To think it's a bit cheeky for schools to only approve expensive stores for uniform purchases?

[malificent7]

Do our local comp approves only John Lewis, M and S and the local ( expensive ) uniform stores for uniform when very similar can be bought for a fraction of the price in a supermarket.
The sport kit is worse...basically a plain white polo shirt where a pack of 2 costs 3/4 pounds in tescos but no.....a single white polo shirt costs £8.50 in the local uniform store...why? Because pe department have decided the white polo shirt MUST havr no buttons so that girls can be differentiated from boys.
Wtf? Aibu to buy the tescos games shirts for half price and cut the buttons off...andcwrite a terse letter to school?
Yes...i am one of THOSE mums but i am a single parent, student and want to teach dd the art of economising!

It is ridiculous I agree. We have to use a specific supplier but mine are at private school so we have to live with it.

If it helps anyone M and S have got 20% off school uniform at the minute.

I think it’s pointless, everyone knows who are the poor kids anyway.

I'm so glad DD2 is now going into 6th form - No uniform! When DD1 started 6th form, I spent exactly £0 on additional school clothes for her, because she had everything she needed, purchased out of her clothes allowance. Both my DDs are canny charity shoppers. Uniform is not necessarily the cheap option, nor is it as Sarah says any kind of leveller, nor has it been shown to improve school outcomes. It's just a UK fetish.

Logoed uniform is ridiculously expensive and ime not great quality.

The two secondary schools closest to me have massively different expectations wrt logoed uniforms. My area is a very low income area with high unemployment.

One school insists on logoed blazer, tie, skirt/trousers, pe t-shirt, pe shorts, rugby shirt for boys and pe skort for girls, pe jumper and football socks. All in it costs at least £150 for one of each and then shirts are needed on top.

The second school wants logoed blazer, tie and pe top costing £45. Everything else can be bought from the supermarket uniform range with the only stipulations being that trousers have to be black, straight legged non stretchy material and pe shorts/jumper are black.

The first school is rated good at ofsted with below average pupil progress scores and not great exam results.

The second is rated ofsted outstanding with well above average pupil progress scores and very good exam results. Thankfully dc1 got into this school as its a better school, closer and the uniform isn't prohibitively expensive for us. I simply can't afford to pay £220+ for uniform for one child.