Former students recall strict Australian private school rules on uniforms, makeup

Former Australian private school girls have banded together for a TikTok trend. Photo / TikTok

Former Australian private school girls have banded together for a TikTok trend, revealing what they describe as the "heinous sh**" they endured over the course of their education, and it's baffling students overseas.

The viral trend was sparked by a video from ex-private Catholic school student Claire Champion, whose video, with more than half a million views, details her schooling environment and strict rules enforced.

The regulations centred around uniform, appearance, travel to and from campus and bag and locker use.

The 22-year-old said she forgot that not everyone had the same school experience she did and wanted to share what she believed to be the outrageous features of her private school.

She then went on to recall how students had to wear the same uniform and school bag which cost around $500, they could not wear makeup, nail polish, jewellery or hair dye.

"They would literally come around with a makeup wipe and pull it out, you'd have to sit in the middle of class and rub your makeup off," she said."

"If you were caught wearing it twice a week they would put it up in an envelope and put it in the office and you can't have it back until the end of the week.

"At the end of the term, some girls would be coming back from the office with multiple envelopes of jewellery that had been confiscated."

Champion also highlighted how the girls would be lined up and staff would assess their uniform compliance including the length of the skirt (which had to rest on the knee), socks and shoes.

"When we did uniform checks, teachers would come down with bags packed and it would have makeup wipes, nail polish remover, hair ties and little envelopes for jewellery and shoe polish," she recalled.

"They would stand in front of you and watch you take it all off.

"You'd have to f**ing kneel down and polish your shoes."

She also recounted a time the vice-principal followed the bus for an hour and 10 minutes to bust students getting off without their school blazer on, which was a strict uniform requirement.

"Stockings couldn't be sheer, for the love of god couldn't be sheer," she said.

"He [the vice-principal] is standing at the bus stop watching us all get off and everyone who got off the bus without their blazer got an afternoon detention.

"These schools really pride themselves on their appearance and how the students look and present themselves, but is there as much care that goes into dealing with mental illnesses, eating disorders, what about bullying, do the schools care about that. I am just going to say that there really wasn't much in place for anything of that nature," Champion said in the video.

Yasmin laughed as she recalled the uniform regulations of her school. Photo / TikTok@yassssyyy

Former all-girls private school student Yasmin shared an experience similar to Champion's in a separate video.

"They [the school] had security at every single entrance of the school monitoring uniforms," she said.

"They would make the security walk down the road and literally spy on the girls to see if we are in the correct uniform or had our blazer on.

"The security would literally be waiting at the tram stop picking out the girls that didn't have their blazer with their jumper or didn't have their school star on."

The TikToker said girls would often have to "go into a little corner or a driveway" to quickly put on their blazer or adjust their uniform before entering the school grounds.

Yasmin also stressed rules around the school PE uniform, saying sports clothing could only be worn on a PE day.

"You weren't allowed to wear your PE uniform to school unless you had it in the first period of the morning and if you had it in the third period, you'd have to come in your school dress or skirt, get changed at recess or lunch into your uniform and then get changed out of it in your own time, you weren't allowed to leave your school uniform in your PE uniform," she said.

One unique experience, Yasmin explained, involved rules about school bag placement during class hours.

"If you didn't put your bag in your locker and actually lock it, they would look through your bag to find your laptop and they would take it to the security off or they would take the whole bag to the security office to teach you a lesson," she recalled.

A TikTok user agreed with this claim in the comments of Yasmin's video saying: "Our teachers checked our lockers to see if they were locked and if they weren't they tossed our bags into a giant rubbish bag."

Yasmin concluded her rant with a story about how her scooter which she rode to school was confiscated.

"I'm like why, what's the problem."

Rhea Miars described the time she was given a detention in Year 7 for an ill-fitting skirt. Photo / TikTok@rheamiars

Melbourne-based ex-student Rhea Miars said she was "so glad TikTok is finally talking about this [private school experiences]".

"I am going to tell you the most appalling things that happened in my six to seven years at an all-girls Christian school," she said.

Miars explained the "completely ridiculous uniform rules" she dealt with, "like not being able to have a single strand of hair on your face, having to have it fully tied back".

"Literally you have to have the one type of sock, you have to have your buttons done up to your neck to choke you and your tie has to be all the way yanked up," she said.

"The most ridiculous thing was their obsession with what we were doing outside of school.

"We would have these assemblies where they would discuss good morals, ethics and values with what we did with our time outside of school, like don't hang out with boys, don't go to the mall after school, don't go to Hungry Jacks after school in school uniform, they were so obsessed with their reputation it was just ridiculous.

"And unless you could play the violin, piano or could play chess, they didn't give a sh** about you."

All three videos were flooded with comments from other former students who backed the claims and added to the list.

"Can confirm, nothing like being caught at Macca's with your blazer off," said one user.

"In Year 8 I got a detention for wearing an orange hair tie because the school colours are navy blue," "my principal made me kneel in front of him to check my skirt length", and "some teachers had a tool to unpick the bottom hem of skirts that were too short and just leave them unhemmed all day," others said.

One user claimed her school had a daylight rule where girls had to be two metres away from the boys during break and eating periods and during assemblies.

"This actually gives me PTSD I forgot this happened to us," one TikTok user said.

These unanimous reports of Australian school experience shocked social media users from overseas who could not believe what they were hearing.

"I'm from Canada and this is wild! No nail polish?" said one user.

"Moved from the US to Australia and in Year 3 I was given a detention for not finding a buddy to line up with fast enough. A detention. Mum was livid," said another.