I CANNOT get his shirts clean. Already!

I use the green household soap too and we use biotex as a prewash. Bought enough bars of fairy household soap before they stopped selling them to last my lifetime. I use it on the carpet too when someone spills something or the cat throws up.

I soak all shirts in a bucket of Biotex solution before washing, then pre-treat cuffs & collars before washing with bio liquid and a Glo-White sachet.

They gleam, I tell you.

My children have revolting polos, but they wear them until they outgrow them. I spray stain remover if I remember, otherwise just wash as normal. It is honestly not worth the effort, and soon they will be wearing jumpers anyway. I personally hate uniforms and if the school were ever to complain (which I doubt they would) I would send them packing. Who, on earth, thinks that white shirts/polos are appropriate clothing for children. Honestly...

Tesco do sports wash

For smelly sports kit trscvo do a sports wash liquid also and a capful or lavender dettol or zoflora

wincher if it wasn't your pfb you would send them in...
DD1 was immaculate - remember disposing of a school sweatshirt (£10ish) after one wear because it had white board marker on it.
Don't think DD2 has a school sweatshirt without whiteboard marker on it - and I keep one (white) polo and cardigan to one side for things like church services and singing with the school choir...so she has one lot without stains. She then wears them when they are almost grown out of and I can get away with the next size up for my unsoiled uniform

I see that your ds has eczema but you could apply bio liquid directly to the stain, wash it and then rewash in plain water or non bio.

My 4 year old pfb just started reception a week ago and already one of his brand new polo shirts is stained beyond redemption. They are blue rather than white but it doesn't help. I have left it out in the sun and rain for 3 days but nothing has changed. I can't quite bring myself as yet to send him in a stained shirt - I've put it to the back of the cupboard for now. At £2 for 2 in Tesco they are almost disposably cheap, but it seems such a waste of resources really. Hmm.

My 8yo dd managed to ruin several several new items of clothing this summer, she is very hard on her clothes (think mud pies, climbing trees, playing football) I haven't found anything that shifts ground in mud.

Will try the soap bar though.

Have tried various other so called stain removers, hot washes, soaking over night. We use a non fragranced bio washing powder called Prudax.

Wash the shirts after each wearing. Cotton can be bleached, so stays cleaner. If your child rios off buttons, sew the buttons in place over the buttonholes, and sew hook and loop tape to the back of the buttonhole placket and where the buttons were when you bought the shirt.

Soap and a nail brush on collar and cuff dirt before washing.

And thy need anti pirspirant /deodorant not just deodorant. Otherwise they will smell.

After years of cricket whites, white polos and white school shirts from 2 DS I use vanish spray for bad stains (mud/grass on cricket whites), vanish powder, normal persil/ariel tabs and my secret weapon Beckman glowwhite sachets

Napisan all the way.

DD1 is 6 and her shirts are stained from all sorts, pen, paint, grass, lunch. She's a complete muck magnet. Oh and bloody sun cream stains too.

Only solution is to wash and wear and ignore stains.

I used to work in a fancy dress shop and for the clothes that came back filthy it would be a vanish bar and nail brush, for stinky pits we would spray them with malt vinegar and leave for a couple of hours before washing. Seemed to do the job!

DSS got bloody white board pen on 3 of his 4 brand new white shirts in the first week of school. They are also grubby around the collars. I've soaked then in stain remover powder and dried on the line, they are still grubby. I've given up worrying too much!

Jelly, if you buy 100% cotton shirts you don't have the smell problem.

Polyester holds onto sweat smells!!

My son is 15 and the problem is the sweat smell rather than grubbiness. I wash with bio on 50 and on a long wash about 1hr 45 min and that gets the worst although I do sometimes get the smell kicking up when I iron them. He uses deoderant but is a hormonal teenager!

buy one cotton shirt (I usually get mine from Debenhams, which have frequent sales) as it will stand a hot wash with white cotton towels (no colours). If that gets it clean, look out for more. Polycottons will pucker in hot washes, especially the collars. Short sleeved shirts are less trouble in summer. He will have to learn to iron his own shirts, even if they are nominally easy-care.

Collars and cuffs are skin oil (teens are often oily but adults too) and exfoliated skin. Laundry sprays do work but so do the bars.

Powder and a hot wash get whites whitest (true).

Same problem - here - with grass and ink, but honestly OP - grass is good - he needs to be active!
I just use white stain remover from Asada, on a 40 wash - is fine.
Definitely do not make him pay for new shirts! Life is too short - they are dead cheap in Asda (I don't have shares in Asda by the way )
And don't bother ironing them!

Op I feel your pain.
My ds has also recently started secondary school and I've had to replace 3 shirts already though for an entirely different reason.

Ds has aspergers and struggles with buttons. In primary they wore polo shirts and now its a shirt and tie.

When he has p.e, he struggles to open the buttons and so just ripped them off and ripped his shirts in the process.

I had also bought marks shirts but have replaced them with ones from Matalan which seem fine and are cheaper too.

If you're near a home bargains they do a white restorer/stain remover, 3 sachets in a box and under a pound.

If they have been through the wash, they are clean.

School uniform is there to stop normal clothes getting ruined! :)

Our primary used to have navy polos, they were great I could even hand them down! And then a change of ht meant a uniform change.