Headteachers need to stop shaming schoolgirls for having short skirts

Headteachers need to stop shaming schoolgirls for having short skirts
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/headteachers-need-to-stop-shaming-schoolgirls-for-having-short-s/

Shared from Google News & Weather

One of the challenges facing any school is how to adapt uniforms to contemporary fashion and life. It remains a challenge, but thank goodness progress has been made (otherwise girls would still be wearing calf-length brown gymslips).

There’s also a risk that schools and educationalists can get too fixated on uniform discipline. With so many other things going on within a school – particularly at the start of a new term – I’d take it as a bad sign that any school is making skirt length such an all-important issue.

For the girls in Milton Keynes, I can’t help thinking that their self-reflection will be as much about the amount of media attention they have generated as the merits of wearing longer skirts.

It’s a fact that whichever way you go as a head, you will never win. And once you start issuing bans, you’re always on the back foot. As each new generation of girls comes of age, skirt length will continue to be a battleground between those in authority and those fighting for the right to express their own identity.

The more schools take it in their stride, the more girls will realise that how they look is just a tiny part of what makes them who they are. And that’s a valuable lesson indeed.