“That children are expected to wear uniform, but they can wear whatever part of that uniform they want,” is her no-nonsense answer. “This year we’ve gone from a girls’ uniform and a boys’ uniform to a skirt uniform and a trousers uniform,” explains Liana Richards, deputy head teacher at Uplands Community College, a state secondary in East Sussex. Now the rules appear to be relaxing, as 80 state schools across the UK, including 40 primaries, have introduced gender-neutral policies allowing girls to wear trousers (which, beyond the school gate, many of us have been doing for at least a century) and boys to wear skirts. “We still have the battle with children who don’t wear uniform,” she notes. For other schools it’s about removing references to a pupil’s gender in uniform dress codes.

Source: The Guardian June 13, 2016 14:39 UTC