My Catholic girls’ school didn’t have proms, thank God…
“Prom as a concept has ‘crept over’ from the US, just as Halloween did before it,” agrees Melanie Berry of Claire’s Accessories – a major player in the market. “The first proms started in UK senior schools six or seven years ago as a celebration of leaving school, but they are now becoming popular in primary schools, too. It’s like a rite of passage, a chance to celebrate a key ‘first’ in their lives.” From the schools’ perspective, Wyatt believes that teachers use prom as a carrot – and sometimes as a stick, too: “They can say, if you don’t work hard, you won’t be allowed to go to prom.” (…)
If it sounds like a fuss about nothing, says Wyatt, try to look at it from the students’ perspective: “They say: ‘You only have one prom – but you can have many weddings.’ That’s how they see it.”
