many households doing that nowadays for school uniform. Never mind the cost.

There is a Catholic High School in our town which has tartan skirts for the girls - not sure if they are actual kilts as I've taken little notice. I've always noticed them as they are so different from the other schools' uniforms. Having a distinctive uniform helps identify which school a pupil belongs to, but that only really matters if they are misbehaving. The boys don't stand out at all!

NannyC1

I think the school uniform should actually be uniform. Either trousers for all pupils or skirts for all pupils. Otherwise doesn't it go against the actual meaning of Uniform

I think that is the problem, there is no blanket approach to school uniform within the schools, so lots of variations on a theme come along.
In the private sector, the school has total control over the uniform. A supplier is selected from which to buy the regulation items. This saves the school any bother because what is on the list is what must be purchased and worn. There are usually second-hand shops run by the parents.
The wool tartan pinafores are around £50 and are quality garments which wear well. Some parents wash them unnecessarily often which means they can lose their pleats.

Nvella

There is a convent school in Herts which has a kilt which literally goes down to the girls’ ankles. How they manage to get teenage girls into them I don’t know and they really don’t suit any size or shape.
My gd has just started secondary school (an ex-grammar state school). The uniform has cost £300 and there are no grants and no second hand arrangements made. You can’t help feeling they are trying to exclude poor children.

Yes, I do wonder about such attempts to 'exclude'. I understood that the uniform grant was available to anyone on a low income (maybe, like so many things these days, it is patchy).
I am surprised that there are no second-hand arrangements. I know little of private schools, but the 2 families I know who have used them have both volunteered at the school second-hand shop; so it feels odd that an ordinary secondary school wouldn't have one.

And Nvella, I think that was one of the schools I noticed some time ago when visiting Herts, which I assumed had a special reason. Of course, Herts borders on Essex, where a previous poster said kilts were common school wear.

There is a convent school in Herts which has a kilt which literally goes down to the girls’ ankles. How they manage to get teenage girls into them I don’t know and they really don’t suit any size or shape.
My gd has just started secondary school (an ex-grammar state school). The uniform has cost £300 and there are no grants and no second hand arrangements made. You can’t help feeling they are trying to exclude poor children.

My offspring’s school uniform is a kilt for the girls and grey trousers for the boys.
While I agree that the kilts are expensive, offspring was in uniform for 11 years and we only needed to replace the kilt twice. The one bought for secondary lasted the whole five years. Much better than the M&S suit bought for 6th form.
It was easy to launder and dried easily overnight hanging up. I never ironed them, the pleats just stayed put.

The Presbyterian Ladies College here has them. I think they look lovely, my daughter went there and I always liked their uniform.

I think the school uniform should actually be uniform. Either trousers for all pupils or skirts for all pupils. Otherwise doesn't it go against the actual meaning of Uniform

lizzypopbottle

There's a huge amount of fabric in a proper kilt, far more than an A line skirt or trousers, so they must be pretty expensive.

I think they are mostly kilt-style skirts. A real kilt wouldn't be washable (would it?) and ironing the pleats back into shape would be a nightmare.

I think they have caught on because the tartan makes the pupil recognisable as belonging to the school.

All children should be permitted to wear trousers now

There's a huge amount of fabric in a proper kilt, far more than an A line skirt or trousers, so they must be pretty expensive.

I think kilts for schoolgirls are absolutely ridiculous. They are expensive, difficult to care for and completely out of keeping with what people actually wear in relatively formal situations.
They were brought in by private schools and copied by some state schools to make them seem posher than some others.
Black trousers and a school jumper I find more practical and look resonably smart on everyone.
And while I'm on the subject, for goodness sake get rid of ties for both boys and girls. Even the prime minister doesn't wear one except for proper formal occasions. A normal school day is not a formal occasion.

I love the little tartan pinafore up thread.
On a practical note with the heavier tartan kilts,how do you launder and dry them,and keep the pleats in.
Sorry if I am bit thick here,I hate to see pleated skirts without the pleats defined.

Tenko

My dd wore a kilt at her grammar school until 6th form and then they wore their own clothes . The bonus of a kilt is it expands as the girls get bigger . My dds was calf length at 11 and a mini at 16 . It was quite expensive and I refused to buy another one just for one year . A local comp now has a kilt very similar to my dds school

The bonus of a kilt is it expands as the girls get bigger
Yes, the waist can expand even if the kilt gets shorter.

I remember kilts being popular for little girls when my DD were young, not for school uniform but for wearing every day.
Kilts and hand knitted jumpers were standard wear, the tinies wore tartan pleated skirts attached to a bodice which just pulled over the head, then the obligatory hand knitted jumper on top.

My DD had a kilt as school uniform, bit of a nightmare to keep clean when she was 4. She also had to wear a hat, I still have her little hat somewhere.

Couple of other schools around the area wear kilts as well.

School uniform is expensive and could be bought much more cheaply if schools didn’t have such ridiculous demands for them. Just thankful that I didn’t have to buy anything new for my child this year as everything still fits, although the skirt is shorter, but still too big on the waist.

PS: Youngest GC (just turned 5) is at a school with a 'uniform' of white Tshirt, black joggers / sport shorts / grey sweatshirt - school badges to be sewn on! How sensible

Thank you Foxygloves! It doesn't appear to be an option at any of the other schools mentioned. I do understand that in England, few boys would wear kilts, but remain amused by the disparity.
I also found out that although you should register / apply for a true tartan, of course anyone can mock up a plaid pattern.

I note this is all about girls in kilts.
At my late DH’s school in the North of Scotland (yes, that one) boys had the option of kilts as an alternative to shorts.
Being English he wore shorts but was assured kilts kept the legs and nether regions warmer in the often bitter cold of Morayshire.

Cute

Sorry, I'm away so can't find the best photos on the computer, but this is one of my little pickles in the tartan uniform I mentioned earlier.

I think they look smart and distinctive, but would have hated having to wear them as a teen.

I suppose much depends on the purpose of the uniform. If it is to ‘give a good impression’ to those not wearing them, they score highly. Their adjustable nature (if they are true kilts and not tartan skirts) is a plus point, but if the purpose is to find a mode of dress that is comfortable and practical, and that the wearer will be happy with, I think that trousers (with cut and style options to suit different figures) with polo shirts in summer, and added sweatshirts in winter is the way forward. My two (boy and girl) wore that uniform in both nursery and primary and it was so much more comfortable than the shirts and ties they wore later - and that’s without the horrible blazers insisted on in all weathers.

Primrose53

Germanshepherdsmum

Is that Gresham’s School Primrose? The girls look very smart in their kilts.

Where I used to live there was a comprehensive which required the girls to wear kilts or trousers. The girls used to roll the tops of the skirts over (as we did in the 60s!) and didn’t look nearly so good.

Yes it is. germanshepherdsmum The kilts come well down to mid calf and are so thick and heavy that they would look ridiculous rolled over.

It's funny - when I was at High School in the 70s, the era of the "midi-skirt", mid calf length skirts were banned as a safety hazard and skirts had to sit on the knee and not lower.