Teens wear skirts to school in ‘protest’ over no shorts uniform policy

About 30 pupils challenged the current uniform policy at The Bolsover School on June 23.

They turned up for classes wearing skirts after being told they could not swap their long trousers for shorts, despite temperatures soaring to 27°C in places.

The move was seen as a protest against the school’s current policies, which allows skirts but doesn’t assign them to a gender.

Parent Abigail Wood, whose two sons were part of the group, voiced her support for the protest – branding the current uniform policy a ‘joke’.

She said: “They have been told no child is allowed to wear shorts and the heatwave was getting hotter. Both my boys were talking to their friends on Wednesday night about going to school in a skirt as a protest as it was too hot to wear trousers.

“I spent all night cutting and sewing my work skirts so they could do this and I could support them.

“They were quite happy in the morning to still go ahead to 'protest', they went to school and I believe about 30 boys did this.

“One teacher actually said to one of my boys it was OK for him to wear a skirt as it was knee length as per the uniform policy.”

Claiming another child tried to look up her son’s skirt during the protest, Abigail added: “Saying it's OK because it's knee length is a joke as their logo skirts aren't even knee length and the majority of girls going in and out of school are most definitely not knee length.

"With the news at the moment of girls with short skirts being followed and photographed maybe it would be safer to have a uniform policy where boys and girls can wear shorts.

"Instead of boys in skirts as they still wear shorts under to stop people looking up.”

Matt Hall, headteacher, said no protests had taken place at The Bolsover School in relation to wearing trousers in hot weather.

He said: “The wearing of skirts is part of our school uniform policy.”