School causes outrage after using bizarre technique to measure girls' skirts
![<i>One school has outraged parents after forcing female students to have their skirts measured [Photo: Getty]</i>](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/A_1FcJhDpuFe7XiTuKLGKw--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyNDI7aD02Nzk-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/homerun/feed_manager_auto_publish_494/9099c46217414927b4408152a10a0a07)
A school in Nottingham has caused chaos among parents after implementing a “draconian” method to measure girls’ skirts.
The West Bridgford School is making female students kneel on chairs to see how far their skirt rides up.
If the hemline of the skirt is more than 5cm away from the chair, the student will be sent home to change into something more appropriate.
Parents were informed about the new practice in a letter which read: “A simple test for shortness can now be used to judge compliance, which is to place a bended knee on a hard surface such as a plastic chair and to measure from the surface of the chair to the hemline; this should not exceed 5cm.”
The secondary school decided to clamp down on skirt length in September.
Parents have been invited to a number of consultations on the matter (receiving several letters this year alone) yet are still outraged by the recent decision.
![<i>Girls will be sent home if their skirt is too short [Photo: The West Bridgford School]</i>](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/_DEQwzU36Lo0jYb0wJ4yUA--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTQxOQ--/https://media.zenfs.com/en/homerun/feed_manager_auto_publish_494/3058383a2a86aad4b11e4f208ce6ab13)
One parent said it was “absolutely hilarious.” Talking to the Mirror, they added: “When we got the letter through, we were in fits of laughter. It reads like some sort of draconian law.”
“Although the school is very strict on uniform, there wasn’t a policy on skirts, which, as you can imagine, caused havoc. They were progressively getting shorter and shorter, and I think they felt the need to do something about it.”
“The school is making a mountain out of a molehill. You just can’t imagine girls lining up to kneel down on plastic chairs every day. It’s something out of a Victorian girls’ school.”
Another mum, who has two daughters at the school, also voiced her opinion, calling the idea of “teachers measuring how far [girls’] skirts ride up their thighs as highly inappropriate.”
“It is bordering on sexualising the girls and could make some of the shyer pupils feel quite uncomfortable,” she continued. “”Common sense should say when a skirt is so short it becomes nothing more than a belt, but an inch or two above the knee is hardly outraging public decency, is it?”
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