Best school bags for primary and secondary school: Eastpak, Vans, Smiggle and more

Remember waving your little one off at the gates in their early school days, as they proudly clutched an oversized backpack emblazoned with gaudy unicorns or space rockets?

Although a primary school bag can be bright and cheerful, a secondary school bag not only needs to be cool, stylish and acceptable to their peers, but also big enough to carry all the back-to-school supplies they will need to lug to school and back. And trust us - there’s a huge increase in what they need to carry about with them.

Additionally, you'll want to ensure that the school bag is comfortable to carry and doesn't cause backache or damage posture when your child throws it over their shoulder on the school run. It also has to be robust enough to be kicked around the classroom floor for six hours a day without falling apart or spilling its contents everywhere. Oh - and it helps if it’s also waterproof for water bottle spillages, and has several separate compartments to keep essays away from egg sandwiches. Just a list of must-haves as long as your arm, then.

Best school bags, at a glance

1. Best overall school bag: Eastpak Padded Pak’r 24L Backpack, £28

2. Best budget school bag: NIKE Unisex Nk Heritage Backpack, £27

3. Best durable school bag for secondary school: FJÄLLRÄVEN Kanken Backpack, £95

4. Best secondary school bag for laptops: Herschel Retreat Backpack, £100

5. Best hardwearing school bag for primary school: JanSport Unisex Cool Student Classic, £55

6. Best superhero school bag: Kids Spider-Man™ Small Backpack, £16

7. Best school bag for younger children: Frugi Explorers Backpack, £28

8. Best unisex primary school bag: Vans Unisex Alumni Pack 5 Printed Backpack, £28

9. Best primary school bag set: Mountain Warehouse Bookworm 20L Backpack, £12

With all that in mind, we’ve trawled the Mumsnet forums to find sound advice on sourcing the best primary school bags and the best secondary school bags from our trusted users, who’ve bought the best and the worst bags on the market and have plenty of information to share on the subject. We also consulted experts, scoured online stores and scrolled through hundreds of reviews to help us put together a list that represents the best of the best.

Once you've tracked down the best school bag, we've got handy guides to school shoes and school uniform for you to complete your back to school shopping.

Here’s our pick of the best school bags for primary and starting secondary school.

Read next: Best dumb phone for kids for back-to-school 2026

Related: Top tips for starting preschool

Related: School morning hacks to help you nail a pre-school routine

Related: The best school shoes for kids of all ages

How do I choose the right school bag?

Other than style and brand (which your child will no doubt tell you ALL about), there are a few important things to consider before buying a school bag for secondary school.

Type of bag

A backpack is the best option for a child's back and posture. But if backpacks are not ‘the thing’ at their school then look for a decent messenger or tote bag.

Volume

If they’re not at the school yet, ask around to find out what items your child is expected to bring in each day, and whether they have lockers in school or not, so you know how much stuff they’re likely to need to fit in their school bag. Take into account whether they need to be able to squeeze in a PE kit or lunch box too.

Material

Something lightweight is best, but also look out for a school bag with breathable mesh that will stop your child from getting too hot on the walk to school. Back padding will also stop corners of folders and laptops from digging in. Some school bags are even made from insulated fabric to keep lunches cool.

Washability

School bags are absolute filth magnets. Go for one you can wash or at least give a thorough wipe down.

Safety

Bags with lights or reflective strips on are useful for keeping children seen in the dark, and are particularly important if they are cycling to school. It’s worth thinking about security too and whether they need something they can padlock if their bag isn’t staying with them all day and they need to carry a dumb phone or cash in it.

Organisation

Does it have enough pockets for them? Many school bags have special pockets for a laptop, water bottle etc, and even key attachments.

Their commute to school

It might sound obvious but if your child is biking to school, a backpack is a must. For those walking, you’ll want something comfy with a padded strap. And if they’re going to be on packed trains or buses they might want something with a top handle so they can carry it in their hands in front of them.

What should be in a secondary school bag?

Your school may give your child a checklist of what they need to bring or there might be one on their website worth consulting first, but here’s a basic list of things your child is likely to need in their school bag for secondary school:

• Laptop (if they use one)

• Pencil case

• Geometry set

• 30cm ruler

• Phone (if they have one)

• House keys on a retractable string

• Money or card to pay for school dinners etc

• Bus pass, train ticket or anything else they need for the journey

• Water bottle

• Lunch

• Any textbooks or exercise books for each day

• A map of the school for the early days

• Timetable of classes

• Hat, gloves etc in cold weather

Which bag is best for secondary school?

Parents think the Eastpak Padded Pak’r Backpack is the best school bag for secondary school. It represents the best value for money in terms of how robust and long-lasting it is, and the features it includes.

