new school uniform's is a con

[james1900]

ever since schools have been sold and become private i.e academy
the local authorities who are running schools are over charging for school uniforms'

Average Cost of a Junior School Uniform 2019

The basic school uniform including a pair of school shoes and trainers costs around £160 per child on average—£180 with a blazer—if your school doesn't require school logos (giving you flexibility on where to shop). Prices range significantly depending on your choice of retailer and the age of your child, with parents paying anywhere from £70 to £250 or more to dress their child for school. Read below to learn more about average prices for school uniform by age and gender. Those needing to buy uniform emblazoned with the school logo will most certainly pay even more.

Average Cost of School Uniform Items

Excluding shoes, we found the average cost of a basic list of school clothing is £96 per child. Add in a pair of PE trainers and school shoes, and the average uniform cost jumps up to £162 per child. Since a basic, plain blazer averages £18, we estimate the total uniform cost including trainers, school shoes and a blazer would be £180.

As your child grows, so do the costs of a school uniform. Between age 4 and 11, expect costs of basic clothing to rise by over 40%, as you can see in the following chart. You'll also notice that the uniform for a girl will cost a bit more than for a boy. While many items are sold unisex (e.g., shirts), you'll find skirts tend to cost a few pounds more than boys' shorts. And if your daughter wears a pinafore, expect to add a few more pounds to the uniform cost estimate

School uniform drives me mad and the academy thing has just pushed it all into insanity with schools competing against each other for the poshest uniform. In my city with 5 secondary schools , 3 have blazers and the 2 others have special shirts (which looks polyester) jumpers (acrylic) and special skirts. All with logos and it even comfortable. All girls must wear skirts.
When I was at school we had a tie bought at the school and everything else could be bought at BHS , M and S , and loads of other places. Now there is one shop in town with a monopoly on sales.

Uniform in state schools only happened in the first place because they were apparently trying to emulate private schools in the 1920s and the old argument that it means everyone is the same with no designer clothes is tosh when the price is rising so much.

Whilst children wear uniform 5 days a week in term time they still need other clothes for the holidays and weekends, so no money saved there either.

Is it even comfortable?

My dd is in primary but I’ve just forked out nearly £200 for uniform inc shoes, trainers, pe kit. She’s starting junior school.
P.e kit was just over £50 on its own for a logo tracksuit and top. Cardigans are £20 each and had to buy two! I did buy massive cardigans to hopefully get a few years out of them if she doesn’t loose them.
They also aren’t allowed to wear polos and must wear a shirt and tie which again pushes the price up.
This is just an ordinary state school. I know primary schools aren’t allowed to force logo uniforms but every single child has the logo cardigans and pe kit so would be impossible not to buy it.
It was fine before I become a single mum but it’s actually made me feel a bit ill to spend the equivalent of 2 weeks shopping on this!

Oh and yes it is an academy!

Just be thankful you are in the uk and uniform is the only thing you have to fork out for OP. Most other countries have to buy the books too and pay fees for photocopying etc!! It cost me over 300 for one dd...she’s 6!!!

MN is a complete anomaly to me. Every year there’s this debate over £200 ish on uniform yet posters seem to be loaded and think nothing of having a cleaner and multiple holidays. The mind boggles. I think people just resent paying for uniforms.

I definitely don’t have a cleaner or any holidays let alone multiple 😂 it’s not the fact I resent paying for uniforms. I think £50 is excessive for a pe kit, I wouldn’t spend £50 on 1 outfit for any of us! I resent paying over the odds for logo stuff that’s not any higher quality than Asda/Sainsbury’s

Would you quibble the cost of your workwear?

Children are at school five days a week so their uniform needs to be good quality.

The only thing I disagree with is that school logos and emblems are printed on the uniform making the parents buy from approved retailers only where the price can be dearer.

Ideally Logos and emblems should be bought as patches to iron or sew on so that parents can choose the garments at a price they can afford.

Sadly there are many parents who cannot sew or would be forgetful or careless about ironing on the logos.

Then of course people would moan about the cost of the patches.

