Mackellar Girls High School: Year 10 students ‘banned’ from end of year assembly for false fingernails
Dozens of girls with false fingernails were ‘banned’ from attending a Sydney high school end of year ceremony because they breached its dress code, leaving parents seething.
Manly
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Dozens of students were banned from an end of year ceremony at a Sydney public high school because they were wearing false fingernails, their parents say.
Angry mums and dads say students were stopped from entering the hall for the final Year 10 assembly at Mackellar Girls’ High School on Monday.
A mother of one of the girls said prior to the ceremony, students were asked to step forward if they were wearing acrylic nails.
Rody Handcock said dozens of students were forced to show teaching staff their hands and then ushered away from the hall at the Manly Vale school.
Ms Handcock said her daughter was among up to at least 40 girls who were then forced to sit in a classroom while the event went ahead.
Many of the girls had had their nails done for the Year 10 formal that was held at Darling Harbour on Thursday last week.
But the girls were told that the acrylic nails breached the school’s strict dress code.
The banned girls were not even allowed to listen to the assembly, but shown a movie — The Grinch — instead.
After the school was inundated with complaints from angry parents most of the girls were allowed out of the holding classroom into the back of the hall to stand and watch, but not partake in the event.
Ms Handcock said the name of every girl who completed Year 10 was read out, except for the girls who were wearing the nails
“I understand, to a point, there needs to be a dress code, but this was a very, very extreme reaction by the school,” she said.
“It’s beyond ridiculous.”
Ms Handcock said her daughter would not be attending Mackellar Girls in years 11 and 12 “mainly because of the school’s mentality”.
She said she released the photo of her daughter’s hand on social media to show “how innocuous it was”.
“She’s not doing drugs, she’s not got a knife, she’s not swearing, she’s dressed appropriately, she’s just got clear false nails,” she said.
Ms Handcock said when her daughter arrived for the assembly, she and her schoolmates were gathered in a quadrangle — away from their parents who were being seated in the hall — where a staff member asked any girls with acrylic names to step forward.
“Teachers individually inspected their hands and my daughter was told her nails were not acceptable and she was put in the cluster that was told ‘you’re not going into the assembly’,” she said.
“Those girls were then put in two classrooms at the back of the school. None of these girls were mentioned in the ceremony. Basically, it’s as if they never existed.”
Ms Handcock, who was in the hall, received a text message from her daughter saying she was not allowed at the assembly.
“I left the hall to find my daughter, but I was waved away from the classroom,” she said.
“I rang the Education Department and made a complaint.”
Ms Handcock said she confronted school principal Christine Del Gallo outside the hall.
“I told her that rules were important, but I asked her if she had a heart and said these nails were not offensive,” she said.
“I said four years’ of achievements had been wiped because of one minor breach of the rules.”
Another mother, Kirstin Billington, of Allambie Heights, whose daughter April was kept apart from the assembly because of acrylic nails said she would not be attending the school next year.
Ms Billington said her youngest daughter, who was accepted into the school in Year 7 in 2023, would now not be going to Mackellar.
“The school is supposed to be nurturing, encouraging and supporting the girls, but it’s anything but,” she said.
“If the girls were being punished for walking into the school vaping, then yes, throw the book at them. But these are girls, my daughter included, who are good kids who’ve worked hard, are determined.
“Just to have that as their last day at school, segregated out, vilified and tarnished because they’ve got nails on. The school knew they had a formal last Thursday (organised by the parents and the students, not the school).
“The school is just out of touch.”
The Education Department said it understood “some students and parents are upset by the decision of the school”.
“However all Mackellar Girls’ students and parents were given written and verbal advice on the expectations around uniform and behaviour on multiple occasions since the start of the school year,” the spokesman said.
“This included specific advice to students and parents that acrylic nails were not acceptable at school and in particular for the Year 10 assembly.”
The department claimed that “around 20 of 239 Year 10 students at the school did not receive their portfolio on stage for this reason but were in the hall for the assembly.”
But Ms Handcock rejects that figures, saying her daughter told her there were at least 40 in the classroom she was kept in.
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