To think it's pretty damn easy to measure children's feet.

[TheFlumpFlan]

My children stand still and comply if you're wondering.
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dd (18m) at clarks was measured 3.5, ds 3 a 10.5. I felt awful at first as it meant they were squeezed into tiny shoes! After it sank in I started to wonder as shoes looked massive in these sizes, so I made excuses and left.

Over the road at the cheap store I used the self measurers, and got sizes 1.5 and 9 respectively. I drove out my way to an independent place who confirmed this. It took me seconds to measure! No bloody ipad etc.

Really it ain't rocket science, just HOW can you not get it right. The whole point of clarks always seemed to be perfectly fitting shoes. I reckon if I got 10 mums and gave them old fashioned measurers they would be less variation.

Agree on the ipad crap.

I've had my DD1s feet measured recently and have been told by 2 places she's a 12G but when she got measured on the Clarks ipad thing they said 12.5 and the width was between an E and an F!! She's been measuring a G width for ages.

Stupid thing.

Clarks are becoming the M & S of the shoe fitting world.

ipad?

They measure for their shoes. I vary anything between a 6 and an 8 depending on the shop and style.

I do understand that it's important to have well-fitting shoes while your feet are growing. But if they fit the day you're in the shop, chances are they don't in three days weeks when they've grown a bit.

So I genuinely don't see how a teenager with half a day's training and a duff machine (as in our local Clark's) could possibly be better at sizing my DCs' feet than I can. For a start, I can tell if they're walking funny compared to normal, or if their toes are always that red just there.

In the independent shop, on the other hand, they use an old-fashioned measure as a starting point, then actually look at the child's feet and gait before suggesting shoes based on their decades of personal experience. The shoes cost the same (the shop sells Clark's and other brands so it's easy to compare) so that's where we go for school shoes.

If kids grow out of shoes in 3 days they were too small to start with. Shoes should be fitted with a thumb's width of room at the end for wiggle and growth.

Dd wears a splint on one foot. Sometimes I take her into a Clarks and ask them to measure her feet just to enjoy the look of terror on their faces.

They will generally size her two sizes too small or two sizes too big. Fucking useless, aye.

You would think so, but the woman insisted DD2's feet had grown. She was pretty sure they hadn't (she's 13).

New shoes are too big

I didn't mean grown out, I just meant grown a bit, less than half a size, into the growing space. Because sometimes one does buy shoes annoyingly two days before a growth spurt

So either there's a very narrow window of "fit" which only applies on the day, or it's a less precise science than they'd like us to think.

If it doesn't slip, rub or pinch, it fits.

Yes went into one shop recently (Russell and Bromley...) and the manageress tried to measure DD's feet saying they were less than a 9 (she was an 11.5 and growing out of them) and in fact she wasn't registering on the old fashioned foot measurer at all! WTF! I took great pleasure in telling her she had to pull the sliding part down to touch her toes and read the scale above the slidy bit. Completely and utterly useless. She explained she had just returned from a week off and hadn't engaged her brain. Felt like slapping her.

Aaaah ... I remember the good old days, when your local Clarke's had an X-Ray machine to ensure correct fit! Yes, honestly. You tried on the shoes then stood on this contraption, looked down a viewer and saw the bones of your foot and where they ended in relation to the end of the shoe.

That, of course, was before the dangers of excessive radiation were known! I survived, anyway - my feet haven't dropped off yet.

Glad it's not just me with this Clarks ipad nonsense. It's truly hopeless, as though they've thrown out all their common sense for a piece of technology that's not fit for purpose.

DS2, who is 3, suddenly leapt from a 9G to a 10E when they brought in the ipad things . The 10s were flopping all over the place, and they had no Es in stock. They ordered some in for me to go back and try, but I've decided I'm disinclined to spend thirty quid on some trainer-looking things with dinosaurs on (the only non-black option).

What I don't understand is why change something when it works? The iPad machine and that one that used to have bars coming in at the side but now have lasers keep measuring wrong for us, they end up with a different size and width to the machine.

The hand machines are functional and do the job quickly!

Clarkes have gone downhill sadly, I used to work for them years ago, and it was so much better then.

I remember the xray machine

I bought my own foot gauge from the Startrite website and now order all of my children's shoes online (around back to school time they do free delivery and returns so you can get more than one style if you like).

This is partly because I was a 'trained Birthdays fitter' (remember Freeman, Hardy Willis??) when I was 15 heaven knows how many times I measured feet incorrectly!!

So glad it's not just me who thinks this. I got DS's feet measured at Clark's last week, she said he was a 5.5 and brought out some sensible shoes. We chose a pair and paid for them, then decided to get some shoes that he could play in. She brought out a few styles, including some Converse shoes which I really liked. She tried them on DS and said they were fine, so I bought them. One week later and they are impossible to get his feel into, they are far too tight and DS has only worn them once. When I've looked it says they are a size 5. Now I realise that different styles have discrepancies in their sizes, but firstly DS has very wide feet so I can't see him ever needing a shoe that claimed to be a size smaller, and secondly, it's a fashion shoe and fashion 'anything' is rarely a smaller size than the practical versions. I just wish she'd checked more thoroughly, even if DS's feet have grown that much in a week they must have been far to close to being too small when he was measured for them.

I'm furious and planning to go back on Saturday because that's the only day I'm not at work. The shop is an hour away and I work until 5pm every night in the week :/.