Hi i have started a petition as a student from Mark Hall Academy. This is a concern which multiple of the students from Mark Hall Academy want to make a voice and change how things are done within the school. The teachers claim it’s ‘our school’ well it doesn’t feel like it is ‘our school’ it feels like it’s there is two sides to this school the students and the staff. We constantly have to put up with what they want to change 24/7 without any of the students opinion it’s all one sided. The main change we want to be made at this point in time are the PE kits which have been changed four times since 2017.

In 2017 it started with a white polo top with the Mark Hall logo in the top left corner, with a light blue hoodless jumper which also had the Mark Hall logo in the top left corner, with a very dark blue shorts, a light blue pair of high knee socks and a pair of plain white shoes. In 2018 the PE kit got changed to darker blue with the Mark Hall logo in the top left corner with a option of a skort or shorts, with dark blue high knee socks. In 2019 the Mark Hall Academy tracksuit was realised for optional use which was a blue tracksuit jacket with the Mark Hall logo and a jumper with a quarter zip and blue tracksuit bottoms. In 2020 they brung out the option to wear plan black or navy tracksuit bottoms and a plain black or navy jumper with no hood. In 2021 in April they have now said we have got to get the Mark Hall PE kit such as the Mark Hall tracksuit, the newest Mark Hall top with the shorts but the skorts and plain black or navy tracksuits have been banned.

The reasons the skorts have been banned and quotes from a member of the Mark Hall Academy staff ‘The girls wear them inappropriately and too high up which makes the men in the academy uncomfortable’. So in conclusion the girls have had to change what they have to wear just because the men are uncomfortable with the girls wearing them. We would totally understand if the skirts were really high and that when you bend over you could see bits and bobs and then we would be totally backing the school. But It goes along with girls rolling there skirts up or even when there not rolled up and they seem to be too ‘short’ because they feel uncomfortable with the skirts rolled up but because of things like this it proves that men still have all the power over women within the Mark Hall Academy walls and that what ever a man says goes when we don’t want to stand by that and these sexist natures. As girls we want to feel like we have the freedom to be comfortable when we walk into school and not to be nagged at for not being dressed right, we want to be proud to call Mark Hall Academy our school not to be disappointed about our place of schooling. 

They say it’s ‘our community’ and that it’s ‘our school’ well why don’t they come to us and ask for our opinion. We go to school to learn not to spend a fortune on PE kits that we are only seem to be wearing for a year, instead of paying for PE kits this money could be going ahead for our future what happened to ‘our community’ because at this point us as students have never felt so distant from the teachers and the Mark Hall Academy staff.