I swear some ppl think everything child related needs to be paid for by the state!! 🙄 and if it’s not then it’s a ridiculous cost they shouldn’t have to endure!!

I swear some ppl think everything child related needs to be paid for by the state!! 🙄 and if it’s not then it’s a ridiculous cost they shouldn’t have to endure!!

No, it's just a ridiculous, unnecessarily over inflated cost.

But your kids need clothes to wear 5 days a week. If you weren’t spending £200 on uniform you’d have to spend it on other clothes.

If you weren’t spending £200 on uniform you’d have to spend it on other clothes.

But it doesn't cost as much to buy jeans and t-shirts and a couple of jumpers as it does to buy a blazer and shirts. You could easily get 5 pairs of jeans, 7 T-shirt's, 3 jumpers and a decent rain coat for that amount and then it's not limited to be worn in school time. They can wear it day in day out all year round.

But I wouldn’t be spending £50 on a pe kit or £40 on cardigans if they didn’t have to be logo. Even if they sold patches at a fiver each would still be cheaper to get two £6 cardigans and a plain black tracksuit from primark. I only buy them clothes from primark and Asda normally so I wouldn’t be spending £200 on a weeks worth of clothes anyway. I don’t spend that on work clothes either, plain black trousers from matalans and some tops from new look. It’s not the cost of the uniforms i have an issue with. I don’t think the state should pay for them, you can get decent uniform in asda and Sainsbury’s have 25% off all the time.
I’m happy to buy new shoes, trainers, tops and skirts it’s the over inflated logo stuff you can only buy in one shop.

5 pairs of jeans, 7 t-shirts, 3 jumpers and a raincoat isn’t going to last being worn day in, day out all year round.

I wouldn’t be comfortable sending my kid into school all winter in the same three non-uniform jumpers on rotation, but I would be happy with 3 uniform jumpers on rotation, so from my view, I’m saving money.

I get it. I really do. I've been in the position of putting off buying new school uniform or feeding myself.

But kids wear this stuff for probably 8 hours a day, 200 days a year. So it's a quid a day. For usually fairly robust stuff that actually you'd prefer they got dirty/muddy/paint on rather than £60 trainers, or having to have a wardrobe full of different clothes for them to wear throughout the year. Ok so kids airtex shirts for a fiver each might not be the height of fashion but you can wash them 40+ times and they're still half decent whereas a cheap tshirt from the high street would be in tatters after such hard wear.

I think cheap kids shoes are false economy too, I'd rather fork out at Clarks outlet for footwear that they're going to wear ALL DAY at school, including the walk there and back than a tenner for cheap shoes that are going to fall apart within a couple of weeks and not be good for their feet.

5 pairs of jeans, 7 t-shirts, 3 jumpers and a raincoat isn’t going to last being worn day in, day out all year round

Well then at least I'd get the wear out of it tbh.

I'm.sick.of spending out on 6 pairs of shoes every time they grow. I have 2 mids so that's 2x school shoes, 2x trainers ( one to be left at school for pe and one for home) fir each child.

I have to bin 4 perfectly good pairs of trainers when I'd much rather replace 2 knackered pairs that have had a chance to be worn properly.

Same with clothes. You end up getting rid of them when they look pristine still . Not that I allow them.to wear stuff that's so knackered its falling apart but they at least word look worn.

And uniform shit quality. Sone.places are better than others but its restrictive, hot, scratchy, and ill fitting and over priced.

No other items ,.would we allow ourselves to he dictated to part with money for something that physically isnt worth it quality wise, or fit wise. We just wouldnt. Yet with uniform we have to we shouldn't accept that.

I hate uniform. I think its impractical, uncomfortable and expensive.

And uniform shit quality. Sone.places are better than others but its restrictive, hot, scratchy, and ill fitting and over priced

Not having to buy it thank goodness, kids are past school age. However the local schools have tartan skirts, high content polyester shirts with a logo on them, acrylic cardigan or jumper with a logo on them. None of which would be comfortable in warm weather.

