Uniform

I hope you are enjoying a wonderful summer. I note that the media ran a story this week about school uniform: The Daily Telegraph considers the debate surrounding the appropriate length for a school skirt. Dr Rowena Blencowe, head of Trentham High School in Stoke-on-Trent, has stipulated that come September, girls at her mixed comprehensive will be required to wear "business-like" trousers. It is practice that has been taken up in recent years by an estimated 60 secondaries in England and Wales, or 1.5% of the total. "I don't want staff wasting any more time sorting out skirts," she explained. "And it's not pleasant for male members of staff, and students either, if the girls 'wearing short skirts' have to walk upstairs and sit down. After a while, it stops being a uniform issue and starts becoming a safeguarding issue." Her warning is echoed by another head, Sarah Pashley, of Bridlington School in East Yorkshire, who is also instituting a ban. In an explanatory letter to parents she wrote: "To set it 'the ban' in context, on one occasion when a male member of staff challenged a female student on her skirt length, she retorted, You shouldn't be looking at my legs.’” There are schools that introduced a skirt ban but it failed. John Colet School in Wendover, Buckinghamshire, insisted on trousers for girls in 2011, but has just announced the return of a regulation pleated skirt as part of a wider overhaul of the uniform, including the replacement of blazers with sweatshirts. Headteacher Christine McLintock says the change is down to parental feedback. A DfE spokesman said that uniform policy was a matter for individual schools. She added that she was not aware that uniform came within the safeguarding remit. I have some sympathy with Headteachers who are frustrated by the amount of time and energy wasted in negative conversations. We have no plans to ban skirts but please do continue to support us when purchasing new items of uniform over the summer and in conversations at home.