The end of the school year was manic. I honestly don’t even have the energy to write about how stressful it was trying to get year 11 through that GCSE exam. To give you a flavour, one hour before the exam they asked me a whole load of stupid questions on things that I’ve told them a thousand times before, and asked me to mark practice answers that were 1000X worse than anything they’ve done all year. Then after the exam, one girl admitted she spent 20 minutes answering a question on a text we haven’t even studied. Honestly, I just want to block it out.
Anyway, I finally have some time to breathe. The school are currently putting me on a path to promotion (which I find myself willingly following despite saying I want to leave the profession approximately 4 times a week). As part of that, I have to start being a bit stricter on uniform. I have to pretend that I care whether or not their tie is the right length or they have an extra pair of earrings in, or their skirt is rolled.
Uniform: Brain Dump
I’d like to start by saying, I do believe that students should look smart for school, and I do agree that if the school has a uniform policy, that policy should be followed. It’s so ridiculous when you get parents effing and blinding at school teachers when their child is in trouble because they allowed them to get a hair cut that they knew was against the uniform policy, just because they don’t agree with it. Would you allow your child to go into school wearing a Juicy Couture tracksuit? No, because the school rules state that they need a uniform. That uniform extends to hair and jewellery. Do I think that’s a bit much? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not sure. I think children should be allowed to be who they want to be, and a school uniform really doesn’t allow them to express themselves.
Here's the thing though. It's school! And the most successful schools are the most consistent ones. Students are presented the same, treated the same, expectations are the same, rules are the same, no ambiguity. Plus, lets just be really honest for a minute… if a load of kids bowl out of a school with their shirts hanging out, rainbow hair and jewellery all up their arms, you judge the school, whether you mean to or not. But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe we should judge a school based solely on the students’ grades rather than what the children look like. Then again, if you look at the schools where they have strict uniform rules in place, the students do tend to get pretty good grades. I’m not sure if the smart uniform encourages the good grades, or if the smart uniform just attracts a certain type of student from a certain type of family, who is perhaps more likely to get the better grades. All I know is, they seem to go hand in hand.
Skirt Rolling
For me, skirt rolling is an issue. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, this is when a student rolls the waistband of their skirt over to make it shorter than it’s supposed to be. It bunches up and it doesn’t look good. The reason this is an issue for me, is because it’s a lose-lose situation for the students. School skirts are genuinely a crime against fashion. If you want children to wear their skirts knee length, don’t make them A-line. Some students have genuinely taken to just holding them at the desired length. It’s laughable. I recently had a conversation with a student that went something like this…
Me: [Name] you know you’re not allowed to roll your skirt. Can you un-roll it please?
Student: But Miss, if I don’t roll it I look like a nun.
Me: You don’t look anything like a nun. Nuns don’t wear that.
Student: Mr [Name] said we have rules on skirt length because if our skirts are too short then it’s distracting for the boys. Is that true?
Me: Absolutely not. I’m sure he was joking… or maybe there was some miscommunication there, I don’t know. But that’s definitely not the reason.
Student: We should be teaching girls that it doesn’t matter what they wear or how they dress. We’re not objects!
Me: I completely agree!
Student: We should be taken seriously and respected no matter what the length of our skirt is.
Me: Yes! Totally!
Student: So then why do I need to un-roll my skirt?
Eventually she un-rolled it, but the feminist in me was irritated that I had to make her do that when she had a point. It’s important she feels good about the way she looks in an outfit she has to wear every single weekday, right? Can we really argue that it’s less smart when it’s exactly the same skirt but shorter? I get that us teachers don't want to see more of the students than we bargained for, but the majority of students just roll it a little bit to make it slightly shorter, I'm not suggesting it's ok to roll it so much they have their knickers hanging out. If we didn't have this rule would they all roll them to knicker point? If the skirts weren't so hideous, would they roll them at all? Or is it a rebellion thing more than a fashion thing?
I suppose a grown woman probably wouldn’t go into an office wearing a mini skirt because that’s not considered smart. But then who gets to decide what is smart and what isn’t? The skirts I wear to work aren’t knee length, they sit an inch or two above my knee and I’ve never been told I don’t look smart. Are the middle aged men who are in charge of the school the ones dictating what length of skirt is smart on young girls? Let's be honest, whoever designed these school skirts was either a man who knows nothing about skirts, or a blind woman.
On the flip side of the argument, there’s something really sad about a group of teenage girls who feel they have to change the length of their skirt in order to look attractive or cool. It’s so wrong that young teenagers think that they have to have their arse on show or they’ll “look like a nun”. These girls are still very young, and the reality is they’re rolling their skirts up because they’re already programmed that the way they look is a priority. Whether they’re trying to attract boys, out-dress other girls, or just want to look good for themselves, they’re children in school uniform and it’s scary that they’re so worried about what it looks like.
A Plea From A Tired AHOY
Girls, please don’t roll your skirts. School uniforms are not made to be attractive, and that shouldn’t worry you because the way you look should not be your priority. I’ll do my best to teach everyone that women should be taken seriously and respected regardless of what they’re wearing, if you do your best to remember that you don’t need to change anything about yourself or your clothes in order to look good. You should feel good in whatever hideous outfits the school make you wear, because it’s not your clothes that make you beautiful.
P.S.
In most schools (mine included) teachers also have to follow strict rules when it comes to clothes. We don’t actually have terrible fashion sense, it’s just the women’s dress code is genuinely: Middle aged women who only shop in Debenhams. Anything fashionable is forbidden, I’m not exaggerating. I’m taking my own advice and not letting it bother me, but it does sting when you have to spend your own money on that crap. No wonder Debenhams has gone into administration with all the teachers leaving the profession.
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