Question about school uniforms?
Posted by Downtown_Physics8853@reddit | AskABrit | View on Reddit | 55 comments
I watched the Netflix series "Adolescence" last week, and was wondering about the school uniforms that were being worn in one episode. I'm American, but I do realise that in the UK most kids go to "non-governmental" schools, although this one made me wonder if it was such a school, or if it was one of those council schools? I'm assuming that the presence of uniforms meant it was the former?
Still, what surprised me was the brevity of the skirts on the girl's uniforms. This would NEVER happen in the US, and I always assumed that British modesty would probably be similar. Here in the US, when "public" schools institute uniform policies, it's generally to reduce how 'revealing' girl's clothing is (as well as to reduce 'gang affiliated' clothing amongst the boys).
So, am I correct about the school showcased, and are uniforms like those these girls wore common?
SuperShelter3112@reddit
Huh, American 40 year old here who was once an American teen girl, and can confirm that at the Catholic school I went to, our skirts were FREQUENTLY rolled up as high as we could get away with. Often paired with shirt rolled-up boxers underneath, and Doc Martens. OP, I think it is possible you have never been to a school with uniforms/been a teenage girl?
usuallydramatic@reddit
Almost all high schools over here have uniforms, whether it’s state (government ran) schools, academies (privately owned public schools) or private schools. In general, girls in high school have pretty much always taken their knee-length skirts and rolled them at the top to make them short. They aren’t supposed to do it but they do anyway.
jonrosling@reddit
Academies are not privately owned. They're un by not-for-profit trusts which are contracted with the government.
After-Dentist-2480@reddit
“Not for profit” provided you ignore the inflated wages Trust CEOs, Executive Headteachers and various others, who contribute little towards children’s learning, pay themselves.
crucible@reddit
Academies in that sense are an England-only thing. We don’t have them here in Wales.
LeTrolleur@reddit
Count yourself lucky, my highschool is the only school left in my town that hasn't been converted into an academy, and surprise surprise it's still the top state school in the town.
Academies don't magically make schools better like the past governments thought they would, they still have the same problems and they still can't do much about them.
smoulderstoat@reddit
And the term "public school" has an opposite meaning here from the one used on the other side of the pond.
Chunderdragon86@reddit
Some have tie and blazer policy they tried introducing it to my infant school going sons year no chance a six year old wearing a tie get real
crucible@reddit
I don't know if this was due to uniforms kinda being 'reintroduced' in the 80s or something, but I wore a tie in Reception at age 4 in the early 80s...
TeamOfPups@reddit
My son has worn a tie since five, to be fair he can tie it but oh my god it's rancid so grimy and stained and ragged edges with pulled threads hanging out. I've stopped caring it's a lost cause.
Chunderdragon86@reddit
Exactly not to mention the danger factor
herwiththepurplehair@reddit
The term “academy” is confusing, because the vast majority of secondary schools in Scotland are academies. As to the skirts; I used to work in one. Girls wearing more make up than I would wear on a night out, and skirts that pretty much showed their butt cheeks. I went to a English grammar school in the 80s and we were sent home if the skirt went above the knee!
safadancer@reddit
Can confirm that the secondary school students at the train station near our house all have rolled up skirts, as my kid has commented on the shortness of them before.
crumblingruin@reddit
About 6% of children in the UK attend private schools. The other 94% go to state (i.e. government-funded) schools. Almost all schools, probably about 98% according to Google, require a uniform, regardless of whether they are private or state schools. The uniform rules (skirt length and so on) are up to each school. Some schools (including probably all private schools) require a very specific uniform - specific coloured ties, blazers, and so on. My school uniform, for instance, could only be bought in one particular shop.
Those very short skirts are still allowed at some schools. There's a notorious uniform at one girls' school in Brighton where they basically wear tartan mini skirts. Very saucy!
atheist-bum-clapper@reddit
Perhaps it's me but "very saucy" when talking about a 13 year olds skirt is a bit weird.
crumblingruin@reddit
Well, for starters they're sixth formers, not 13. For seconds I'm gay so I'm not leering at them or anything. Not sure what got your gander up.
EvilRobotSteve@reddit
When I went to school, which was around the same time as the series, many of the girls would modify or wear their skirts in a way that made them shorter, but they were supposed to be knee length.
Nobody really cared so much about that stuff then though, unless they went too far with it, although I remember a couple of girls had a reputation for wearing their skirts so short "it may as well be a belt"
The times were different, people didn't really consider predators as cases seemed a lot rarer than they do now, and certainly gangs were never a thing when I grew up, not that would have schoolkids in anyway.
smoulderstoat@reddit
Wait, is Adolescence not set in the present day?
