£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

I reckon that's about right. All of it has to be school logo except for shirt and trousers.
Each of my DC need
A Blazer
4 pack of shirts
3 trousers
A tie
black socks
rugby socks
Sports shorts
Sports tee shirt
Sports hoodie
Sports waterproof
Rugby boots
Non marking trainers
School shoes

Our state secondary school introduced ipads last year. We have paid 2 x £100 instalments and iirc there is another instalment next year. Thry strongly encourage use of the school issued ipads rather than bringing in one you may already own, as they have set them up a specific way. I think there is provision for students that qualify for pupil premium.

We're lucky in our secondary school in there just jumper/cardigan/tie and sport top that's branded - but they have still asked for sport tops to be handed in after leaving school as for many it's still a barrier to participating.

My DN at secondary I went to - £420 starting secondary could easily see - but from then on it's replacements not all at once - but they have blazers special shirts, entire PE kit - it's still a state school.

Previous place I saw a mother's in tears in the uniform shops - though they had a scheme where you could pay off in chunks - and they'd set rest aside for you as the schools were vey particular with uniform - and you were looking at these kinds of prices.

Please tell me how 3 pairs of jeans, 1 pair of jogging bottoms and 1 pair of shorts (he already has another pair) plus 4 t shirts (he already has a couple more) is not enough to last a whole year but school uniform is, when school uniform is only 2 pairs of trousers and 3 shirts (plus a lot of uneccessary stuff like blazers, ties and PE kit.

Ds has been at college for 2 years and is currently at uni. He went through college pretty much wearing the same 2 pairs of joggers (one pair has now worn out) 2 pairs of shorts and 1 pair of jeans plus one of his t shirts, adding a hoody on colder days.

I thought there were guidelines to put a stop to expensive uniforms?

How do you quantify "expensive" though?

It's £300 for clothing, footwear and a coat that is worn for about 8 hours a day, more if you don't change into fresh clothes when you get home every day, for 195 days a year, or more if they don't grow out year on year.

It's an expensive outlay, for sure, and frankly it would be better overall to bring uniforms down to a basic outfit. But I reckon if my dc wore their own clothes for school every day, at secondary, the costs wouldn't be much different.

Guidelines were to put a stop to unnecessary branded items but even with only 1 compulsory branded item I still end up buying many more items from uniform shop as they are only ones that sell it.
Book bag, pinafore, skirt only at uniform shop. Specific shoe rules bump the prices up.

Ds left school and went to a non uniform college

Nike joggers £28
Sainsburys Joggers £10
Primark skinny Jeans £12
5 Primark T shirts £15
Shorts £5
Primark Hoody £8 ish

So approx £80 altogether

Plus shoes, plus coat, plus bag. Those things are included in most posts about secondary school uniform.

And simply being able to wear sports wear evey day negates the need for a separate sports kit.

However, I do think there is a culture of moaning in the UK and there are lots of people that will moan, even if uniform became completely free. 'Its not free I paid for it with my taxes it's not good enough' etc. They will be happy to pay for lots of other things though!

School in state sector is supposed to be free. We need to buy normal clothes for kids anyway. Uniform is just unneccessary expence - like an extra tax. If it can't be free, at least keep it minimal.

They are pretty useless.

Its full of “should consider” rather than “must do”.

Schools are required to help keep costs down by taking steps to remove unnecessary branded items and allowing more high-street options, such as supermarket own-label uniforms. - unnecessary is totally subjective.

Take a sensible approach to allow for exceptions to be made during extreme weather, for example, allowing pupils to wear shorts in very hot weather or allowing trousers to be worn instead of skirts in very cold weather - so they can still insist on the expensive blazers but should let the kids take them off in summer and wear a coat over them in winter

As two examples.

Also schools that already have contracts with expensive suppliers don’t have to make changes until the contract is done. I know of one school who extended their (already long) contract in anticipation of this law coming in - they won’t be the only one. The uniform companies will have pushed for it.

