To think the mandatory logo school items need to stop?

[BagelwithPhiladelphiaz]

Exactly this.

I have just paid £76 for the mandatory PE kit for my DD’s senior school. Including items such as striped rugby socks, which are mandatory for some reason for all PE lessons, rugby or not.

This is before I spend £44 on a blazer, plus the uniform items that she actually needs as well as shoes, bag etc

Next I will order the mandatory items for my primary school children. Cheaper at £14 for a jumper (need a few though to wash, and they also tend to disappear in school despite being named) and £5 for PE t-shirt. This school isn’t so strict about it being mandatory but nearly all the DC have logo ones, so ones who don’t stand out, and they are needed for sports day/school photo day anyway.

None of these items are especially good quality. With secondary, we are restricted to one local supplier and the man who owns the shop is bloody rude, which adds insult to injury.

The blazer, perhaps fair enough I think as they look quite smart, but is £44 really the best price school could find? The other items.. especially the PE kits where we could easily buy very similar items without the logo, are they necessary? Especially as we have a winter coming where some people won’t be able to pay bills.

(The secondary did have a “free second hand clothes rail” for all, at some point, but when I phoned to ask they were very vague about when it would be. I have a friend whose children are on pupil premium- no subsided option for them -
and she managed to find out what day this was but went to find the second hand uniform she found some shabby items that weren’t in her DC’s size, and no PE items.)

Well Jacob. They could just use their other money. On a pointless excuse to satisfy the egos of a few parents and teachers.

We have twins entering year 10 and also had a huge list of art supplies requested for gcse art (they're both doing it).

We even have to supply acrylic paint, paint brushes and a bloody tool box with padlock?! It would surely be more economical for school to bulk buy and have parents contribute to that? We also have to pay a separate amount for their sketch books and portfolios.

I did gcse art in the mid 2000s and all I remember having of my own was some graphite pencils and colouring pencils. We had a fully stocked supply cupboard in our bog standard state school.

I refuse to buy the full PE kit - they have some tshirts and shorts that still fit so they'll do. I won't buy any rugby jerseys, socks or hoodies and they'll get by in their mildly scruffy blazers until they no longer fit. Shirts I only buy from asda as they destroy them anyway. I also refuse to buy football boots or mouthguards as they never get used.

If school ever get arsey about any of this I'll tell them to provide it themselves

Parents were also essentially forced to buy laptops, as school want to implement laptop learning. It's nuts.

I dread to think what will be demanded of the child doing food tech 😩

YANBU.

This is utterly appalling.

My kids went to a non uniform high school in the US. They wore school issued unisex basketball style PE shorts and Ts. The cost was under $10 and if you forgot your stuff you could rent a kit for 50 cents. The school also provided swimsuits for all students for swimming class and sanitized it all daily. This was free.

They wore uniform in their elementary school, but I could buy DS' anywhere, and the DDs' blouses too, up to 5th grade. The DDs wore pinafores to 4th grade and a skirt after that to 8th grade. The pinafore and skirts were easy to alter to fit though only available from the uniform shop. The blouses for 5th to 8th grade were only available at the uniform supply shop. PE gear was a shorts you could buy anywhere and a white t-shirt.

Kids in public elementary schools don't wear uniforms.

Somehow or other, all these kids who get through school wearing their own choice of clothing, with no logo in sight, go to university or into jobs and figure out what's appropriate to wear to whatever workplace they end up in.

Oh and the schools gave out chromebooks too.

My daughters school skirt is a thick heavy tartan skirt which is horrible in warm weather it costs £48, my sons have to have rugby shirts, games shirts, outdoor games jackets, shorts and jogging bottoms which all have to a logo, even their chrome book bags have to have a logo. This year to help with the cost the school (not private) stated that items such as games shorts and football socks didn’t need to come from the school uniform shop however, I found this quite unhelpful as I and many other parents had already stopped buying those from their supplier anyway as they are the only items that don’t have a logo. Trying to buy the uniform from the supplier is an absolute nightmare too as they have always been by appointment only during the school holidays and the uniform takes forever to arrive.