EvilRobotSteve@reddit
I've not seen it TBH I just googled and it said something about the 80's
PipBin@reddit
I think the bit in the school is a year or two before the end.
smoulderstoat@reddit
Thanks, I thought I was losing my mind.
ODFoxtrotOscar@reddit
My daughter went to a school that changed the uniform skirt to a kilt type, on the theory that this was not possible to roll shorter
Oh yes it was!
Cultural-Eggplant592@reddit
Yes, we have skirts, the girls choose to wear them short and the schools can try to control it as best they can.
What the hell is "British modesty"? We think you are the modesty puritans, with your no shorts/no shoulders rules. We have no such thing.
25kernow@reddit
A schoolboy kills one of his female classmates and you’re concerned with how short the girl’s skirts are?!🤔🤦🏽♀️
parallelgirl@reddit
Interestingly my 14yo's (state) school has just removed skirts from the school uniform - it's trousers for everyone from September.
PipBin@reddit
When I was at school girls weren’t allowed to wear trousers.
Bourach1976@reddit
The school was a state school and girls will always try to roll their skirts higher than they possibly should.
Also America is a lot more prudish then we are.
Martinonfire@reddit
…yep when daughters leave home to go to school their skirts are knee length by the time they get to school they have miraculously shrunk!
ODFoxtrotOscar@reddit
I know exactly what you mean!
I saw it as my duty to supply garments that complied with the uniform requirements
And told it is was her own silly fault if she got into trouble for skirt-rolling, too much make up, too much jewellery and she’d have to take the consequences
ODFoxtrotOscar@reddit
State schools can be run by the local Council, or they can be run as an academy/free school, or they can be VA faith schools. All are publicly funded, but the funding and oversight mechanisms vary, as do freedoms on setting term dates (but they must offer the required number of days per school year), admissions (but they must comply with the Admissions Code) and curriculum (but pupils will sit the same SATS, GCSEs etc, so the variation is in practice slight.
Nearly all British schools have uniform. The legal status of the school isn’t relevant to that.
And schoolgirls have been rolling their skirts up to pelmets since the mini skirt first emerged in the 1960s
ZoomByYak@reddit
This person is right about how schools are run (more or less!) for England but this does change for the other devolved nations, especially with regards to qualifications. OP could go down the rabbit hole if they wanted about the differences!
For the sake of the OP about uniforms, 100% this.
ODFoxtrotOscar@reddit
Yes - I left it there, because I thought further detail (of which there is much) wouldn’t be helpful here!!
Flibertygibbert@reddit
Can confirm! Once we aged out of compulsory gymslips, we wore skirts of varying lengths 😄
smoulderstoat@reddit
Is that you, Dad?
PipBin@reddit
I’ve only known one school that didn’t have a uniform. The reason was that it was a primary school in an area with a high intake of immigrants. This meant that they could send the children straight to school without the parents worrying about getting the uniform right. While I worked there they had a vote with the parents about having a uniform and the parents decided to have one as it’s easier and cheaper.
In most schools it’s school jumper and school approved trousers or skirt.
Some uniforms in private schools are crazy. I have family who went to Christ’s Hospital school. Look up their uniform.
https://www.christs-hospital.org.uk
TeamOfPups@reddit
Oh wow, that uniform is a... choice.
Fettes College nearby where I live has a very erm jazzy blazer .
prustage@reddit
Britons are modest but not prissy or puritanical. We also don't hold the paranoid belief that there are pedos lurking round every corner.
Electronic_Cream_780@reddit
You are far more prudish in the US. Bigg Market in Newcastle on a Saturday night would give you all palpitations. Rolling up the waistband of your skirt is a rite of passage
hr100@reddit
Shortening our skirts was a way to feel like we were rebelling in our school uniform, same as having our shirt out or changing the length of our tie. They might get you told off by a teacher but never badly, just told to sort out your uniform.
I don't know of any secondary school (age 11-16) that doesn't have a uniform.
