Strict school dress codes can affect self-esteem, academic warns

As the weather gets warmer and term draws to a close, students are throwing off their blazers and rolling down their socks – but are rigid school uniform policies affecting students' wellbeing?

Dr Elizabeth Nassem from the University of Bradford researches school bullying and says uniform rules, many rooted in "Victorian era" thinking, are increasingly out of step with the realities facing young people today.

She is the founder of consultancy Bullied Voices and has worked with schools across the UK.

"When teachers are required to enforce inflexible rules without the autonomy to apply professional judgement, routine interactions can slip into something far more damaging," she said.

"Girls have described feeling sexualised or humiliated when told to 'cover up', even when that is not the intention. That experience has serious consequences for self-esteem, trust and mental health."

Jessica, a 17-year-old student at Notre Dame Sixth Form College in Leeds, went to a school in Bradford with a "strict" uniform policy which she said was uncomfortable.

"On hot days we were sometimes allowed to wear socks - rather than tights - but they kind of laid off of that in the later years when I was there and I remember we all came in and my form teacher literally shouted saying 'you all look like porn stars' - I was in year nine at the time.

"How can you say that to essentially little girls, sexualising them?"

Nassem says Jessica's experience is not unusual.

"They feel humiliated, they feel sexualised and they do say a lot of it is the men.

"It's almost like this body that becomes a female, which starts to become a woman, becomes punished. And I think that's how they see it."

Eva, another 17-year-old student at Notre Dame, remembers a time at her secondary school when teachers would check the length of skirts.

"There were these skirts and they were called Charleston skirts so they'd be like really tight at the top and then they go out like really low down, but all the girls were rolling up.

"They had uniform checks some days in the morning where you'd have to stand up and go around and if you didn't have the right uniform then you'd be held behind in form and get a negative."

Blessing, who is also 17, said it was not just skirts - you could also be picked on for trousers that were too tight.

Eva's classmate Jem said he thinks the girls were treated differently to the boys.

"There are a few situations where I was like, 'this is getting a bit weird now, can we stop talking about the length of girls' skirts'?

"When I'm kind of standing around in the hallway and I'm looking at a male teacher confronting a group of 12-year-old girls and asking them to roll down their skirts and stuff, it would just feel slightly uncomfortable."