YADNBU and I would write to the head asking for iron on badges as can’t afford XYZ and what are they doing to comply with the government guidelines? Bloody joke. I am in france so no uniform here.. good in the sense of individualism BUT from July to October you get nothing but adverts for branded trainers & sweatshirts at ridiculous prices, all choreographed for the return to school. Uniform is definitely better IMO but they should just do iron on badges fgs!! That way everyone could buy a pack of 20 come September, iron them on to plain items and be done with it. If they want fancy blazers the school should provide them. X

I find this quite shocking to be honest!! I would really consider this carefully when choosing a school - sounds v pretentious and also like they’re not focussing on bigger issues. What would happen if you sent them in with the same colour or style of item but not from the uniform shop? Or if you told the school you were unable to get an appointment or couldn’t afford it? Also what a lot of work for you to organise this!! Argh I’d tear my hair out x

Schools should support every background to afford a standard jumper, but also these clothes can be recycled etc. Badged jumpers get dumped constanlty, it's an absolute waste of money to me. We should be teaching our kids to be economical, not pay extortionate prices for soemthing to be thrown away

Mulling this over and wondered what would happen if all parents stuck together en mass and sent all kids to school in mon logo stuff. They wouldn’t be able to punish everyone.. begs the question to me who are the schools serving and on whose guidance? In the UK they are seen as high & mighty but they’re a public service funded by a tax paying nation for the tax paying nations kids..same as our other public services. I don’t see why they should be allowed to continue with blatantly outdated and unpopular policies? If you apply the facts here that you are all paying out for this stuff (for no real reason other than it’s compulsory) & compare it to the usage of other public services - if people were forced to pay these amounts they would be absolutely outraged. Schools should be at the cutting edge of education and that today means teaching sustainability and a more rounded approach to buying stuff. It’s actually really sh!t when you think about the bigger picture here. X

Our primary school started pushing being environmentally friendly ... week later have every child a plastic water bottle on sorts day to drink then bin. Hundreds of plastic waste when the whole school bring bottles to fill up daily! Such a poor message

A middle way has to be found in between logoed, exclusive uniform & own clothes. I was allowed to wear my own clothes at 6th form and that was a mistake imo & the school changed it after I left. It was easy to spot which students came from wealthier families. There were girls who were dressed in head to toe in designer labels & they regularly sneered at those who didn't. So the head introduced standard black skirt, blazer and white blouse without a logo for 6th formers.

For the reasons stated above, I believe in school uniform but not the ridiculously expensive logoed uniform of today.

Those of you moaning about 4 pairs of shoes, what amateurs your schools must be in excluding the hoi poloi. The uniform list for DD’s school had school shoes, trainers, hockey trainers, football boots and astroturf trainers. Fortunately, I asked one of her friends older sisters if it was all necessary and she confirmed my suspicions. They need school shoes and one pair of trainers.

This is one of my fears actually. We have been asked to get non marking trainers, and football boots- hard ground and plastic studs as they need them for the AstroTurf. They won't be allowed on it with regular trainers.

also as the non marking trainers are presumably for the brand new sports hall, well I'm guessing by the "clean " instruction that they cant walk to school in them as they need to be kept clean. So her locker will be sat there full of shoes. She will be walking/cycling in trainers as they are more comfy for the distance she has to walk than the school shoes. So three pairs of shoes sat in her locker potentially not even being used. I'm thinking its gonna be like primary school where I just get returned a bag of barely used stuff thats all far to small now every few weeks that I have ti replace to again sit there unused

Our primary school have just introduced mandatory branded PE sweatshirts. Previously the PE uniform included a plain navy sweatshirt. Apparently lots of children have been wearing non uniform coloured sweatshirts 'to keep warm' and for this reason they think introducing a light coloured branded one at £17.50 a pop will make uniform compliance better.

I genuinely don't understand why they couldn't just get tougher on expecting kids to actually wear plain navy sweatshirts - rather than requiring all to buy expensive branded ones which will not last as well because of their light colour. They will be stained with mud and so passing them on through families or through the second hand uniform store will be much harder.