Drewski811@reddit
Nope, you're not correct, quite a few misconceptions
Mrszombiecookies@reddit
Weird ones at that
No_Bullfrog_6474@reddit
at my secondary, from when i was in year 9 or so, our skirts were supposed to be down to our knees or some bs like that and they’d come round our form groups in the morning maybe once a week to check our uniform was up to standard (skirt length, tie length, no nail varnish, smart shoes, not too much makeup, you name it) but it didn’t stop anyone… customising their uniform, after the inspection was over. skirts were always rolled up - hell, i have never been one for short skirts but even i rolled those ones
No_Bullfrog_6474@reddit
i would also say that, in my meagre experience, the worse the school the more strict they are on the uniform. that school, by the time i left (3 headteachers after i started), was known as one of the worst in the area, and i left it to go to the local girls’ grammar for sixth form, which was the best state school in the county. our dress code was barely existent, and the few rules were reasonable ones (eg shoes that you can easily move around school in without tripping or falling), whereas my secondary had been considering introducing uniforms for their sixth form (a horrific concept)
catiew@reddit
Not sure what you mean by a “non-governmental” school?
Most schools in the UK are funded by the government and students do not pay to attend, the school in Adolescence was one of these schools.
Almost all school age students wear a uniform in the UK, both at state and private schools (this can be different 16+). Kids will do absolutely everything to modify their uniforms/get away with accessories that are not “allowed”. This is more or less policed by the schools depending on many, many factors.
TeamOfPups@reddit
Modifications include how long you wear your skirt, how long you wear your tie. Trying to get away with makeup, jewelry, nail varnish, coloured hair. Trying to get away with branded clothes / logos. Trying to get away with trainers instead of shoes or polo shirt instead of shirt. Having a fashionable bag.
erinoco@reddit
If anything, more state schools have introduced school uniform, or made it more rigid. When I attended my local state primary, there had been no school uniform since at least the 1950s. Today, it is compulsory. (The reputation of the school has declined considerably since my time.)
Girls frequently wear skirts above the knee unless the school makes a point of trying to enforce skirt length, which then degenerates into a trial of strength (many girls roll up their skirts if they can). But it can vary with the dictates of fashion - my impression is that micro skirts are not worn as commonly as they used to be.
Prestigious-Net9629@reddit
Most children in the UK go to government funded - i.e. state schools. The confusion seems to come in as private schools, where parents pay for the child to attend, are known as 'public" schools. This is from a time where the highest in society would have tutors and governesses, and 'public schools' were schools where anyone who could afford to pay the fee could send their child there.
Uniforms are standard in almost all state and fee paying schools (and vary considerably in price!). The idea in many is that if all the kids are wearing the same, they won't get bullied for not wearing the latest trends/brands. I went to a rare non-uniform school and the bullying for not having the latest sneakers/'best' expensive brands was unrelenting!
The skirts are supposed to be a 'modest' length, usually knee, but as many have said, as soon as girls get down the road from the house the skirts would be rolled up a good few inches as rebellion against 'the system'! 😄 No one except the strictest of parents really cares. Where I live most of the girls wear opaque black tights (hose) anyway.
Lucky-Advertising983@reddit
The schools do regularly talk about how long the length of the skirts should be, but when they can get away with it some girls do roll them up, so most likely on the way to and from school and in school if they don’t get picked up on it.
smoulderstoat@reddit
The vast majority of school children go to maintained schools, which can either be run by a local council or (more likely now) by an academy trust. Local authority schools are funded by the local council but have a large measure of self-management, academies are directly funded by the government and have a bit more independence. Both are free to attend, both have uniforms, and apart from their governance and funding there's really not much difference.
Schools have been trying to find ways of stopping girls from rolling up their skirts for decades, with varying degrees of success. There is something of a movement towards stricter uniform policies at present, as part of an emphasis on stricter discipline all round. But the uniforms in Adolescence are pretty accurate, yes.
BlackJackKetchum@reddit
BTW - our police are not empowered to beat up children in order to obtain confessions that are then admissible as evidence.
thewearisomeMachine@reddit
Huh? No idea what this even means
Why? The US is famously a far more religious and puritanical country than the UK
jonrosling@reddit
The school is a state school.
British modesty is overstated. Especially when it comes to teenage girls.
leslieknope1993@reddit
America was built by the puritans that we kicked out at Plymouth - the prudish nature remains far more ingrained into American culture than British. Most British schools have uniforms, regardless of their funding structure. Speaking as a former teenage girl, it's a rite of passage to roll one's skirt up to flout the rules.
Slight-Brush@reddit
In the UK most kids go to state (‘government’) schools, and most of those have uniforms.
Uniform skirts are meant to be worn respectably long but rarely are.
Uniforms here are not often about ‘modesty’ or ‘not being revealing’ and more about corporate identity and, unsurprisingly, uniformity.
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