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In an interesting article on education website 'The Key', a spokesman for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (the government's single equality watchdog) advises strongly against trousers-only policies, saying that it "could be considered a case of indirect discrimination". Indeed.

Many people mistakenly think equality simply means treating everyone the same, but it  doesn't. After all, a skirts only policy would be equal treatment, but it would also clearly be anti-boy! A couple of years ago, the then government imposed a much stronger equality duty on all branches of government - schools and academies included - that widened the scope of indirect discrimination. The EHRC thinks skirt bans may breach it. So do we.

Real the full article here.

 

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Herne Bay school on the north Kent coast hit the national headlines last October after threatening to ban skirts on safeguarding grounds. It has now backed down.

One reason why this particular ban threat attracted so much attention was the language used by the (female) head, who said that girls were “putting themselves at risk”. Many people saw this as blaming the victim and over 2000 signed a petition (click here) criticizing the head for her words. Even more importantly there is no evidence whatsoever that girls who wear skirts are at a greater risk of sexual assault than those who wear trousers. That’s not to say that schools should not stop girls wearing excessively short skirts, but don’t blame it on safeguarding or health and safety.

Anyway there’s a happy ending in this case, as the school has decided to instead introduce a standard skirt – which was the obvious solution all the time.

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A small 13-18 school in Hertfordshire has become the latest to ban the wearing of skirts by girls. Buntingford based Freman College is to impose a trousers-only rule on new pupils in September 2012, with all under 16 pupils to be affected in September 2013 (see here for details).

As ever this site asks, is this even legal under the new Equalities Act, with its emphasis on gender equity (as well as gender equality)?

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For those of us that follow this sort of thing, the news coverage of the banning of skirts at Eastwood Academy, Southend in December 2011 raised eyebrows (see here for example): the school claimed overwhelming support for its ban - even though so many other bans have proven controversial.

Some more information has now emerged in the form of the released parents’ survey results (see here). According to this document, the questions asked covered whether parents thought short skirts are a problem, whether it could be embarrassing for teachers to confront this, etc, but it did not include the obvious question – ‘do you think skirts should be banned?’. Why not? There are two possible explanations. Either the school did not ask the question because it suspected it would not get the answer it wanted or it did ask the question but did not release the results because they do not fit with the decision they wanted to make anyway.

This school had got a new head in September 2011. To have this all done by December, he must have started his push for a skirt ban straight away. Frankly, it looks ideological and the survey looks very dodgy. 

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A highly rated New Forest school has become the first in the country to re-introduce skirts after imposing a ban. Burgate School imposed trousers-only in 2009 following concerns about the short skirts worn by some girls: as with all the schools listed on this site, it took the easy and politically correct option rather than simply enforce its own uniform rules.

Now a new headteacher has changed direction and from September 2011 skirts have been allowed again (although this time only a single design from a single supplier is permitted)

It is a contention of this website that skirt bans are driven entirely by headteachers and senior staff and that governing bodies (which formally make decisions on uniform) tend to be weak and easily led. It took a new head to lift the ban and that’s likely to be true elsewhere.

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