I strongly disagree. I went to private school for most of my schooling and the ridiculous uniforms I had to wear made no difference to how I learnt. I now live in a country that doesn't have school uniforms and consistently ranks in the top 10 worldwide for education. My children's learning is affected by their teachers, the school, the support and the environment. The fact that they're comfortable, in decent clothes and good quality comfortable shoes seems much more beneficial to their learning than stuffed into wool blazers or uncomfortable kilts like I was.

Our secondary school uniform consists of:
Logo blazer
Logo Jumper
Specific check skirt only sold at school supplier.
Logo tie.
Long and short sleeved Logo PE top
Logo PE shorts.
Logo PE socks.
2x trainers (astro and outdoor)
They get round government guidelines by telling us some of the uniform is optional ie jumpers but kids cannot wear an alternative, so if you want them to be warm it will cost you. Makes me fucking furious.
We can afford it but we live in a very split area of wealthy and poor. No choice of school as they are all seriously over subscribed.
They issue uniform report cards, I want to cry for the kids who's parents can't afford it.
We do have a Facebook uniform page so I put outgrown stuff on there for free I the hope it helps someone - it's crazy unfair though.

Agreed, op. It's ridiculous. I've just handed over nearly £60 for nursery uniform. Nursery!! That's before I've bought the mandatory two pairs of shoes, trousers and PE shorts.

I've never understood the UK's obsession with uniform either. The nursery/school I'm sending DS to is a high performing academy in a rank average part of the north of England. I certainly don't live in a wealthy part of the country.

The argument put forward by the school in favour of this nonsense is that the children look, "very smart". I despair.

I was really upset when they brought in uniform (branded polo shirts) when DS was at nursery. They've got the rest of their school lives to wear identical uniform - what's wrong with going to nursery wearing a tutu or a spiderman suit (if weather appropriate!)

I work in a PRU with the most deprived children in the county. We don't have a uniform, but it's something that comes up repeatedly with the Student Council. They want branded stuff. Most them are wearing branded clothing in one form or another (even if it's Primark) , that marks out their social status, they'd prefer it was school branding.

@miserablecat totally agree! It upsets me, too. DS will still be 3 when he starts the nursery - surely the anti-bullying argument in favour of uniform isn't a valid one when we're talking about kids that young.

It amounts to nothing more than a money-spinner for the school.

A lot of the children at my son's special school wear uniform on non uniform days because that is what you wear at school. For ds putting it on in the morning tells him that is where he is going that day. It also means he only has one set of clothes always covered in paint stains etc. There are other reasons other than anti bullying for having a uniform.

It's ages (or seems like it) since we had this problem fortunately like you they were pretty basic requirements plus the allowed a couple of shops (sewing supplies) that had the capability to embroider the design onto clothes so you could buy a plain top in the correct colour and take it along and have the logo added.

YADNBU DS is starting at upper school in September where they have to wear blazers with house-specific badges AND ties with house-specific logos (£10.99 each). So if you have a younger sibling who is put into a different house you can't hand down older sibling's. And of course they are only available from a single supplier. There are also logoed skirts and trousers but we can buy elsewhere and sew on a logo (£5) if we prefer

For PE they have to have as minimum shorts, polo shirt, rugby top, hoodie and socks - that of course can only be bought from the same supplier.

I bought just one of everything (2 trousers) and have spent £150 already. I still need to get jumper, shirts, footwear and schoolbag.

There is a thriving Facebook page for buying and selling used stuff but why go so overboard with their uniform requirements in the first place? Who wears blazers or even shirts and ties in the workplace any more?

And making them keep blazers on in the summer term? That is frankly psychotic .

If your children are FSM ask the school for a voucher for uniform

In many schools the voucher doesn’t even cover the cost of a blazer and skirt . Also some academies have banned second hand uniform sales/Facebook sites ( obviously they can’t stop parents privately selling union yo each other ) ostensibly to stop tatty uniform but also to preserve their control and supplier monopoly .