Which brand is best for school bags?

Eastpak, Jansport and Herschel are all robust brands you can rely on to be well-made and stand up to anything your child throws at them.

In terms of which brands are ‘acceptable’ at school, Nike and Adidas are usually a fair bet but what’s ‘cool for school’ and what’s social death differs wildly from one school to the next so it’s always worth asking parents of kids already at the school yours is going to. If in doubt go for something plain, black and not too flashy.

How to clean and maintain a school bag

It’s likely that throughout the school day, your child’s school bag will be thrown on the floor, left on muddy grass or have drink/pen leakage so you will need to clean it from time to time. Some bags will be machine washed, which will make life a lot easier for you, however, a lot of the bags on our list are hand wash or spot clean only. 

Here are some steps you can take to give it a clean:

• First, brush off any dry dirt using a stiff brush.

• Wipe the outside of the bag with a damp cloth to remove any leftover dirt and marks and then dry with a towel to remove any excess moisture.

• For stubborn dirt or marks, use a wet sponge with a small amount of mild detergent and clean in circular motions. If the bag can be hand washed, you can submerge the bag in water and leave to soak for a few minutes.

• Finally, ring it and soak as much moisture as you can off with a dry cloth and then leave to air dry. 

What’s the ideal weight for a loaded school bag?

With all the PE kits, books, stationary and whatever else your child decides to pack for their school day, bags can easily get filled up. However, overloading a backpack can lead to muscle soreness and back and neck pain. 

Guidelines suggest that a fully loaded backpack should not weigh more than 10-15% of your child’s bodyweight. So if your child weighs 30kg, the bag should weigh no more than 3-4kg.

Which bag size is best for school?

You need to consider both size and volume. The bag needs to at a minimum take an A4 folder but possibly also a laptop. A bag that takes a 15-inch laptop is usually fine but do make sure you’ve measured and ensured it’s the correct size in case your child has a 17.5-inch screen.

In terms of volume it carries, usually bags will tell you how many litres they carry. A 25-litre bag should be adequate but 30 litres will give you plenty of space.

What is the cost of a school bag?

Obviously you’ll have a budget to consider, and that may be informed by how careful your child is and how likely it seems they will lose or somehow destroy the bag in the first half term.

While you can buy pretty basic rucksacks for less than a tenner, it’s worth spending a bit more to get something robust and with some good support for their back and shoulders.

If you can spend somewhere in the £20-£40 region you should be able to get something very decent that your child will like the look of, too.

Related: Top tips for starting secondary school

How we chose our recommendations

To ensure we only ever show you the best of the best products, we always do our research thoroughly and make sure every product comes carefully vetted, tested, evaluated and with a clutch of honest reviews to recommend it.

Recommendations from real parents

We picked all these recommendations straight from the Mumsnet forums, as we think this is an area where experience really does speak volumes.

So to begin, we trawled the back-to-school threads for recommendations of the school bags that Mumsnetters had been most impressed with. We also kept a list of any brands that received not-so-glowing reviews.

Expert advice

We always ensure our information represents the latest recommendations from experts so you can rely on it, and we research each product thoroughly to ensure it follows the latest expert advice and stands up to scrutiny. We also looked for expert advice on posture and back pain prevention from the charity BackCare, which supports people with back pain and offers advice on how to avoid it.

Consumer feedback

Having scoured Mumsnet for real and honest feedback, we also always check out real customer reviews across the internet from parents who have bought the products themselves, and given both positive and negative feedback to ensure every product we recommend comes with a clutch of good reviews from a cross-section of parents.

Celebrated best products

Finally, we always check to see which products have won consumer awards and industry accolades or received recognition from trusted sources and feed this into our analysis, too. We compared our shortlist with consumer review sites and publications to see which had won awards and accolades.

We then whittled the list down by collating all that information, and picked a selection of school bags from those that we thought represented something for every student.

About the author

Rebecca Roberts is a Senior Content Editor hailing from Leeds. Here at Mumsnet, she aims to bring parents content that’s designed to make life easier. As a parent of two young children herself, she knows full well how much school uniforms can cost parents. So, she’s created this guide to help fellow families save and keep back to school affordable. 

Beyond her role as an editor here at Mumsnet, Rebecca can be found balancing life as a working mum of two toddlers and when she’s not at her desk, you’ll likely find her at a local playgroup, in a nearby coffee shop, or walking the dog up and down country lanes.

Why you should trust us

The bags we picked all come recommended by real parents, who took the time to post about their finds on the Mumsnet Talk boards, so all the reviews are honest and unpaid for. We write about products that we feel offer the best value to most parents – the ones that our users would recommend to their own friends and family.

Read next: When do kids go back to school in the UK?