Uniform prices!

[S3all]

Hi all :)! I started a petition to challenge the increasing costs of school uniform and it's a challenge in itself!

I read reports by the Department of Education and The Children's Society after becoming frustrated with my son's school changing the uniform policy to what I deem unreasonable. I was astounded by how far reaching the problem was! How does everyone else feel about this? Do you think your child's school's uniform is unreasonable and unaffordable? Or perhaps you have a different view?

[dementedpixie]

We only need to buy a specific blazer £35, a tie £5 and PE shorts £5 and the rest can be bought from supermarkets.

[S3all]

That is really good @dementedpixie! We have to have a fully school branded PE kit on top of the normal items. You can imagine how many PE kits get 'lost'. One kid told my son that he couldn't afford to replace an item he had lost. It's really sad

[CouldBeAnyoneReally]

Secondary school. Among other issues - boys can wear any black smart trousers ie supermarket school uniform so £5/6/7 a pair. Girls have to wear the skirt or trousers with school logo - prices start at £18 PE kit is £20 an item and ds has worn the rugby top a grand total of 5 times as they only do rugby for half a term

[S3all]

@couldbeanyonereally that sounds very wasteful. Why put parents through all of that for nothing? It seems unjustified

And don't get me started on all the other issues with secondary school! Ha!

[FlyingMonkeys]

Going back a few years but local secondary I had to buy; crested blazer, jumper, tie, PE t-shirt, crested socks (£5 for socks). I went to the school myself years before and needed; a tie and jumper (they were flexible on the jumper if the right colour) .

[TeenTimesTwo]

I think our main uniform is OK, a blazer was £32 but it has lasted 3 years so far and DD1's lasted the full 5 years.

PE kit I kind of agree. I think a logoed shirt and then non logo, just colour specific for everything else would be better, especially as my DD doesn't do much sport.

Our school is changing the uniform but has a really long lead time, so that's OK too.

[LoniceraJaponica]

Usually the ridiculous uniforms are at academies. DD's school was similar to dementedpixie's. The only compulsory stuff from school was the blazer, tie and PE top. I could buy shirts, skirts/trousers, PE shorts etc from anywhere.

[SileneOliveira]

Living in Scotland, this is all really alien to me. None of the schools - except the fee paying ones - go in for this nonsense.

My two oldest go to a leafy suburban comp. We don't have grammar schools or academies in Scotland either. (Although their school is called X Academy that's just the name, not a status). Anyway. The only items of school uniform which are available are a tie (£5) and a blazer (£32). The rest of the uniform code is black trousers/skirt and white shirt, black jumper. They can wear what they want for PE, the only rules are no offensive logos, no alcohol/cigarette brands, no football strips. DD wears Primark exercise leggings, a t-shirt and an old hoodie when it's cold.

I read stories of parents in England being asked to fork out for all manner of expensive items with horror. It's outrageous.

The school my kids are at does extremely well, glowing inspection reports and regularly in the top 10 in the whole of Scotland for exam results. The kids look smart, presentable and well turned out in their plain black v-neck school jumpers and non-logo PE kit.

[cheminotte]

Agreed. We have to get specific blazer, tie and rugby top ( although used for all outdoor PE, not just rugby). 2 different colour shorts and socks for indoor / outdoor PE. Boys wear black trousers but the girls skirts have to be a specific colour that you don’t find on the high street. They can opt for trousers but very few do.
At the new parents evening they said if you got free school meals you could get a contribution of £15 to help. That doesn’t even pay for the blazer!

[redcaryellowcar]

I used to teach PE in a secondary school which had a fairly sensible uniform, children needed the school logo jumper, but the irony was one of the heads of dept was organising the making and delivery of this and taking the profit, if the school had coordinated then it would have been possible for it to be cheaper.
I think there is a chance from a safeguarding point of view that uniforms need to become more bland- eg no logo to identify where a child attends school, which I think would then make a move to being able to source uniform from supermarkets and high street shops.
I think the best PE kit I came across on teaching practise was navy blue bottoms (they needed shorts and tracksuit bottoms) and a navy jumper and white polo shirt, they needed trainers, after that they could layer up as much as they wanted as long as the top layer was 'uniform' we need to encourage children to do PE and want to come to school, not make it harder.

[MigGril]

I think it's got out of hand DD started high school last year. The only items of clothing I could buy not from school are the blouses but they are hard to get else where as they have to be V neck. Only a few shops do those and socks and shoes. Virtually everything else is brought through school. It's very expensive and yes some kids manage to lose the whole PE kits.

[EverythingNow]

I would definitely sign a petition.

When I was at secondary school the only thing we had to buy from the school shop was the tie. Everything else could be purchased from supermarket or high street.

My eldest has been to two secondaries, the first required blazer, logoed polo shirts, logoed PE kit, trousers or skirts in an obscure colour. The blazer alone was over £30.
The second school required logoed polo shirts (£15 pounds each), sweatshirt, logoed PE kit, regulation (aka middle aged) trousers.

All state secondaries in my area are the same.

[BarbarianMum]

Ours is fine. Generic black trousers, white shirt, generic black blazer - £5 tie, £5 blazer badge. PE kit is the biggest cost at £15 for polo shirt in school colours, navy shorts. School jumpers for £12 but optional.

[Thisismynewname123]

Yes, I would sign. My dd's school uniform - just the PE kit amounts to over £100, not including trainers & football boots also needed (summer and winter PE kits required, so hoodie, rugby shirt, polo shirt, shorts and leggings, and PE socks, all logo'd). Plus regular uniform school skirt is £35, and logo polo shirt & sweatshirt. It amounts to nearly £200 before getting school shoes! They don't even run second hand sales like primary school did.