I have a DS who won't stop growing and I've had to replace everything for this September, so far I've spent,

Blazers x 2 £72.

tie x 2 £14

Trousers x 4 £80
Shirts x 4 £20

Rugby top £24

PE top £18

Football socks/boots/shinpads £ 50
#PE shorts £18
Jumpers x 4 &40

= School logo required, 1 supplier with the monopoly so that means it's usually overpriced and poor quality.

He also needs new school shoes and trainers so another £100 at least and that's before we get all his GCSE subject study guides as he's going into year 10.

So around £430 ish by the time we're done, for him alone and that isn't including study guides as I'm hoping to get them second hand. State school.(Academy)

We buy 4 of everything so that it cuts down on washing. I have 3 dc in school, dd starting year 7 in a brand new school but her uniform isnt available for sale yet. I know its going to cost loads as they've chosen a uniform that looks like a private school uniform, I'm dreading the cost of the tartan skirt with logo on top of all the other required logoed kit.

Ds2 is in Primary and luckily doesn't need too much I reckon with new shoes and Polo's it will be under £100.

Not sure what's happened with the format of my post...

We had to buy new ties as they changed them last year for all year 7s and now require the rest of the school to change over.

I think 28 for a baselayer with school logo is expensive when it doesn't do anything different to one could buy for half the price in sports direct. It's worn under a school branded tshirt(£25) with school branded shorts and school logo socks (£8) so still wearing school branded items and school getting a % from those purchases

And PE kit might only get worn for a few hours a week but may well need to be replaced at the end of the year if outgrown.

Easily spend that

Well my daughter's blazer alone is £130 and skirt is £60. Just a normal public school so we spend way more than £420 a year

I've just spent under £300 for my 6yr old, and that's M&S and asda. He has dyspraxia so needs some adaptive clothing. This is for...

Shoes
Trainers
Socks
Underwear
Vests
Jumpers x 4
Shirts x 4
Grey trousers x 4
Summer shorts x 4
Coat
Bag
Lunchbox

Do you just buy one set?

I'm pleased I only have one uniform to buy this year!

Polo shirts are £17 x 3
Sweatshirts are £22 x 3
Pe top £16
Socks £12
Trousers £18 for two
Shoes about £70
Bag - 30
Coat £50
Stationary add another 10-£15 on top of that

So yes about £300

For several years I had to find 100% cotton school uniform - eczema- that does cost more and some years even the basics are hard to find before getting sold out.

Our secondary school has just changed the PE kit. I am not happy, I have 1 DD in Y10 (so just 1 year to go) and another in Y9.was thinking I wouldn't have to buy any more PE kits since they've stopped growing (except socks, they constantly lose socks) and now I need to buy 2 full sets. That'll be a few hundred quid just for that.

The only way to poverty proof school uniform is to not have it. If you have to buy school uniform for term time and normal clothes for out of term that's double the number of clothes and shoes. We'd just need the later if they didn't have to wear uniform. And it'd be possible to hand down clothes to family members who go to different schools. And if their shoes get soaking wet they'd be able to wear different shoes the next day. And the girls wouldn't be sexualised to the same extent because they'd all wear jeans and hoodies instead of the short skirts and see through white shirts that gap over the bust that constitute their school uniform. There is nothing good about school uniform.

I'm pleased I only have one uniform to buy this year!

I am as well - and that most of the uniform should be fine or covered by hand me downs so only a few bits need replacing.

It will be the revision guides and text books I think will be the expense this year and were a bit of a shock first GCSE year- many of those will be passed down to DD2 - and few gifted to DD2 friends doing subjects DD2 isn't.

Our secondary school has just changed the PE kit.

We had this - it was only the top - but still two extra tops needed which I'd expected to last few more years and then pass down to youngest.

Why do you need 3 sweatshirts??

DT’s went to a non uniform school from age 4-18 - cheap to kit them out as they wore the same clothes as they did at weekends and holidays. Jeans, hoodie and trainers unless it was warmer and then shorts and T-shirt.