£420 a year on school uniform?

[weareallout]

Just heard that i£420 is average on the news. Our high is no where near.
£40 blazer / lasts more than 1 year
£5 tie
£10-20 jumper
£10 PE top of £5 non logo
Any black shorts and trainers.
Black trousers and white shirts

Ours is close to £500 - public school, my daughter is quite small so hoping she can reuse the blazer for a while etc, but my son is huge and will probably cost a alot more. Ours are year 5 and 2. And dont get me started on the lost stuff....

DDs private school has a thriving second hand Facebook page, in fact I'm lurking on it now trying to snap up some bargains! Definitely no shame in second hand at her school.

*huge=growing alot quicker than his sister and is already just as tall as her..

(Also the lost and found box at the end of the year is a good place to get next year's PE kit... just saying. Our primary laid it all out on the ground in the playground and you just took what you needed.)

DS needs new shirts which I can get from anywhere, new blazer £60, new tie £12 and a new PE top £30, plus shoes, trainers and rugby boots which will come to at least another £100.

My son spends about £100 on school bags alone he has grown which means I've had to replace shirts and trousers recently (literally won't fit him) he is exploding out of the side of his shoes so I need to replace them and as he is secondary they won't accept trainers for the last few weeks so hopefully they will still fit September (I've bought half a size up) I don't buy new in September I buy as and when needed

The thing you have to remember about the average figure for anything is that the majority is all going to be one side of it or the other.

That £400 figure is taking into account ALL primary and secondary schools in the country. Some wildly expensive posh schools with £££ blazers and la cross uniforms, and others (like ours) who just ask that the children turn up in black and white or grey and white and are warm enough.

It's a huge range.

I am probably totally unreasonable here but I can't see the issue.Its just part and parcel of having kids isn't it? My youngest is going to secondary school in September and I guess it is what it is.They have to have it so I have to suck it up!

And what about those families who can’t afford to suck it up?

Yes easily over £400.

I was £160 for primary for 5 polo shirts, 5 jumpers, x2 fleece, 5 trousers, shoes and pe kit which I thought was expensive until ds went to secondary school and I'm now double that,

But when so many families are struggling to feed their kids, where is the logic in expecting them to fork out for logo'd blazers?

Looking into the whole point of uniforms (which do i agree with) there's nothing to say it has to be expensive. My kids went to and are at schools which expected certain colours and standards of clothing but nothing fancy.

If things haven’t changed at all since you decided to have children then perhaps.

When my youngest was born both of the high schools round here were black/grey/navy trousers or skirt, shirt and tie, jumper in specific colour type uniforms that could all be bought from supermarkets and the likes. (As were all of the primary schools.)

One of the high schools is still like that. The other has a ridiculously expensive uniform - blazer (and they can’t even use the same one all the way through due to trim colours) £90+, trousers and skirts in a specific shade from one supplier, crested everything from one supplier, even bags and coats have to be bought specifically.

The kids have to be split between the two schools so people don’t have a choice to go to the one that has the cheaper uniform. It’s purely based on distance (but it’s a small place, they’re just quite small schools).

Not something people could have foreseen the new head suddenly deciding on a few years ago when planning to have kids.

Primary - nothing as it's no school uniform (I much prefer it - no having to have special school clothes).

Secondary - yeah, with sports kit, easily that (even when I buy big to last as long as possible)

Ours is about 600 this year but we are in private school. No way should it cost this much in a state school.

Having school specific trousers and shirts seems a step too far, jumpers or blazers fair enough. DS's blazer has lasted him two years with one small repair, so probably works out cheaper over that period of time than if i had had to buy logoed jumpers.

Secondary - yeah, with sports kit, easily that (even when I buy big to last as long as possible)

And when they come home with an XS top when you sent them in with a large , aaargh !

I don't have much of a problem with uniform as a concept, I do object to having to buy it from one expensive shop.
My DC primary changed to all branded uniform as DS was leaving. They claimed it wasn't more expensive, which was a lie. When it was unbranded you could buy from Asda or Harrods or snow here in between, depending on budget.

One school nearby (not private) has £100+ blazers, skirts are 40, there are 2 pe kits (one generic, one for house competitions) and needs name embossed on it (for extra cost) both things meaning it's harder to pass down.

Blazers with badges for example

As a child you bought a badge , sewed it on and took it off and sewed it onto the next blazer

This what happened when I was at school. Uniform was black , iirc my parents used to buy blazer from bhs (I'm pretty sure our local supermarkets didn't sell clothes in the 1990s) skirt came from BHS, Tammy or the market. Badge and tie bought cheaply from school. They did have to go to a special shop for the PE kit, but they certainly didn't have to buy the blazer, skirt or shirts there.

DD’s full kit including the sodding apron for DT for Y7 cost half that, but her school doesn’t have a blazer and they can wear trainers as shoes, so only needed to buy one pair. Have replaced most bottom half items a few times as she’s grown a lot since (over 20cm) and she doesn’t wear skirts, so the trousers start looking a bit ridiculous. I’m secretly jealous of the parents whose children did most of their growing in primary school

My memories of school uniform are having to spend a fortune on specific colour blouses (winter and summer) different pe kits (winter and summer plus house colours), blazer (not a standard colour) etc. My brother needed two different Rugby shirts for example! State school.

My kids uniform is cheap in comparison

Practically everything at our State Secondary has a logo or is bespoke.

• Blazer - logo
• Skirt - logo
• Jumper - logo
• PE T shirt - logo
• PE jumper - logo
• Summer polo shirts - logo
• Summer shorts - logo

• Tie - bespoke
• PE shorts - bespoke
• PE trousers - bespoke

That leaves winter and spring term shirts, trousers and shoes and socks as the only non specific part of the uniform.

It does look smart but the quality is generally quite poor and there is just 1 supplier for everything with a logo and the bespoke items.

Our school give away second hand uniform. Twice a year everything not claimed in lost and found is washed and laid out on a table at school events. Parents bring old school uniform. You help yourself, I always take as many cardigans as possible. As we lose so many it’s less annoying when they are free.

Why they can't all just wear trainers for their uniform I don't know. Comfortable, easy to wash, need a pair anyways for sport, and formal office footwear is just not necessary.