[Margaret Pilkington]

Yes Accyman, you are right and it is a very flimsy excuse.
If the school wishes to ban them then they should just do that and not give a ludicrous reason.
It wouldn't matter if the patent leather extended up the whole of a girls leg...you still would not be able to look up her skirt using the reflective powers of the footwear.

If they were keen to protect the modesty of the girls then the simple answer would be to ask all the girls to wear trousers.

I am out and about when the pupils are making their way to The Academy and St Christopher's and some of the skirts these girls wear are so short that you can lamost see their underwear anyway.
We had a teacher who would monitor the hemlines of the girls as they filed past into school, anyone who had a short skirt on(above the knee) was sent home to change.