£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

As someone who's under 5ft I'm (not even secretly) jealous of anyone who grew 20cm at any stage of their childhood or adolescence. 🤣🤣
Unfortunately for them both my DC are pretty small but I do concede I've probably spent a lot less on uniform that their taller, faster growing friends parents, and we've benefitted from barely used stuff passed on after a friend grew out of it in an obscenely short period of time!

My eldest is in year 3 and her uniform cost around £600
Skirt x2
Pinafore x1
Blouses x6
Blazer x1
Skort, shorts, polos for PE
Socks, school bag, hat.

In year 5, their uniform changes and my friend spent well over 1k on her daughters for this september!

I'm not sure they'd spend any less on normal clothes though? They need a lot less normal clothes if they're in uniform all day. I really don't see the issue with it to be honest.

But they could spend a lot less on school uniform if schools didn’t have very restrictive, expensive uniforms.

i don’t have an issue with uniform but it needs to be affordable.

School Nursery uniform:
Logo jumper X 2 £26
Tshirts x 3 £15 (non logo option)
3 x navy joggers £22 (only found in a 3 pack in her mini size)
Skirt £18
Pinafore £18
Trainers/shoes £20
Socks £5
Book bag £7
Wellies to be left there £15
~£150

That's a lot for a 3 year old!

Can't find anywhere on high street that does royal blue skirts and pinafores so I have to get the expensive ones from the uniform supplier.

This is the other thing, does this average include people buying 6 logo blouses? I don't think I've ever owned that many uniform shirts, neither does DD. She has 3. Most of the time she wears the same one for 2 days, unless it's sweaty and summer. Otherwise I just wash them.

My son has spent a LOT less on clothes since he left school and went to college, then uni. And his secondary had by far the cheapest uniform in the area.

He went shopping last week. 3 pairs of jeans, 4 t shirts and a pair of shorts from Primark and even his nike jogging bottoms from Sports Direct cost a lot less than his school uniform.

@Ladyoftheknight And sorry to single you out but how often does your child do PE? Why do they need multiple polos, a skort and shorts? Socks, school bag and hat you'd need regardless of uniform costs.

People are only paying that if they are buying excessive amounts of uniform.

DS15 is 6ft 3 size 14 shoes. He is on the Rugby, Cricket and Badminton team, he costs us between £800 - 1.5K as every year he grew out of his uniform just before summer starts and the custom sized shoes and kit, it is a horrific amount.

DD is rather petite so I'm not sure how much she will cost next September but her growth spurts have never been as dramatic as DS.

There's lots of families that do hand me downs as I was used to in my youth but I can't do that with mine.

Do washing a bit more often and you won’t need 6 blouses.

I could easily see that tbh. My Ds is at nursery with no uniform. So daily clothes are from home. But he still needs more daily clothes because of that.

Theres also loads of double items as he has to keep some things at nursery. Of the top of my head:
Full change of clothes x2, including socks and underwear £30?
rain trousers £30
rain coat £30
slippers £25
swim shorts and uv vest, sun hat, and beach towel ( we live in hot country in summer) -£50

In winter (then snowy country) - fleece zip up top, mittens, hat, scarf - £50
some people also keep spare ski trousers and ski coat there but I take our one pair in daily as they are so expensive.

He also has to have two pair of season appropriate shoes at home at a time as they often come home soaked of thick in mud, or soaked so I need spare pair whilst I wash and dry them.

However. For a year, it’s pretty good value if it costs £400-500 in suitable clothing and equipment imo seeing as it’s free education otherwise

Or where, as many people on the thread have shown, schools have ridiculously expensive uniforms like £90 blazers and £120 PE uniforms…

But is that because he's done growing? How often were you replacing uniform? My DD hasn't had a new blazer since Y7, and she's in Y10. I've bought new skirt, shirts and jumper but that's it. I really don't think £400 odd is too much to clothe a child for, usually, multiple years.

Back in the dark ages I had 1 skirt which lasted me the whole time at secondary school. Used to roll it up in the first/second year so looked like Mrs Tinglewinkle. Blazer - 2nd hand lasted me the whole of secondary school, mom sold it on. 3 blouses for the winter and 1 jumper. 1 summer dress and cardigan.

My mom never had a washing machine, she didn't believe in them so everything was hand washed

I really don't know how she did it

She does it 3 times a week, twice as set lessons and one additional.
One skort is black, one is white (for different sports). The shorts are for gymnastics, one polo is long sleeved, one short sleeved. The socks are for PE and are branded, her normal socks have to be embroidered with her name too. And the school bag is school branded! The blouses are only £10 each so I buy a few of them as spares and in the next size up. We could manage with 3 but when you're buying socks with logos on you can stretch to the extras! The school is very hot on clean and smart uniform so better to have spares

The other thing is the blouses have particular collars, and as we can't buy any of the uniform in supermarkets, we don't have the option of buying a spare in an emergency, so better to have plenty in advance iyswim.

Is this an independent?

That's an excessive amount. My kids need nowhere near that amount of school clothing.

I think more parents need to challenge their secondary schools on this. I'm sure there's been recent legislation saying that branded stuff should be kept to a minimum. At my son's school the only items with the school logo now are the jumper and PE shirt, which has brought down the cost a lot.

They do have regular parent forum meetings and seem to take ideas on board from that.

DDs school has new blazers from September... but the old ones will still be valid. So any year 7s for the next few years will be obvious if they have a hand down or second hand blazer. I wonder how many parents will feel obliged to buy new to avoid "stigma". They are only £25-£30 but that's a big chunk of a weekly food budget for some. The PE kit is going more generic which is good... no idea why they are changing the school badge though!

@Rainbowshit Exactly! No one needs that many skirts/blouses/pinafores.

Ds's school was roughly

Blazer £40
Trousers (from anywhere but if you had a girl who wears skirts there is a prescribed style that most shops don't sell so abut £15-20 each. I'd say you need two.
Optional summer shorts from anywhere
Shirt/blouse from anywhere (mine had 3)
Tie £8.50
PE polo shirt £18
PE shorts (from anywhere but a not easily available colour £10
PE Training Top £26
Training Pants from anywhere £15
Football socks £10

So I reckon around £200 would do it plus shoes

But the other schools nearby have pleated tartan skirts for the girls at £40 each or trousers with a tiny logo on that cost £30 each, blouses with logos at £20 each. I can see how that adds up. We are in a deprived area and these are state schools.

We don't have a school uniform and my DD basically wears leggings and a t-shirt and jumper (shorts in summer). We do not spend £400+ on her non uniform.

my dc go to a school without uniform.

kitting them out with school specific items still costs about 500€ each (ouch).
just the sports shoes (indoor, outdoor & track) are a big expense. but at least they can use these out of school as well.
plus we need to buy (fountain) pens & ink and notebooks etc