Kid's Uniform Shorts

Length is the first thing to get right with uniform shorts. Codes are written either as an inseam minimum or as a fingertip rule, and the inseam, measured from the crotch seam straight down to the hem, runs from about 5 inches on the smallest sizes to 9 inches on older kids. Get that number wrong and the size on the label rescues nothing.

Everything above the leg opening is a trouser. Same 7 to 9 ounce blended twill, same flat or pleated front, same belt loops and the same hidden waist adjuster. Where the two part company is the hem, which on a decent pair is turned twice and stitched with two rows, since a single turned hem on a short frays where it brushes a chair edge six hours a day. Nothing here is lined, so whatever a child wears underneath is a separate purchase rather than a built-in one.

Uniform Trousers cover the knee and take the gravel. The Pleated Skirt tackles the same warm weather problem with a different silhouette and a different rule to satisfy. Athletic Shorts, covered in our Kid's Bottoms guide, are knit and usually lined, and almost no dress code accepts them, which catches families out every August.

Districts running above 75 degrees for most of the school year buy these instead of trousers rather than alongside them. Any child who overheats in long pants settles within a day of switching. Playground surfaces argue the other way, because a bare knee meets gravel at speed, and so do mosquito hours in late spring and early fall.

Take a tape to a pair that currently fits, note the inseam, and order to that number instead of trusting the size label, since two suppliers can print size 8 on legs three inches apart. Read the code before ordering, because a pair arriving two inches short is a pair you cannot use at all. Send shorts through the same cold load as the trousers, so the two still match when a cold snap puts both in one week.