Today, the students of Penrice Academy, Cornwall were informed that staff would be enforcing the rule that "regulation school trousers" would be obligatory as of September 2015, and this rule was directly targeted at female students.

Since Penrice Academy has claimed to promote "equality for both sexes", we feel that this new rule is extremely condescending. Creating an enforcement specified to only one gender is both unfair and sexist. We believe that rules should be made compulsory for ALL members of the academy, including staff.

How is it fair that students are restricted to the extent of the tightness of their trousers, when teachers can walk around in skinny jeans and high heels? The school's defence towards this matter has always been "to prepare students for the inevitability of dress codes in the workplace". I find this very ironic, considering teachers (who earn approximately £30,000/y within a respected profession) can wear clothing that completely opposes the dress code of their students which is designed to reinforce such ideas!

Female students are not allowed to wear tight trousers because the school feels this to be innapropriate. How can tightness ever be perceived as "inappropriate"?

• Does not reveal any skin 
• Does not exhibit genitalia 
• Does not have an impact on the education of others or themselves
• Merely exemplifies a girl's figure 

So why does the school continue to label tight school trousers as "inappropriate"?

Not only this, the regulation school trousers have been introduced simply because tightness violates the dress code. The school promotes individualism, self confidence and female empowerment. By introducing these trousers, the school is teaching us that we all need to look the same in order to better our education. It is stunting our creativity, shunning our identity, enforcing ideas that success comes to those who look/dress a certain way. We are being told that appearance is important when it comes to preparing adolescents in the future.

This is the definition of "school":

"An institution for educating children".

This means that a school's purpose is to educate and inform us so that we can fulfil a prosperous future. I personally fail to see how the tightness of my trousers can possibly influence the educational process for that of my peers and that of myself.

The school's priorities should be the educational, social, personal and physical wellbeing of it's students. Not the worry that by students wearing trousers too tight, this might have an impact on future Ofsted reports, thus the school's reputation.

We believe that Penrice Academy does not possess any statistics, facts or figures to support their decision to introduce this new rule. They did not ask for the opinions of their students, due to the correct belief that their decision would almost definitely be met with outage such as my own.

School is designed to educate children so that they are better equipped for the future, and appearance does in NO WAY affect this process.

Sign the petition to inform the authoritative figures within Penrice Academy that it is by all means unacceptable to shun our awful confidence, before proceeding to feed us rules and regulations centred around sexism and limitations.