To wish schools would scrap Christmas jumper day?

[Notspeakingup]

DC2 has a couple of little classmates with difficult home lives, one in particular without much money. There are some Christmas jumper days coming up and I have been thinking about how tough it must be to always be the child with no jumper.

I know as children grow up you can't avoid the inequalities but it would be great if we could at least stop it being an issue at primary school. (And of course there are the families who buy jumpers when they can't really afford them).

I’ve always bought them second hand on eBay and tend to get fairisle ones rather than obvious Christmas ones. There are options out there to find cheaper ones, nobody needs to spend £20 per jumper. Also isn’t mandatory so kids can just go in whatever, a red shirt or something.

I've bought DS his very first new Christmas jumper this year. Previous years he's had hand-me-downs and we share these with other children in the family too. This years has a character on it and he hasn't taken it off! It's been in the washing machine with almost every wash.

We're really good for not buying one time fashion items during the year and I'm not opposed to second hand so don't feel a Christmas jumper and a Halloween costume are a huge waste issue.

I see the point about schools. Not too much an issue at our school since at least half of children just wear non uniform. My daughter did the same in y5 and 6 because she didn't want to wear a Christmas jumper. Neither did a lot of her friends at that point so thankfully nobody was singled out for not wearing them.

I'm amazed how many schools are able to organised Xmas fair, swapping of clothes, donations / hand outs, teachers having spare items to hand out. All this is not allowed in my DS primary (Scotland) because of Covid. They allegedly cannot keep any spare clothes to hand out if children get wet / muddy - we have to take spare clothes in every day.

@2022HereWeCome

I'm amazed how many schools are able to organised Xmas fair, swapping of clothes, donations / hand outs, teachers having spare items to hand out. All this is not allowed in my DS primary (Scotland) because of Covid. They allegedly cannot keep any spare clothes to hand out if children get wet / muddy - we have to take spare clothes in every day.

I work in a Scottish school and we have spares to give or lend to dc. DC's school did a uniform sale last month. At this stage anything like that blaming COVID is just excuses because they don't want to

Yeah I’ve been that mother that had to rush around and buy one with my food money so they don’t feel left out.

My trick was to buy “oversized” so you get a few years out of them. It’s also worth asking around if anyone has a spare that their child has outgrown, if you know some other mums.

I hate it too. Raising money for charity by buying unnecessary tat made using slave labour, what a great idea

@2022HereWeCome

I'm amazed how many schools are able to organised Xmas fair, swapping of clothes, donations / hand outs, teachers having spare items to hand out. All this is not allowed in my DS primary (Scotland) because of Covid. They allegedly cannot keep any spare clothes to hand out if children get wet / muddy - we have to take spare clothes in every day.

That’s just poor management team using excuses.

Or, being generous, perhaps a school that is really struggling in terms of manpower. DD’s school has an active PTA that have done all the organising and space that stuff could be brought in, laid in groups and then left for a couple of days just to ease any worries in parents or staff.

Our school has decided to scrap Christmas jumper day and has said that for December the kids can come to school in their Christmas jumpers daily if they like. This means you'll get your money's worth if you have one and if you don't want to buy one at all, then the child won't be embarrassed by going without one on a particular day when the rest of the school is wearing them.

We do buy them every year (or hand them down more often than not. My teen has stolen my fluffy light up reindeer nose one!!! ) and DS is wearing his big sister's penguin jumper which is slightly "girly" but he gives no shits at all. He's very confident in wearing what he likes.

I refuse to buy them. Wasteful, bad for the environment, tacky, and, as you say, putting pressure on families who can't afford them. Surely schools can think of a better way of celebrating Christmas than this - such a bad message to be giving out to children. How about using sustainable materials (eg leaves, berries, pine cones etc) to make badges etc which the kids could wear? Or even recycling Christmas baubles etc?

YANBU

I can't afford to buy my three kids each a jumper for a one day wear.

I'm going to put stickers on a tshirt 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’ve always thought its weird that whilst it’s supposed to raise money for save the children - parents etc end up wasting money of cheap Christmas jumpers which are probably made in sweatshops using child labour. It’s hypocritical.

