Is my child’s school allowed to still have multiple branded uniform items

I imagine if it was just £20 most people would not be complaining, especially if it lasts 5 years. It is over £120 for one rugby top and one house PE top in the larger sizes, most will need to buy both at least twice in their time at the school and having different colours by house limits secondhand options. Yes this is a state school.

I can understand that where children are competing it is important to have for example a certain style of top, but economies could be made by not having these with logos so the same style could be use by a school in Birmingham and a school in Southampton. They do not all need their own logoed unique design.

In my comment though I was actually thinking of their primary school where the logo polo shirts were ten times more expensive than a supermarket one and in a colour that faded a lot so there were various different shades of fade happening in all the secondhand uniform.

I am enternally grateful that our high school which is also in an academy trust has made things easier not harder recently. Very little call for branded options. Just blazer £40 and tie. We even have a relaxed shoe policy.

Schools aren't abiding by the guidance and parents mostly don't want to rock the boat by pushing complaints. I know several schools in our area who not only have fully branded uniform but also colour code the years so you can't even pass jumpers down to siblings because the elder child needs blue piping on their jumpers and the younger is red.

My secondary school used to sell a logo patch for about £4 so most of us had jumpers with those on. They introduced blazers just after I left but they could be plain black with the logo sewn on.

If schools want to implement standards of uniform they should be contributing to the cost. Especially for PE kits- who the fudge is going to be looking for the logo on the kids socks?

As others have said, the statutory guidance is guidance only, not law as such.
In a CoL crisis I think it's unacceptable that parents are forced to spend so much on branded uniform items. The only branded items should be a badge for a blazer and a PE top, everything else could be generic.
I would recommend writing to the Head and the governors to suggest this.

Uniform skirts is the thing that annoys ne the most. Is there really any benefit to a checked skirt compared to a plain grey or black one?

DDs school uniform is changing in September. They've simplified the PE kit (plain navy rather than navy/white) and the school logo is changing but both uniforms will run along side for the next few years.
But... its going to mark out any new Year 7 to who has hand down or second hand blazer.

I'm sure you're right prh, but how many judicial reviews are on the horizon? Until there is at least one highnprofile challenge I can't see anything changing.

I didn't say whether or not I agreed with our governing body's decision because, as you will know if you have ever been a governor, the governing body speak with one voice (even if, within it, some voices carry more weight than others 🙂).

For clarity (and not having a go at you at all), there are two sets of guidance.

There is non-statutory guidance issued last month. That is indeed just guidance and schools are free to ignore it. All that says about branded items is that schools should "consider how any branded items if they choose to have them, are sourced".

The statutory guidance, issued in 2021, says that, before summer 2022, schools should make changes to their uniform policy such as removing unnecessary branded items. However, it also says that branded items should be kept to a minimum and used only for low cost or long-lasting items.

I obviously don't know what uniform policy your school has adopted, but you need to be sure that, if challenged through judicial review, you can show that you have indeed kept branded items to a minimum and used them only for low cost or long-lasting items. If you haven't, you would need to show that there are exceptional circumstances that allow you to depart from the statutory guidance.

Remember that the courts will not accept that a branded item is necessary just because the governors think it is and have minuted their reasons. And this is the fundamental problem. I'm not saying it is the case at your school, but I see far too many schools that insist things like specific, non-generic designs of jumpers, sweatshirts, cardigans, socks, etc. are necessary. It is, in my view, unlikely that the courts would agree.

Our school just introduced a branded sixth form uniform, this year for the first time.
The whole of April/May I had been saying to DS "18 more days and we can throw trousers away" until this news broke.
Now he has the option of buying new Sixth Form trousers or he can continue to wear his old ones. If he does not have branded trousers, he gets sent home. I am hoping that branded trousers, too short and with holes in the knees will be ok, although I am not sure that that is the look the school is actually going for.

And don't get me started on the new branded jumper!

basically using the logged skirts to morality police the girls' dress

Indeed.
Girls' skirts must be a certain length because boys have been doing upskirting.
Tights must be 60 denier because legs are distracting.

Give me strength.
If I didn't abhor publicity I'd be contacting the local paper.

@Unexpecteddrivinginstructor I'm not sure I agree tbh. My DDs PE top is great quality. Yes it was £20 or so but she's had it since Y7 and she's now in Y10. I'm sure it's different for boys who tend to grow a lot more but I find at least our schools stuff is all very good quality. They really don't do PE much in state schools so I don't see the fuss.

I will definitely be making it last its tons!

I think this is one of the issues with all the branded clothing, children wearing clothes which are too big/ too small / really old which then don't look as smart as if they had just been wearing a polo shirt from Asda bought every year. Probably better for the environment.

Ours was 70 quid for branded pe kit alone (top/sweat top/skort/socks)

The school unfirom is branded skirt,blazer, jumper, Then they have allowed you to buy shirts and labcoat elsewhere...

I will definitely be making it last its tons!

