Nicola Woolcock, Education Editor, Wednesday February 28 2024, 9.40pm GMT, The Times
A school has changed its uniform policy to allow girls to wear fake eyelashes to protect their mental health.
Pupils were taking time off school to attend appointments to remove the false lashes and were also left distressed by them being banned, according to a letter sent by a secondary school in Kent.
They will now be allowed to wear discreet false eyelashes as part of the school uniform policy.
David Collins, head teacher of Knole Academy, Sevenoaks in Kent said that pupils were missing school to have their lashes removed or refusing to attend school without them.
The letter to parents said: “Having students in school is the most important consideration and therefore, from Monday February 19 we shall allow false eyelashes to be worn as long as they are discreet.”
He added that they made changes to a uniform “when changes in society make a previous standpoint redundant or untenable”.
The mother of one 13-year-old who attends the school said: “There is a lot of peer pressure at the school. We’re a society being run by children, which I’m not going to stand for. Rules are rules and that’s the end of it.”
She said that, in allowing eyelashes, the school was making them part of the “uniform” and questioned whether false nails would be allowed next, adding: “Everyone’s going down the mental health route now.”
Knole Academy, a comprehensive with a grammar stream, has more than 1,300 pupils aged 11 to 19 and sent the letter out this month. Under a subtitle of “eyelashes and earrings”, the letter said: “We review our school rules on a regular basis and make amendments when changes in society make a previous standpoint redundant or untenable.
“We are increasingly seeing attendance affected by students taking time off to have false eyelashes removed or refusing to attend school through mental health considerations. We need to balance this against having a standard of dress which helps to create a work ethos and sets parameters for behaviour. In this case, having students in school is the most important consideration.”
The letter said that rules on earrings will also be changed to allow one set of small silver, pearl or crystal studs — rather than just gold.
Many schools ban artificial hair colours, obvious make-up, dangly earrings and false eyelashes.
One school in southwest London says in its uniform policy: “We do not want to encourage an environment where students are competing in terms of their appearance or how ‘fashionable’ they look. Make-up is not permitted in Years 7-9 (without exception). It is not deemed appropriate or necessary.”
Cheam High School added: “We also know that make-up could provide a distraction during lesson time given that younger students may be tempted to remove items from their bags to ‘top up’ or ‘reapply’. This would affect the learning and concentration of others. Tutors are provided with make-up wipes and will ask students in Years 7-9 to remove make-up during tutor time.”
It said that those in Years 10 and 11 were allowed “light touch” make-up but that false eyelashes were “not acceptable” for school.
A school in southeast London reversed its ban on unnatural hair colours, saying that this was racist and unfairly penalising black girls. Townley Grammar School abandoned hairstyle related punishments in 2020.
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