School blazer - £90?!

[Livvielo]

Posting for traffic really… DD 11 starts secondary school in September, and we are just purchasing her uniform… £90 for a blazer?! Is that the norm?! That’s without the school skirt, PE kit and various other bits that have to be purchased from the school. How many blazers do you buy? This is just a catholic comprehensive girls school, although it is regarded as extremely good.
But £90 for a blazer?? Is that not a bit OTT?

This thread has just made me check the price of the uniform for our only, local high school.
Blazer £29.50
Jumper and PE hoody £18
PE top £14
PE shorts £10

Shirts and trousers are not embroidered. Skirts are, but DD wouldn’t be seen dead in a skirt. 🤞 she she doesn’t change her mind.

Also those box pleats skirts are so unflattering on any child who is overweight.

One of the very few joys of home learning was not having to iron a pleated skirt for 6 months!

Do you have a Local Facebook Group for the school or just the area like a selling group? I’d post and see if anyone is selling one :)

My friends twin Dds are just starting at a private school with excellent sporting credentials, they are competitive swimmers, school insists on costumes costing £300 each, goggles costing £45 and thats without all the other kit required. Its costing them thousands and thousands to set them up as boarders as all bedding etc has to be bought, theres a ten page list of stuff including an alarm clock !

I went to a private school, we had to drive 40 miles to get the day uniform from one specific shop and ten miles in the other direction to get the sports kit from another specific shop. It cost about a grand altogether.

@EvilEdna1

I think some schools have very expensive uniforms on purpose to deter poorer families from attending.

I think you're right. It's a direct breach of the School Admissions Code which says they shouldn't do this. Worth reporting to the Schools Adjudicator, perhaps.

The state grammar my younger one wanted to go to has wool blazers, dry-clean only, £120-140. Not as distinctive as the OPs, but with two rows of piping all the way around the edges, one of which is the house colour. It beggars belief...

In Scotland families who get free school meals get a uniform bursary of £130 per child. The vast majority of schools have no expensive blazers or compulsory items, so this covers supermarket clothes to an extent.

The school I work in - blazers cost £35-40 and there's a scheme where you hand one in once outgrown and you collect a larger one. Works brilliantly. House coloured PE tops £10, tie £5 (which changes for senior years only). Logo jumpers and hoodies £15 but optional. All black and white shirts from anywhere.

This is the way it should be done everywhere. No arguments.

@CecilyP

I know she’s at private school and we can manage well but our blazer is £110

That really is crazy as you know at 5 she’ll definitely outgrow it! Whereas the one expensive blazer I got at 12 still fitted when I was 18.

Thankfully we’ve just tried it on and she’ll get at least another two years out of it and will be in good shape to pass on, the school does have a seconds hand system. It’s not strictly “necessary” until a bit further through the school but hopefully we’ll need 2 or 3 for the 8 years she’s at the school (only primary) 😂

I’m trying to remember everything we had to have now…

Winter blazer (wool)
Summer blazer
Jumper
Winter shirts
Summer blouses
Winter hat
Summer boater
Scarf
Tie
Skirt
Black tights in winter
Nude tights in summer
Ankle socks in summer (for those who dared to go bare-legged)
Shoes
Coat
Bag
Sports jumper
Sports t-shirts
Jogging bottoms
Gym knickers
Netball skirt
Trainer socks
Hockey socks
Hockey stick
Mouthguard
Shin guards
Trainers
Astro turf trainers/athletics spikes/gym leotard/athletics vest if you made the school team (and if you were selected participation was compulsory, whether you wanted to or not)
Swimming costume
Swimming hat
Waterproof sports jacket
Sports kit bag
Lab coat

And then there’s the…
Calculator
Maths instrument set
Pencil/paints/paintbrush set for art
English/French/German/Spanish dictionaries
Required reading books for English
Ingredients for Home Economics every week

And when you got up to sixth form…
Sixth form blazer - which you may have ended up having to buy again in Upper Sixth if you got sports (red) or drama (green) colours or were a prefect (royal blue)
Sixth form tie- again different one in U6th for colours/prefects
Sixth form skirt

Boys had to have a proper suit from a specific local outfitter, plus kits for rugby, cricket, hockey etc

I understand the uniform has been changed since. We did look very smart but the cost was insane, and I don’t think a year went by where I didn’t get some uniform item as a “birthday present” (early September birthday 😒)

Wow! My DD starts in Sept too. Her blazer cost me £35… to be honest I was expecting £50 but no way £90

My DS1 blazer (he’s now 23) cost £60 and went up in price as it got bigger, so I dread to think how much it costs now.

