Would you pay this for one pair of school trousers fuming!!!!

[Dickorydockwhatthe]

School have emailed to say as from September they will be changing the school trousers and skirts and that we will now have to buy from the uniform shop. The changes are that they have the schools initials in black embroidery on the black trouser 🙄. The skirts also have the same but are below the knee etc.

They apparently negotiated a good price and one pair of trousers of skirt could range from £18.50 to £24.50!!!!! Are they absolutely mad I pay £10 for two pairs which fit the school criteria, they are standard smart black school trousers we have never had issues over ds uniform. I normally buy 4 pairs or at least 3 no way could I afford or justify that now!!! I also have to buy a new blazer has ds has only lasted a year due to the poor sizing. Small was was a good a fit but next size was abasolutley massive and the guy at the store himself said there was a vast difference in sizing so I dread to think what the trousers are going to be like. I'm so angry at the school as they are punishing everyone because an minority are disobey the rules. Not mention to they are probably getting commission for uniform sold 😡

Its like that mostly in Ireland...you can only buy most uniforms in specific shops that only stock proper 'logo' school uniforms, and a whole set could easily cost you 100 euro!!

a school near us has just announced a uniform change.

They are switching from black to grey. With black there is a constant problem with kids trying it on wearing black jeans etc, but with grey there isn't much choice, there are very few fashion trousers which are grey!
The idea is that they stop most of the uniform hassle which wastes aeveryone's time, and still keep a uniform which is affordable and looks smart.

I think it is a clever idea.

dds school has one uniform shop and it is £15 per trouser/skirt compared to £15 for 2 pairs from Asda/M&S. It makes me so cross as they are plain grey and it would be fine to wear Asda plain grey, and then she would get a choice of fit too.

Can you get your cheaper trews embroidered by someone, or yourself, or your DS.

I've done this with uniforms. No one noticed.
Take a photo of the crest and get crafty.
No need to buy the official ones at all.

Every uniform shop I've worked in has offered embroidery, maybe yours will too? And yeah, the school will undoubtedly get a bit of cash from this, but it's totally unreasonable.

Excellent post Helena and spot on.
Wearing full uniform to and from school is expected as part of representing school but they're only interested in what can be seen.
They totally refuse to acknowledge or discuss cyber bullying.

Echo a pp- are the school going to inspect everyone's trousers or skirts for embroidery? Probably not, especially if it's black stitching on black clothing, will be very hard to see.

Also, what would the school do if a parent genuinely couldn't afford this new uniform? Take it out on the child? Detention? Etc

My ds's school became an academy part way through last year and changed the blazer and tie and there were many concessions made, pretty much everyone had the new uniform by the next academic year. The change in our situation was for the better but I know many parents were still annoyed.

I don't agree with things like trousers/skirts/shirts only being available from a uniform shop when you can buy them much cheaper elsewhere, especially if they aren't that different.

"I don't think they can enforce uniform at primary"

This is a myth, and yes they can, and have been able to do so for years (though of course most choose not to)

prh47bridge linked the relevant govt docs that establish that to a thread some time ago

But: uniform shouldn't be expensive or single supplier.

Citizens' Advice has a campaign about the hidden costs of school

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/campaigns/current_campaigns/recent-campaigns/adding-up-campaign/

Personally I don't like it when schools go down this route.

The only schools I know that have gone that way have done it in response to repeated issues with getting most students to follow uniform rules (often because some parents don't seem to have the common sense that the OP has which is to buy cheap appropriate uniform).

Meanwhile where I work, tie, blazer and skirts are from the shop, jumpers are optional, everything else can be bought from wherever you like (including a non school brand jumper). The worse we have to deal with is odd reminders about trainers, tucking shirts in and rolling skirts down. All easily corrected.

We do a 2nd hand sale for blazers/skirts/ties because kids grow. It works really well. But it works well because our parents send their children in appropriate unifrom.

This is why Academies have to be stopped.
You want this to keep happening and to have corruption in our school? Then keep voting Tory.
Please vote labour to try and get schools back into public ownership.

There's the official government guidelines!

But our lovely government have sold our schools of to the highest bidder and now they don't have to follow government guidelines.

I thjnk I just read an article in the local paper aboutvthis. Does the school's name begin with T?

You're right that private schools don't have to follow government regulations.

But all maintained schools do (the freedoms that VA schools have always ad, and which now extend to academies) don't cover things like uniform policies.

And as uniform can be enforced, it's important that breaches of proper practice are strenuously objected to.

My dd's high school has this. It's an academy. Ours are grey though so it would be harder to do the embroidering elsewhere as you would need to try to get the same shade of grey trousers. If they were black, I'd do it.

eek it's even made the national paper!!! Head mistress is twisting the truth slightly about telling parents in March. I only found out the other day email. Parents of the new year 7's starting in September found out in March.

Link?

Can you get the logo and sew it on to cheap trousers as a work around ?

Will try again
www.thesun.co.uk/news/3696946/parents-furious-after-plymouth-school-insists-pupils-must-wear-branded-uniform-costing-18-even-though-tesco-sells-almost-identical-outfit-for-just-4/

Are you going to the meeting on June 13th Dickory?

This Estovet Community College (formerly) right? Became an academy some years ago. What are they going to do if every parent refuses to buy the uniform given the average wage in Plymouth

like most parents, we loathed the concept of having to buy uniforms from nominated suppliers.
However, how many posters would spend £24.50 on a pair of trousers or skirt for themselves and expect to wear them 195 times and at least 39 washes in a year?

I can understand why the school want to enforce uniform. This happened at our local comprehensive recently. Luckily ds2 was in the 6th form so wasn't affected.

Some of the pupuls were blatantly flouting the uniform regulations, especially regarding trousers. So the school bought in logo trousers and skirts. They werect lot more expensive and loads of parents quite rightly complained. So the school introdused an embroidery service. You could still buy trousers from Asda or wherever then send them into school to be embroidered. If the trousers didn't fit the criteria (ie if they were jeans or jeggibgs not school trousrs) then they would be returned without being embroider and a note explaiin why they weren't suitable

It's now working fine, and the pupils look much smarter. Hopefully your school will offer the same service.

That's ridiculous! I'd complain and try to rile the other parents up to do the same. If you all refuse to do it, surely they'll have to change their minds.

i think the price is dire but would happily have paid it for middle daughter wuth whom we had 3 years of appropriate school trouser arguments