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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to ask who thought white was a good school shirt colour?

53 replies

Twiceover · 21/01/2014 13:33

My DDs have only been in school since September and already their white polo shirts are a sorry mess of stains. Surely a darker colour would be more practical for small children to wear daily? Am tempted to bin the lot and start again. It is of course possible that my DDs are particularly messy/clumsy and everyone else's white shirts are immaculate...

OP posts:
LadyCelia · 21/01/2014 15:18

YANBU, these bloody white polo shirts are the bane of my life too. £14 each, school approved ones with a navy blue logo which is now pale purple as I've been trying to get the stains out with diluted bleach (which of course just bleaches the logo further down the shirt & not the dried in tomato near the collars). I will have to buy another couple for the summer term which is a right bugger as DS is leaving that school in July.

Navy would be perfect.

WilsonFrickett · 21/01/2014 15:19

DS has a black sweatshirt, thankfully, so it hides a multitude of sins. But then I get annoyed because it goes grey after a million just a few washes...

TantrumsAndBalloons · 21/01/2014 15:25

Probably the same bright spark who thought a white shirt with red sleeves would be perfect for a 10 year olds football team. They get caked in mud but they cannot be washed above 40 degrees or they go pink.

complexnumber · 21/01/2014 15:36

When I was at (a Direct Grant) school back in the 70's we had an option of a white shirt or a strange grey one that I have not seen since.

I never questioned it at the time, though I imagine it was part of the uniform for many of the reasons that people complain about white shirts.

I doubt very much if I could get any of my DC's to wear one nowadays.

Piffyonarock · 21/01/2014 15:58

I've started a one-family boycott of the polo shirts and bought proper white cotton shirts instead - because the fabric is smooth it doesn't pick up as much ground in grime and they perk up with the occasional soak in oxy or similar.

My DS had new polo shirts every term last year and they were all in a right state within a couple of weeks.

I briefly considered storing all the polo shirts that DS and DD got through in primary school and presenting the head teacher with some sort of art installation made out of them.

Piffyonarock · 21/01/2014 16:01

I say cotton, I mean easy care poly cotton, value M&S ones. They dry miles faster and don't need much ironing.

Basketofchocolate · 21/01/2014 21:55

Essexgirl - the good thing about coloured shirts though is that you can chuck in with some Dylon (am doing that next week with DS's cotton trousers as they have faded already from the washing). With white, there's little you can do.

CaffeinatedKitten · 21/01/2014 22:24

Marvellous as far as I know a general state primary cannot enforce a uniform policy! they encourage and rely on peer pressure. Things may have changed though. My son doesn't wear a crested sweater, he hates the collars. He wears a knit v neck from tesco instead and has never been in bother.

angeltulips · 21/01/2014 22:27

We always had white polos bc it was hot (grew up in warm country) and light colours are cooler

Agree it doesn't make sense in a place like the uk though where it's usually sweater weather!

Megrim · 21/01/2014 22:41

If I come up with a patented camouflage style design that combines felt tip pen, tomato sauce, chocolate, grass stains, mud, paint and just a hint of gravy on a grayish white background with pre-chewed sleeves, could I pitch it to Dragons Den?

Piffyonarock · 21/01/2014 22:50

That sounds fab Megrim! Can I interest you in 97 used shirts for experimenting on?

Seriously, I added up how many polo shirts my two might go through in primary alone, it was LOADS

Starballbunny · 21/01/2014 22:51

We have black senior school PE kit which is great.

Except for white hockey socks, why? Boys have black and gold rugby/football socks, why do girls have white?!

foslady · 21/01/2014 23:39

I buy cheap and chuck but every half term have a soak in bleach session

justalilmummy · 21/01/2014 23:40

The teachers in ds class feel black permanent marker is a great thing to give to a 4 year old...

mumandboys123 · 21/01/2014 23:41

Soda crystals. dirt cheap in comparison with the Vanish stuff. Works well. Just not with coloureds!!!