Weve got a child going into y7 in September compulsory branded sweatshirt, polo's, pe shorts and pe top so basically trousers are non branded though there are optional pe trousers and other items available. Single supplier.
That's put us back £175 we found it many cant and there is a hardship fund with the LA of up to £50 for those on lowest income to help.
DS needs a new bike so he can get to school but that's going to have to wait now.
But then again my school had no uniform and it was a hot bed of bullying and competition so I don't even disagree with them but when a pe shirt costs £25 each its more than I'd pay.

I didn't say it is "vague" guidance at all. It is statutory guidance. It says schools should not have unecessary branded items. Our governing body considered all our compulsory branded items to be necessary, and the reasons are minuted.

@critikal as prh has said, that is incorrect about statutory guidance, which this is. It is not ‘just’ vague guidance and if you are a governor you should really know what the school has to do and what is optional. It’s all in the governance handbook.

I don't know schools don't just sell logo badges that can be sewn onto blazers... that's what we had in the 70s!

@Anothernamechange3 I'm a school governor and a parent so see this from both sides. As others have said, there is new guidance in place, not a law change. Schools do need to consider guidance but are not mandated to change them.

I'd suggest you keep your tone polite, friendly and reasonable but ask your school's chair of governors whether the guidance has been discussed by the governing body and, if so, could you please see the minutes of the meeting as you are interested. If they haven't discussed it, you could suggest that they do.

Our school has some branded items, but not all are compulsory. When our governing body considered it we discussed the benefits of the branded items, and compared the cost of the compulsory branded items with other local schools (which showed we compared favourably). We committed to repeat the same exercise annually. This is all minuted and shows we have considered the guidance.

This is wrong.

Statutory guidance is far from being "just guidance". Its status was decided by the courts in R v Islington LBC ex p Rixon some 25 years ago and that judgement has withstood the test of time. Statutory guidance is as close to law as it is possible to get without actually being law. In essence, where statutory guidance exists, those at whom it is aimed must follow it unless they judge that there is good reason to depart from it on permissible grounds. Even then, they must stick as close to the statutory guidance as possible. They cannot choose to ignore it and do something completely different.

In this case, the statutory guidance says that "schools should keep branded items to a minimum and limit their use to low cost or long-lasting items". I agree that, looking at the guidance, having a second-hand uniform scheme does not give them a get out of jail free card on this.

I suspect that, as with the poster I have quoted, the school does not understand the importance of following statutory guidance. I'm not surprised. Most people don't. Indeed, I've come across local authorities that don't seem to understand. But, based on the information posted, I think any parent who wants to take the academy to judicial review would have a good case.

This can be challenged on sex discrimination. Cost out how much more it costs to dress a girl than a boy across all seven years and submit that to the head/ governors.

Fad around here is the logos toward the hems on the skirt. They claim it's to stop the kids rolling them up... but if you roll/hitch them up - that's the waistband you're messing with and not the hem at all so it's a bit of a naff argument really (or one that's being made by someone who has never been a teenage girl!) And yes, I have a skirt hitcher upper in training - so I know what it's like and she's been knocked on the head to stop it by the threat that she'll have to wear trousers which are like deeply uncool apparently!

Actually based on the kids I drive past - it's the logo-mad school who have the girls with the "worst" crimes in terms of skirt length versus our "oh sod it - buy the minimal logged stuff and go to the supermarkets" approach - whether that's parents trying to wring every last possible bit of wear out of a £30 logged skirt versus just buying the right length supermarket one post-growth spurt or what I do not know.

Also what are the consequences of not wearing trousers and skirts with logos on them? Are logos even visible on trousers and skirts?

I'd suggest you write to the school governors and the academy trust board- they oversee all the schools in the trust- and really schools should be following the guidance. It's highly likely that this uniform supply contract is benefitting the school as an additional revenue stream.
I'd be prepared to do the 'research'- cost of your schools complete uniform vs high street options vs the cost of complete uniform at the next closest comparable secondary- ie: similar progress/attainment isn't a result of so many items of branded uniform- as this is the line so many schools pull out- the uniform aids in the actual learning so you need to prove them wrong. Also make your argument as personal as possible- is having to purchase more expensive branded uniform putting your child at a disadvantage as your unable to spend on school supplies/activities etc. Is your child and unusual size so there's not many second hand options? Maybe the uniform supplier they've chosen isn't the best value/quality and another supplier could be supplying the same items cheaper/better quality etc.

One of our local secondaries is persisting with their logged skirts nonsense (not logged trousers though - basically using the logged skirts to morality police the girls' dress)... they're usually in the papers first week of September for having changed uniform rules on the very last week of term and not publicised it and parents falling foul of wherever the goalposts have now landed.

It's one reason we've avoided that school - the secondary we're going to insist on a tie and blazer (have two suppliers they work with for this) and tell us to get our arses to the supermarkets for the rest of the stuff as cheaply as we possibly can. The common sense approach is definitely appreciated.

That should be challenged really. My niece's school the girls have worn green shirts for pretty much forever (probably when it went from a grammar to comprehensive). It is only recently it has been changed to white as it put the girls at a distinct disadvantage to the boys. (Or the parents at least)