Girls’ uniform update for Academic Year 2018-19

BIS HCMC is delighted to share with parents and students an exciting update to our Secondary girls’ uniform for the next Academic Year. Following consultation with students, parents and staff we will be changing the style of the girls’ skirt to reflect the active lifestyle of our students and the need to ensure comfort whilst maintaining a professional standard of dress. The existing skirt will be replaced with skorts in a new high-quality lightweight cotton fabric, as of August 2018.

This change is a direct result of student voice; students sharing with us their concerns, thoughts, and feelings about the school uniform and our uniform team working hard to provide a solution to meet those needs. For the past two years we have had a group of students piloting each new design to test the fit, comfort, practicality and professional style of each and providing constant feedback and changes each time. Students initially gave suggestions for what needed to be included in the design, with the top requests being: comfortable around the waist; could be worn at a respectable length; allows ease of movement for lessons such as drama; have two pockets! With this final design we believe that we have ticked all of those boxes!

Following this initial data gathering process, we have been working closely with both our purchasing team and with a group of students from across the year groups to design the new uniform. It soon became clear that we needed a design that allowed our students to feel professional as well as be practical for activities such as riding a bicycle to school. Once the final design was created, these students met with Mr Rowlands to share with him the process that they had gone through in order to gain approval for the final change. Here’s what they have to say about the new design:

The skort is very practical for biking, walking and running to and around school at lunch and break times, the two pockets are really useful, and the elasticated back makes the skort so much more comfortable. The length is also respectable and the skort design rather than the skirt allows us to be active and confident. - Hayley Handscombe

The skorts are a much more comfortable fit for any activity around the school and outside. By getting skorts it allows us to not have to worry about the skirt folding in a way that is against our favour. - Audrey Miranda

Through this process our students have learnt about change management, and the different people who need to be included in order for a change to happen. They have seen the process from the beginning stages of gathering feedback and identifying areas of concern, through providing solutions and testing these out to refine the design, all the way to the presentation and finalisation stages.

Our current Head Student team will be sharing this  change to the uniform in upcoming assemblies. They represent  the culmination of hard work of the previous 3 Head Student teams in seeing this change to fruition.

We’re really proud of what has been achieved and grateful for all of the student input in developing these designs, and we look forward to seeing them around school in August.

Lauren Binnington, Assistant Head Teacher