When my kids were little , cheesed off with the quality of the 100% acrylic school sweatshirt, I used to buy m and s cotton ones in a very similar colour and get the simple logo put on privately. These days I could do it myself with my modern sewing machine.

... a problem compounded by the fact that even if you name stuff it goes missing/ gets nicked so you have to keep replacing- and no doubt this is worse if the clobber is really expensive.

Plus at least with clothes If you are after a certain item you can order online and get delivered to store and some stores will look.at availability in other stores for you so you can track it down and get what you want/need.

Now with uniform shops thats the only place you can get it.

Dds school has an online supplier.it serves 2 out of the 3 secondary schools on the town btw before anyone says " well you knew this..." so avoiding this set up is t possible.here

Now.last yr when dd was starting yr 7 I didn't get paid in time to buy it from the school sale which they did on.1 day. Yes 1 day so if you work and cant get the time off then you are stuffed.

But you can buy it online which is what I did when I got paid. Queue a months wait and an email saying an item.was unavailable.

And guess what. Same this year. Another item where the availability date has been pushed back twice. Dd will be starting yr 8 without the correct pe uniform item instead having to wear the old one which she has grown out of. As the alternative sizes available are too small.or too big.

Now luckily she has the old one. If she was a yr 7 new starter imagine the stress and worry both the child and the parent would have knowingly starting school without the correct items.

These suppliers take over and then cant fulfil demand .

It's a con and a whole load of stress.

My dd is in secondary and it cost me £30 for 1 skirt, DS is in primary (logo items optional) and for the same money I got him several pairs of trousers, 6 polo tops, 2 pe t-shirts a pair of joggers, socks and a lunch bag.

We've just paid, altogether, incl shoes and pe kit, about £110 for both dc's primary school uniforms.

We reused what we could (they hadn't outgrown everything) and handed down the items that could easily pass for unisex and have shopped in asda and tesco. Shoes were from debenhams, already £20 less than clarks and had £10 knocked off.

Yes iggy

No one picks up the sexism of school uniforms either.

Girls are forced to pay anything up to 30 pound for specific skirts. God forbid they grown an inch or two then they get sent home for them being too short.

Boys get to wear supermarket trousers.

Course girls can too but good luck finding a pair that fit a developing girls body without them being accused if wearing skinny trousers or being too tight around the arse.

So for every boys one pair of trousers girls have to buy a skirt and tights . Tights being thrush and uti in the making of course.

And of course the pathetically light see through flimsy shirts also dictate wht underwear a girl can wear it but too. And force girls to keep their blazers on even in blazing sunshine so no one can see their bras.

Course it's not fair boys have to wear long sleeves either. What is so offensive about arms I'll never know....

5 pairs of jeans, 7 t-shirts, 3 jumpers and a raincoat isn’t going to last being worn day in, day out all year round

Of course they do. I'd expect the coat to last longer than 1 year tbh.

My DS doesn't have uniform. He has 5 pairs of jeans, 4 tracksuit trousers and 6 pairs of shorts. He has 10 t-shirts and 7 long sleeved t-shirts. He has 4 jumpers and 2 rugby shirts. Rain coat, winter coat and two fleeces. 1 pair of trainers, 1 pair of sandals and 1 pair of indoor trainers.
I buy one size up and expect the clothes to last 2 years. With the exception of jeans (holes in knees) everything is and the odd t-shirt which loses its print, everything is suitable to hand down.
Shoes are replaced when they grow out of them. I just have to remember to send him in wearing trainers rather than sandals on the days he has PE.

He is not a clean child and pretty much everything washed after one days wear. If I'm lucky a jumper will last two days.

My uniform bill this year was £30.
That's for 2 cardigans, 2 pairs of trousers, 3 polo shirts, 2 pe shorts, 3 pe t-shirts, pe shoes and school shoes. All from Sainsbury's.

I could have bought logo stuff and watch that cost jump to 100s, but I chose not too.
If your kids go to a school that enforces.logo, it's up to you to send them there or choose another school. If you choose that school, you choose their rules and accept that cost.