AnUnearthlyChild · 21/01/2014 23:45

I often wonder that if they changed the colour of the school shirts, then what the impact would be on the environment. As someone above says, once you can no longer (using detergents, etc not great for the env) get them white, then you chuck them and buy more.

Do the schools not have to have an evironmental policy? If they aren't academies then the LEA will have to have.

If they nonsense still persists when dd starts school I am highly tempted to cause trouble. No point in spending years getting all edumacated if I can't use it to my own advantage.

Stinklebell · 21/01/2014 23:46

We changed from dark grey to white a couple of years ago

I think the white ones are easier to wash, I just give them a soak in bleach and a boil wash every now and then

The darker ones were horrible, paint and stains still showed up and you couldn't wash them at very high temperatures or the colour would fade

None of the local supermarkets/Matalan stocked them either so they were a pain to buy from anywhere other than the overpriced school uniform shop

AnUnearthlyChild · 21/01/2014 23:46

And the use of chemicals to clean this stuff..

Bleach, enzymes, optical whitners

Surely we would have a case on that alone.

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 22/01/2014 00:45

why so many vests/babygros are white..why not have black

My DS (14) had black babygros (from a shop called "Gymboree" ) he was well ahead of his time fashionwiseGrin

Though I'm sure people scanned his little blond head for the 666.

Our secondary school has a pale blue summer polo shirt which is smart and a bit easier to keep clean.
Well that's a lie, my DS is wearing it. Makes no odds at all what colour, he still gets manky Hmm

AwfulMaureen · 22/01/2014 00:54

YANBU and what about "formal" skirts and trousers! Utterly ridiculous! Maybe they're ok for older children...in high school! But primary kids should be in jogging bottoms and plain, coloured t shirts and sweatshirts. They have no need to look "smart" and in my opinion, plain joggers and plain tops look just fine on kids this age.

zipzap · 22/01/2014 07:32

I am lucky -ds1 now goes to a school with navy polo shirts, navy sweatshirt and grey trousers for his uniform. Although the shirts are logoed, because they are navy and wash well (now in second year at school and they are still almost as good as new) I don't mind that I've paid £8 each for themas they will last and still look reasonable.

However ds2 is at infant school where they have White polo shirts and they are a pain - he wears his day on them so I can tell exactly what he had for lunch, colours he was painting with, glue, whiteboard pens, etc. Now various have a collection of 50 shades of grey polo shirts - never really sure which bleach or how much of it to put in with the shirts in the wash - only times I've ever had bleach solution on my clothes it's been because it's somebody else has been using and it's ended up on my clothes by mistake. At best I had large whiteish blotches, at worst it was holes so I'm wary of trying!

I have one year of both dc in navy polo shirts before ds1 is off to senior school and the local ones all have White shirts. Argh.

wonkylegs · 22/01/2014 07:41

I have no problem with White polo shirts. I just bung them in a normal 40 whites wash. If he's got tomato sauce or pen on them they get a squirt of vanish / ink remover. They are all still properly white, we got half from morrisons/ half from Sainsburys.

We moved house over the summer and his old school had bright yellow polo shirts and I found them much worse for getting stuff off, they also couldn't go in the tumble dryer - who thinks making a school uniform that can't do that is a good idea Hmm

5madthings · 22/01/2014 07:46

yanbu my boys primary used to have blue polo shirts, dark blue and then red jumpers. they were great! didnt stain and i could even hand them down from one child to thr next!!!

they changed to white and now i am forever replacing them.

its not the cost as they arnt expensive but its wasteful!!

ophiotaurus · 22/01/2014 07:48

We have a royal blue sweatshirt and a light blue polo shirt for out uniform. It's no problem to wash. Very sensible head teacher's idea! (Not me).

Starballbunny · 22/01/2014 13:33

generally I going white shirts better than white polo shirts.

Yes they collect random stains, but generally on a white background.

Polo shirts go grey and some of themselves collars go a different shade of grey to the body. They just seemed to look old and sad very quickly.