We don’t buy Christmas jumpers. Sometimes my kids might have inherited a second hand one from another friends kids or relatives kids etc but if we don’t have a currently fitting Christmas jumper then they wear a normal jumper and just wear some tinsel or antlers or a Santa hat from our Christmas decorations box.

Our grammar school in an affluent area permits students to wear festive clothes (any) or own clothes or uniform whichever they prefer. They also run a take / bring/ exchange of Xmas jumpers / tshirts so students can all do as they please. Much kinder and I think all schools should adopt this ! In my youngest children’s school I know a couple of families were worried and a discreet message made it back to school and the children were provided with clothes.

I can’t be doing with Christmas jumpers - probably made in sweat shops by kids, ironically! Mine wear what they like with (the same) Santa hat each year, school wouldn’t dare complain.

I’ll be honest- I don’t like Christmas Jumper day at school, so I usually wear a festive colour with some tinsel. Something about Christmas jumpers really annoys me!!! However, this year they’ve chosen to combine it with National Elf day ( for Alzheimer’s) and I’ve actually gone out of my way to order an ‘elf’ dress to wear 😏
Children have been told that they can just wear ‘party’ clothes if not doing jumpers or elves, so no one should feel left out.

There’s always ‘that’ member of staff who thinks it’s great and goes overboard, though…..

I brought my son one from a charity shop. It was a good find, it is a next jumper. He has worn it more than once. I got all his Christmas jumpers from charity shops, then when he put grows them, they go back to the charity shops.
I do this so others can use them, I have a Christmas jumper myself, I don't but a new one every year, that's wasteful, I br it as I worked at a care home and it made the residents happy, to see it.

I'm another who hates it, this month we've paid for the pantomime trip, first installment for a residential trip next year, a special lunch after the pantomime, a Christmas dinner, nativity costume, Christmas jumper, school photos plus the Christmas fayre where we were asked to donate bottles, chocolate and teddies then buy raffle tickets, buy the crafts the kids made, buy the cards they made plus whatever was needed to spend at the fayre itself on tombolas etc.

YANBU

DD already has 2 lovely Christmas dresses (that I bought oversized last year so she could get a couple of years wear out of them). Now her school have demanded that they all come in a red Christmas jumper with green tinsel round their neck for the Nativity. So I've had to go out and buy a jumper that she doesn't need and tinsel because none of ours is green.

They also wanted £5 the other week for a class activity. I've often thought that its really unfair because some parents might not be able to afford a Christmas jumper here and a random £5 there.

Primary school here used to say just wear anything festive, please don't feel you need to buy something new, just a bit of tinsel in your hair is fine etc. New head says jumpers only with proper school trousers or skirt- frustrating as my daughter has a Christmas dress from last year that she was going to wear!

The secondary school do it on the last day which is a half day so even less time that they'll be worn!

I got them for my grandsons in charity shops for a couple of pounds each. But then I'm retired and have the time to trawl round the charity shops and find decent ones. Not fair on busy parents and especially those who can't really afford the time to look for cheap ones or the money to buy new ones.

Remember in January to buy an Xmas jumper a size up off eBay for £1.50 . Save all the panic running around when you get told at the last minute you need one - which you know will happen, as it does every year!

Im afraid to say i never buy Christmas jumpers brand new (1) because i hate Christmas jumpers as a matter of course (not sure why, they just drive me up the wall!) and (2) unlike Christmas jammies that you can wear throughout the year because no one sees them, christmas jumpers really only have December as a shelf life. Im an ebay girl when it comes to the kids crimbo jumpers and if it wasn't fir Christmas jumper day at school, the kids wouldn't have one. Luckily last year's jumpers still fit so its a win win for me 😁

Just out of interest has anyone contacted their dc's school and asked them to stop doing Christmas jumper days because:

(a) they are expensive tat

(b) it is not very eco-friendly to buy tat; and

(c) it is not ethical to buy fast fashion which may have been made by slave labour.

We have Christmas hat day instead. Lots of kids wear a standard £1 shop Santa hat, some go all out novelty and others home make. I much prefer it to Christmas jumper !

I agree! This year, we have got my son a long sleeved T-shirt to wear and my daughter a Christmas dress as these are more likely to be worn again. The cost was also a lot more reasonable!