Aibu to think school uniform (Logod) is just ridiculously expensive!

[Abbazed]

For example, average cost of a primary uniform is £160. Local high school cost my friend £300 for one child. My son's grammar school cost me £350. My son's state nursery cost me £50.

It's pricing poorer families out of uniform and into being bullied? How do you keep the costs down?

We only need a logo blazer and the school tie for our secondary school so everything else is from the supermarket

How is a primary school uniform £160? I think that uniform has never been cheaper to be honest.

Dd's logo cardigans cost £14 each and she has 3. PE kit is £15 and everything else is generic. I do buy from Marks and Spencer and buy 3 of everything and it's nowhere near £160 even with the stupid Lelli Kelly shoes she likes to wear and the Smiggle backpack.

Think those figures are a little off.

That does sound expensive. I'm in the process of buying my ds secondary schools uniform.

Spent £60 so far on blazer, bag, tie, pe top...thought that was pretty good.

He now needs trousers and shirts which aren't logo'ed so I will just pick up from supermarket. And shoes obviously.

I think that's pretty reasonable.

It doesn’t need to be though. Our logo jumpers from the school are about £8 each. And decent enough quality to be passed on when outgrown

Primary uniform is even cheaper.

The school jumper is about £10. Polo shirts/trousers/skirts can be picked up at supermarket very cheaply.

I never spent anywhere near that on a primary uniform, and my dcs uniforms were always logo jumpers and polo shirts. Good school shoes are expensive, but when you think about how much time is spent wearing them, they don't work out to be bad value.

Secondary uniforms are more expensive, but again, a lot of time is spent wearing them, and they have to wear something!

We are lucky: the school sweaters are only £7.50, the rest is good old Asda! The school don't really police it, either, which is good, as we're in a fairly underprivileged area.

Don't get logoed stuff then ,I never did for primary school.

Is it private? Is there a second hand shop?

What primary school has a £160 uniform??

I love uniform because it's inexpensive and stops any arguments about getting dressed. Our DD's summer dresses are £4 a pop from ASDA, the school logo polo shirts are £5/6 each but great quality and not compulsory but we buy the school shirts, jumpers or fleeces because for the price they are fab quality.

There's no way primary uniform is £160!
Even if you bought a logo jumper for every day it wouldn't be close to £100!
Asda/Sainsburys/Tesco uniforms are all lovely quality and cheap as buttons!

oh, and the school has a shed where they keep spare uniform, they wash unclaimed lost property or ask for uniform that's been grown out of and it's free to anyone who wants to take it. We both donate and take from the shed.

You need to move to Scotland. None of this nonsense up here.

Primary school does have logo sweatshirts/jumpers available for £8 each but they are not compulsory. A plain sweatshirt/jumper/cardi of the same colour from Asda is fine and costs £4. Nothing else with logos on is even available to buy.

Secondary school - blazer and tie is compulsory. Tie is £5, blazer is about £32. Again, nothing else with the logo on is even available to buy and the rest of the uniform is very straightforward black skirt/trousers, white shirt, black cardi/jumper.

And our schools are not unusual in this. The only exception is a local school which has purple as its blazer/jumper colour which is harder to source away from school. Every other state school has a uniform using a combination of black/grey/brown/green/navy blazer or trousers, white or blue shirts and sweaters or cardigans in red/blue/green/grey/black.

Why are parents in England putting up with this expensive "must have branded everything down to their socks" nonsense?

Those were the prices for secondary school uniform for us. Primary could all be bought in Tesco, M & S etc. and didn't have to be logoed when mine were there.

Secondary school was different. Every item including all blouses, ties, PE kit had to have the school logo on it and therefore had to come from the uniform supplier. Not just the blazer.

For our local comprehensive it came to just short of £200, with PE kit in addition and bringing it nearer to £300 in the end. The grammar school came to around £450 all in, with everything having to be logoed and some things with the child's name actually embroidered (yes, really) on the front.