[Racecardriver]

I was under the impression that schools did this to raise revenue. Surely it’s only fair that parents pay towards the costs of educating their children? Maybe a petition to provide children from poor families with a full uniform would be more just? It ensures that they aren’t in the position where they are wearing inadequate uniform because their parents can’t afford/don’t care enough to buy from the supermarket and it also helps schools raise revenue independent of government funding.

[Catamaran1]

Ours is all regulations stuff for girls including trousers and skirt. (Not many wear trousers) Boys can buy any school trousers. The blazer is about 35ish. Skirt about 13. It's not as expensive as some but i moan about the cost when they start year 7. They do get a lot of wear out of it though as it lasts and doesn't need replacing very often. Mine wear most items about 2 years before i replace them. So i don't feel too strongly about it as it's works out as value for money really

[LoniceraJaponica]

No, I don't think they do Racecardriver. DD's school was on its knees financially but they never made a profit on selling uniform, books, stationery, lunches etc. They were simply providing a service.

[KipperTheFrog]

My DD is only at primary, but even that I find the uniform jumpers are very expensive. Need more than one as they get mucky quickly.
On the back of seeing these threads though, I checked out our local secondary. It's an academy, everything has to be logo and very expensive. Outraged that boys can have any trousers, but girls have to have the logo school skirt. Why do girls have to have a skirt and why does their uniform have to be more expensive just because they're female!? So sexist.
I'd sign a petition to ban this kind of thinking. Uniform is meant to level the playing field isn't it? So why make it prohibitively expensive for many?

[KipperTheFrog]

Thing, not thinking! Don't want to ban thoughts!

[Catamaran1]

KipperTheFrog Our school skirt is regulation, but doesn't have a logo, it's mass produced so probably regulation for lots of schools. I'm glad girls have regulation skirts as any item that isn't regulation kids want to be fashionable, which can end up costing more than dd's regulation skirt. Eg. PE trainers aren't regulation and a boy in dd's class wears £300 trainers!
My high school had any navy skirt as a uniform and there was always a new fashionable skirt each year. Mine wear theirs 2 years and they can be handed down as they last. I know people who've said in their 40s they hated never having the fashionable skirt at my school as they couldn't afford it and had hand me downs.
So I'm glad girls have the regulation mass produced skirt as i don't have to think about buying fashionable trousers or skirts that might be £££ and might go out of fashion or not last

[Catamaran1]

PS. I imagine the reason they brought in regulation skirt and trousers for girls not boys was because they found girls would wear lycra mini tube skirts or leggings but boys didn't. Probably if boys started wearing low slung or skin tight trousers they'd make them wear regulation too. Some people don't see the problem with skin tight skirts or trousers but personally i think it looks a bit silly with school uniform, so my first choice would be no uniform like in France or Germany, but if there is going to be a uniform I'd rather it was regulation stuff

[katalex]

My DC's school is pretty reasonable with the main uniform. The blazer with school logo is between £23 and £30.54, depending on size. Trousers and skirts can be bought anywhere but skirts must be box pleated. Boys can get plain white shirts from anywhere but girls must wear the logoed blouse which cost £9.45 each. The school tie is £9.

However the P.E. kit is really expensive. They used to specify a logoed polo top in the house colour, which was about £12, if I remember rightly, and then any shorts or trousers, as long as they were navy blue. After receiving positive feedback about the school's team sports uniform, they decided to implement it as the P.E. kit. If you buy the basic mandatory boys P.E. kit items (top, shorts, rugby top, trainers, football boots and football socks), it costs around £130 (I've allowed £30 each for trainers and football boots). If you buy the jacket and trousers for outdoor P.E. to keep them warm in the winter, that's another £53. I don't know how anyone on a low income can afford all of this.

I constantly fear that DS is going to lose his P.E. kit and then we'll have to pay out another £180 for a new one. They have no lockers so they have to carry their P.E. kit around with them all day and he sometimes forgets to take it with him at the end of each lesson or from the lunch room. Despite naming all of their uniform, any items my DC have lost, have never been returned to them or been taken to lost property. To add to this, we can only order uniform from the online supplier and it takes a minimum of two weeks to receive the items. It can take up to 4 weeks. In the meantime, my DC will be sanctioned for not having their P.E. kit in school.

I would welcome any action that can be taken to reduce the cost of school uniform and stop schools from insisting that students wear an expensive logoed P.E. kit. It's purely for aesthetics and completely unncessary.

[reluctantbrit]

Secondary here. DD’s school is totally over the top. Y7/8 blazer and jumper, Y9/10 only jumper, Y11 cardigan.

For Y7 I paid over £150 for one set and white open neck shirts.

Then £100 for PE which not only comes via just one shop but the top has to embroided with the full name, no hand me down possible.

Luckily the grandparents stepped in this year and we can afford it but I am totally cross.

[KipperTheFrog]

catarmaran I get that, I do. But I see girls going to this school in their regulation school skirt, which is far too short (barely covers the butt). And it costs a fortune. There's the option of logo boys trousers, the skirt is twice the price. And the boys trousers are optional.
If they're going to insist on a certain skirt it should be a decent length and a reasonable price.

[pointythings]

Our secondary is very reasonable - blazers are a max of £38, tie is "3.50 and PE shirt is £10. Everything else can be bought from high street shops and there's no insistence on shoes which must be leather and capable of being polished as long as they are black, without logo and with no heel.

One town over they insist on logo everything - including socks.

I've signed all manner of petitions over the years, it never changes anything. We pay tax for state education for our kids - if that isn't enough (and it isn't) then maybe as a country we should have an honest conversation about the levels of taxation required to fund good services for all. Stealth tax through uniform isn't the way forward.

There needs to be a regulation that has teeth so that these schools charging a fortune for uniform see some genuine penalties.