Secondary school uniform seems really expensive!

[confusedofengland]

After months of waiting anxiously, DS1 has been offered a place at our preferred secondary school, hooray! We are really pleased & excited.

However, I have just started filling I'm forms & looking at costs & it is super expensive, compared to primary school! I'm looking at around £500 for uniform, locker & 'voluntary' contribution I really hope we can afford it as we are both out of work due to Covid so struggling anyway At least DS2 & DS3 have uniform sorted for primary school, they can wear hand-me-downs!

Somebody told me that DC get more expensive the bigger they get, and I am certainly seeing it now

Yes. There are threads to thus effect every year. My brighbiyrs warnedme a long time ago about the cost of high school uniform. We have 3 tier system. In a couple of years time DS will be going to high school and DD will be going to middle school. 2 sets of uniform at once!

That seems a lot.
Can you break it down a bit? Are you buying too many of each thing?

Buy as big as you can without it looking stupid to allow growing room.

Voluntary contribution is voluntary.

If you are struggling contact the office as they might have second hand, or grants for low income families.

See if the school does second hand sales or look in your local charity shops, on community Facebook pages.

That is a lot. The only compulsory stuff I had to buy for DD was a tie, blazer and PE kit. She could wear any white school shirt and any black trousers or skirt (within the rules).

BikeRunSki is correct that teenagers are expensive, and there are always loads of replies to this effect on posts from parents of 3 or 4 children under 10 asking whether they should have more children.

My advice is
Speak to someone who has a child at the school already. We found with our DS he didn't even need half of the things on the list. By the time dd started our uniform bill was almost cut in half. Some things are just 'Recommended' not essential.

Also check if your uniform shop does a payment system where you can pay so much a week or if they have any vouchers for certain items.

Often schools that sell the uniform directly are expensive so double check no other shops sell the uniform you need. Check if Tesco etc will make the uniform you need with the logo required.

Get a size up in the most expensive things so they last all year and possibly into the next

Check if there is a uniform bank in your area who give free or heavily discounted secondhand uniform.

Yep it is stupidly expensive. It means some parents don't even apply to certain schools for their children because they worry about the costs even if the school would be really good for their children.
Just like back in the pre war era when 100s of children had to turn down their chance to go to a secondary school because their parents could afford the uniforms.
Yep - almost 100 years on the situation is that so many children's education opportunities can be affected by their parents ability to pay for some stupid ill fitting impractical clothing.

That's dreadful bookmum

Talk to someone at the school, you won't need everything all at once particularly PE kit as there will probably be a summer / winter kit.

Fresh shirts are a must but you can get a couple of days wear out of skirts/ trousers and you can buy more as the year progresses.

that does sound expensive. just kitted one of mine out for year 7 for £150. one blazer (with logo), one skirt (with logo), 2 special shirts (can't be bought anywhere else), a school specific skort, school specific polo shirt, special PE socks and a school specific sweatshirt, apron for technology. Obviously on top of that still shoes, bag (got one off Amazon for not much), trainers (shoezone) and calculator. So all in all it should be £250 I expect but that is a lot less than yours.

Is your costing including more of individual items? at secondary it just isn't possible to have spares of things like many parents do at primary, although at primary we have been managing for years with only 1 jumper, 2 shirts and one skirt/pinafore.

Yes, DS's uniform/sports kit was £400. Plus £250 for a laptop. Thankfully we don't pay for lockers but I'll have to buy a tennis racket as well at some point.

After this year (uniform changeover year) there will be some secondhand stuff, and I'll be able to sell our current lot to recoup some of the cost.

I have found the secondary uniform washes very well and dries quickly with the exception of the skirt and PE sweatshirt. our special shirts dry overnight and don't need ironing.

The locker alone is £95 & the voluntary contribution is £50!

£95 for a locker! Is it gold plated or something?
Ours are £5 per year.

£95 is only acceptable if it is for 5 or 7 years, and even then it should be paid yearly - what if you leave early!

It is for the whole time they are at the school, but payable in one go.

What does the voluntary contribution cover? Never heard of that.

I think it was around £150-200 when my step son started for logo'd uniform and PE kit, then supermarket trousers and shirts. Then they went to Blazers and ties 2 years later.

Sounds like it's just an expensive school if the locker is £95 (ours is £10, for comparison).

Our school gives a free set of uniform to those from low income families (blazer, tie, trousers/skirt , PE shorts, PE top) - might be worth seeing if this is the case at yours?

Otherwise, definitely find out what is essential and what is not (by talking to parents of children already there, not by the uniform list). Can you buy uniform items from high street shops, or does it have to be from one supplier (again, check reality with parents - our uniform lists insists you have to wear one particular type of trousers, but the reality is you can get away with anything that's not too extreme).
With PE kit you may well not need everything that's listed.

£95?????? OMG. even to cover the whole time that is very expensive.

voluntary contributions of £50 a year if it is a Church school are quite normal for building fund. Generally if they want any building work done they have to stump up a percentage of the money and the Church pay the rest. I THINK (but accept I could have this wrong) that they don't get any other funding for buildings work which I assume non church schools do???)

DS’s locker is £9/term! (Middle school)

A tennis racquet? Is that a private school @Mintjulia?

£95 for a locker wheres he off Eton?

Lol, no, is just a state comprehensive! We are in Essex though & this school has lots of pupils coming in from London, so things tend to be on the dear side here.

Yy to all the responses saying that they don't actually need everything on the list. When my ds started at secondary school there was a uniform evening. The PTA had a stand with second hand uniform and were really helpful. Told me not to buy the cookery apron, the swimming shorts and a couple of other bits.
My mum also told me to buy a plain black blazer and ask the school office for a badge to sew on. It wasn't advertised anywhere that you could do this, and I was completely skeptical! Turns out she was right! I got a £100 blazer from M&S in the sale for £12 and the badge for a fiver. At the uniform evening, the proper school suppliers were charging £65 for the cheap blazer and £120 for the expensive one. The second hand ones were £10.

Ask the school about badges for blazers and second hand uniform!

I’m buying uniform for my daughter and its stupidly expensive- they require specific shirts that are £15 each.

It is the PE kit I resent the most - imagine if every subject required parents to spend £150 ish to kit them out. I just can’t see the need for special logo’d kit

Ours isn’t, no stupid compulsory logo items and everything available from supermarkets. No compulsory blazer until senior school but it’s not that expensive.

Secondary school year 10 parent here.

Uniform plus pe kit shoes and trainers altogether around £400

From year 9 onwards we spend an average of £50 a month on books,education cards,art extras etc etc 🙄

This academic year between the start of September and when they stopped in March we'd spent £300 on a two day trip,and around £100 on supplies for exams.

Then had to go out and buy a new printer paper ink and tablet for home schooling.

And who said education is free eh