Expensive School Uniform

Apart, from the socks, the prices are reasonable. You can easily spend £10 on a t-shirt, even in cheaper stores such as Primark and Asda. The blazer isn't that expensive either, considering the use it will get.

Its cheaper than buying branded and fashionable products.

Has your school got a second hand uniform shop? At my eldest son's school, you can pick,up blazers for £5 and other kit for a lot less.

I suspect these cases are from large academy trusts and the school uniform shop is probably owned by an academy board member or pal.

I also think it's wrong for state schools to insist on such expensive school uniforms. The only compulsory item should be a tie. Everything else can be ordinary shirts/blouses/trousers/skirts from supermarkets.

My son's school doesn't have a blazer, but the school jumper has a logo and the girls have to wear a specific skirt which of course costs twice as much as any of the generic ones from Sainsburys etc.

The school is also introducing a PE uniform (up to now it was a white t-shirt and black shorts in the summer, with the only specific item being a red reversible rugby shirt which cost £16) which I have just spent £46 on. It has caused some rumpus among the parents, although current pupils can keep the old one until they grow out of it.

Kids can look smart in supermarket clothes, there's no need for all this compulsory expensive clothing. Teachers don't earn high salaries themselves in most cases so why do they assume all parents do?

Good grief. This is awful. I'm a teacher and do think uniform is important but these prices are awful. My school is an academy but we sell iron on badges and just stipulate types of skirt and trouser etc that can be bought from anywhere. Even blazed just has iron on logo.

I just ordered part of dds pe kit, it was £87 and that's without trainers and some other stuff!
The blazer is £80, skirt £38 jumper £32, this is for a normal local state school. I think it is disgusting, there will be loads of parents that are really going to struggle to buy the uniform

tbh i'd rather have to buy a logo item than have the "mum, i don't want this plain red sweatshirt i want the one from superdry that EVERYONE has"

etc...

State school uniform
Logo blazer + school buttons with school crest on £5
logo skirt £16
Logo'd PE polo shirt
Logo's PE hoodie also to be embroidered with child's name (so can't pass on to anyone else
Pe navy skort
PE navy shorts
PE tracksuit bottoms (navy)
cost £200

hockey socks

Thanks, but no need to be angry on my behalf OP. My point is that you are unhappy about paying around 60 odd quid when a lot of us pay 4/5 times that amount and we're not moaning about it.

Wa standing behind a mum at ds' school who was getting it free..which I assume was cos she was on benefits ..so there is that , still expensive for others though.

Dd's uniform is 300. Not including stationary. Have had to buy big as i can't afford to replace it halfway through the year. It's bonkers!

Haha OP, you uniform is very cheap compared to most. My state school uniform for DC going into year 7 has cost around £350 and this is WITHOUT shirts, socks and shoes. You should count yourself lucky...!

The DfE recommends that uniform should be subject to competition, therefore there should be more than one supplier so that parents have a choice of logo items. It can be worked so that some branded uniform can be sourced from a supermarket or online shop and more expensive an d probably better quality, can be sourced from a local shop or supplier.

well i just ordered ds y7 kit and it cost £315 with a 10% discount in the shop and only buying essentials, not including shirts so I'd think yourself lucky! :)

That sounds pretty average our badged stuff is
Blazer-£35
Short sleeved shirts-£22 for pack of 2(don't do badged long sleeve)
Rugby top-£25
Polo shirt-£17
Tie-£5

It's academies, isn't it? Even my kids' v normal primary has gone a bit funny about uniform now it's an academy.

Our borough is full of sodding Harris Academies with their faux-Hogwarts style blazers complete with coloured trim.

Verbena I agree with you. The school my DDs attend have a policy where the only logo items are the blazer and the PE shirt. They have to have a clip-on tie but that is £4.00. The PE shirt and socks cost the same as they would on the high street. Blazer is between £28 and £40 depending on size, the PE shirt between £8 and £12.

The rest can be bought anywhere on the high street as long as it meets regulations - they're pretty sensible. We are a very mixed catchment, with some areas of real deprivation. The school have definitely taken this on board.

Your uniform is really cheap op, my dc school you need full cricket whites on top of the usual.

I think it sounds expensive. We have logo-ed polo shirts, jumpers and pe shirts, but that's all that's compulsory. And to be honest, they aren't that much more expensive than a reasonable quality supermarket equivalent, maybe a £1 or so more.

The only expensive thing is a heavy weight logoed hoodie which is £32, but is optional and a lot of the dc don't have. (They're as thick and warm as a winter coat, so DD does have one despite the cost because she will actually wear it!)

Cheap! Ds2's state secondary was over two hundred quid - (& that was without white shirts/grey trousers/fussy as anything shoes.

Ds3 is going to a different school. The logo'd stuff is coming in at about £40 & they're not fussy about the other items. Breath of fresh air.