DS2 blazer was £40 or £45, but he’s now grown out of it so if he was to be going back in September it would be more.

The blazer I can live with as most of the time you only need to buy 2 for their entire secondary school time unless they have lost it or it’s stolen. What I do resent buying are the crappy, flimsy, school backpacks. DS1 backpack was actually good, cost £25 but was big and strong and it never snapped.

DS2 £16 bag snapped twice in less than 6 months, the shop kept blaming it on all the books they put in the bag after the second time I told the school so I would not buy anymore of their flimsy bags, and low and behold it snapped again so I just got him a decathlon one which held up much better

@Fizbosshoes

There is not a place for this shit anymore. Uniform yes but what's wrong with trousers/ skirt top and jumper not a horrible polyester blazer which staff "may allow you to remove" in hot weather. Never as a working adult have I needed permission to remove an outer layer of clothing when it is too hot, because clearly that is bloody insane.

Yes!!
I'm ok with wearing a particular colour (even badge or tie) to represent or be identified from the school.
But the 6th form wearing "business wear" aka suits and ties for boys and skirt and jacket suits for girls "to prepare them for the world of work" is ridiculous. Majority of jobs now, even in the corporate world dont require people to dress like that everyday. Some jobs require a uniform but often these are provided. Most gps, lawyers, even teachers themselves that I know dont wear suits. And its particularly idiotic for practical subjects like art, design, cookery etc. When was the last time you saw a chef wearing a suit? I do a creative/practical job (admittedly it's not a subject generally covered at school) but I wear tshirt and shorts and flip flops in the summer , and jeans and a hoodie in the winter.

Exactly and what about those who go to university? They aren't going to turn up for lectures in a suit are they? I went to sixth form college so could just wear jeans etc but still managed to dress smartly when I started work.

Is it private school? I can’t imagine a state school being able to charge that much. I thought my DS’s were expensive, think it was £35.

On top of uniform I also shelled out £200 on textbooks for DD’s GCSE subjects this Summer. Obviously the school can provide them but the girls are then not allowed to make notes on them, highlight anything and if they are stained or ripped the parents have to replace them. So most parents do buy them.

Part of them are only for Y10, so I have to do them same next summer.

Madness.

The school tried to ensure uniform is more affordable, their idea of that unfortunately is to not enforce the full name embroided on the PE top anymore. Huge saving.

I had a council scholarship to a private Catholic convent school in 1975 and my mum had to get the uniform from John Lewis. It involved a blue velour blazer with gold buttons and a really horrible grey pleated skirt. There was a lacrosse stick. The uniform cost about £150 and that was a Small Fortune and she actually almost enjoyed the indecency of the amount because she was So Very Proud, though we had very little spare money.

this one?

DD’s state grammar is £75-85 but they do a ‘smart price’ one £45 in a different fabric and lighter shade. Literally a few children wear the cheap one and it singles them out. It’s awful they do that. DD is going in yr 11 and only on blazer 2. They wear it all day.

@Dixiechickonhols

DD’s state grammar is £75-85 but they do a ‘smart price’ one £45 in a different fabric and lighter shade. Literally a few children wear the cheap one and it singles them out. It’s awful they do that. DD is going in yr 11 and only on blazer 2. They wear it all day.

How on Earth do they get away with that?

Surely they could just have the cheaper one for all?

When I started secondary in 1966, I can remember my DM ranting about the blazer costing nearly £7. According to the BOE's inflation calculator, £7 in 1966 is equivalent to £113 now.

So even 50-odd years ago, this was a problem for poor families. Oh, and it was bought too big, so it would last. I stopped growing at 12 and it was still too bloody big when I'd finished my O-levels.

DS's blazer in Year 4 cost us £80 and he was still wearing it at the end of Year 6. I know it's expensive, but it was lovely quality.

He's moving to another school now for Year 7 and we have just spent £800 on his uniform

(and kit etc)

As part of Relocation allowance from DHs work whenever we had to move, we got a School Uniform allowance of £75 per child. This was supposedly the average cost of required logoed items... not sure which year they calculated that in! More than enough at Primary School, wouldn't touch it at many Secondaries it seems.

Sirzy No idea. Can’t believe it’s acceptable. I just checked school supplier and both options still there. People who had that blazer soon swapped to the one 99% wear.