I had children at both schools.

There was no way round. Very little in the way of second hand as both schools had just changed their uniforms.

I agree that it is way too expensive and schools should not be allowed to do this. I know the money isn't paid to schools themselves, but sometimes there is little thought given to how less well off families are to afford this without going into debt.

Yanbu

Dd2s cardigan is 15 pounds . She needs 3 ( one in wash one worn one in wardrobe) so that's 45 quid already.

Even though much cn be bought from the high street. The book bags in infants and logo pe bags still add to the cost.

160 quid is easily spent.

One local school round here just swapped to logo polo shorts 8.50 each. So three of those on top of 3 cardigans is a fair old chunk.

No one has time to wash the same shirt daily and scraping dinner off and re using is just gross.

Its criminal how much they make you spend.

And dont get me started on dd1s school skirt fir secondary which has just increased in price to 18.50.

In fact my sons high school uniform cost less than £150 and as he's in year 7 everything was new last September ,if the schools uniform are so ridiculously expensive you probably need to speak to the school .

The secondary uniform seems expensive. I kitted DD out for secondary for £120 which included:-

2 logo jumpers
2 official shirts
2 logo skirts
PE shirt
PE skirt
PE sweater
Official socks

Our secondary school skirts were £35 each. They were a kilt in a special tartan and had to display the school logo. No way to get them in the supermarket or M & S and at that point few available second hand either.

Everyone seems fixed on the £160 for primary uniform, which I agree sounds very unlikely.

However My son's state nursery cost me £50. Is pure madness. Surely a uniform at that age isn't compulsory, and even if you wanted to buy it, the cost wouldn't be anywhere near that.

You need to move to Scotland. None of this nonsense up here.

Indeed. In fact our whole education system is focused on the education rather than box ticking, sats, uniform etc. The way I read about English schools on here makes me wholly grateful I live in Scotland.

Why are parents in England putting up with this expensive "must have branded everything down to their socks" nonsense?

Also this ^ why?

Ds is in reception and we bought-
4x polo shirts-£14
4x grey trousers-£22
3x logo jumpers-£39
1x black pe joggers-£4
1x pe hoodie- £16
2x pe polo shirts-£5
School shoes were £45 and coat was £40 but he would have needed shoes and coat anyway. So nowhere near £160. The only thing going I object to is them giving 4 year olds bloody white board markers which make a complete mess of their clothes, ds's jumpers are completely stained. I'm not replacing jumpers that still fit and are otherwise clean because they're stained, not at £13-16 each.

DDs private nearly costs £500 if you want around 3 uniform sets for a week, P.E, outer wear and shoes- it is crazy and no way near the cost price. It’s not even about being poor or rich- it’s just a unfair way for anyone to spend their money. We can’t buy alternatives but I know some state schools can buy eg Sainsbury’s Asda to bring the cost down.

I'm not @newnameold clearly as demonstrated on this thread some people insist they have to have everything logoed for primary school,but schools can't insist on that, my sons started secondary school.in September at his school he has to have a school blazer which cost £22 a school tie which was £4.99 and his shirts and trousers can be generic supermarket brands ,the school pe kit is logoed but it was about £30 for two tops,shorts and socks, we live in Greater Manchester and we don't have Gramner schools here

Absolutely bloody insane. We recently came into a small amount of money and so I went to buy some logo items for ds yesterday for September ( whilst we can afford it)
In all we spent over £60 on two jumpers and three logo shirts . We also bought a pair of plimsoles and a school dress for dd1
Ds also needs another school jumper and shirt and then there are new trousers etc
Dd1 also needs new uniform including three school jumpers ( available at school only) for about £12 each and dresses , shirts etc

Dd2 starts nursery in September and needs three nursery cardis and plain t shirts. They are about £9 each.

I have recently heard that in some circumstances councils in wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, councils can help with uniform cost but not in England.