£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

A school here mooted that just before covid and then tried to say it would be identifiable so it was actually for safety. A parent asked when the boys were getting tartan trews for safety and the whole thing quietly died away

Yes boys still in grey trousers!
Uniform in village school was grey trousers/skirt, white polo and bottle green sweatshirt now it’s tartan skirt, white shirt, tie and wool jumper with logo.
Changed in last few years.
Old uniform probably £10-15 supermarket or next (one skirt/ polo/sweater) new probably £50 in specialist shop.

Ours would be about 150 new (prinary school) including shoes, but there's plenty of excellent condition stuff for free from the pta second hand giveaway -logo jumpers & cardigans, shirts & polos, pe kit, ties, book bags. Plus most people don't need new jumpers/cardigans every year.

The PE kit is often a really major expense as PE teachers always seem to be on some sort of power trip to make parents shell out huge amounts of cash for stuff that is logod and comes in various revolting patterns in school colours. Not uncommon for a PE kit list to be 3 different types of footwear, 2 bottoms 3 tops (incl a jacket) over the course of the year - plus equipment eg gum shield, hockey stick tennis racket etc and swimming kit in a specific colour. Then you get the mad teachers who want each item industrially embroidered with the child's name on the front......

It would be great if the government stopped this nonsense.

Do you honestly think any of it comes from the teachers? These decisions aren't made at teacher level.

We had two pairs of shorts (different colours), PE vest, rugby shorts, games socks, boots and trainers, and gum shield. Didn't need anything like a tennis racket or hockey stick and there was no swimming, I think all that is unusual! There was a midlayer but that was optional and few had it as they were running around anyway.

I can believe it.

For school my son requires.

Pack of 5 shirts - £15 (end of the year he’s down to two and they could do with binning and replacing really).

4 pairs of black pants - £12.50 per pair

2 Jumpers - up to £15 each

Tie - £5 (probably goes though about 4 per year due to losing).

Blazer - £40

Branded PE T-Shirt - £15

Branded PE Shorts - £15

House PE T-Shirt - £2.50

Black Leather School Shoes (in adult sizes, often goes through 2 pairs a year due to growing) - £50

PE Trainers - £25-£30 (again adult sizes may go through two pairs).

New school bag - £25 (never had one fit to use for a second year running).

Thats at least £232.50, if I have to replace items as stated thats a total of at least £322.50. That doesn’t include a light weight waterproof coat for bad weather or the countless number of bloody pens he goes through. I’m also aware of other schools in the area that also insist on things like branded sports socks and sew on house badges. I’m in the north west so I can imagine further down south is also significantly more expensive than here.

Only the shoes were every year

That has to be on the high end of uniform to get through.

Over 5 years DS had-

5 shirts x 3 sizes
2 trousers x 3 sizes
1 jumper (never worn so not replaced)
1 blazer x 2 sizes
1 tie

2 pairs shorts x 2 sizes
1 PE vest x 2 sizes
1 rugby shirt x 2 sizes
1 pair games socks x 2 sizes

Boots about once a year
School shoes once a year
Trainers once a year

School bag x 2 (using the second now at college)

Another thing that drives me mad... the uniform shop being in a completely different town 30 minutes drive away!

That's trying to be posh in my experience

When I was at High albeit in the 80s, we wore any navy skirt (knee ish length). Navy v neck jumper. Bog standard shirts. Tie. Blazer with badge. PE kit was navy gym skirt and a coloured polo shirt. No logo. All cheap and adequate. Luckily my DC school are similar

My DD
£40 blazer every 2-3 years. £20 a year.
Skirts 2 for £7 Tesco lasted 3 years
White shirts £30 for 6 and lasted two years. £15 a year.

Jumper x2 £30 as I have school ones but plain are ok
Tie £5 each but one a year
PE top £15 rest is optional

I forgot to add black trousers too at 2x £15
Shoes yes £50
They'd have trainers anyway.
Will never ever wear a coat

They really do expect multiple different kinds of pe shoes as they do pe in a variety of locations. Sports hall for badminton/ basketball type stuff requires a light coloured non marking sole. Playing fields you need studs for most of the year. My kid has not been on the astroturf pitch or cross country running this year but going by other parents they also require their own shoes.

In our school pe is once a week and rotated to a new location termly. So you know they need indoor p.e. kit Jan- Easter. Swim kit for a term which is great as requires no shoes at all.

Ds only ever needed inside trainers and football boots for a state grammar. If he occasionally needed trainers for outside then that would just be whatever he wore at home, nothing extra.

Ds school only requires one pair of trainers. They keep the pe kit like the rest of the uniform nice and simple.

Even for rugby and football in the winter? Guess you just wash them before transitioning to indoor sport?

I get so cross mine have to have logo'd sports leggings, skorts and shorts... they are plain black with the tiniest logo... there is no reason at all they couldn't wear generic ones.

Do they do pe inside and outside? I’d honestly be worried about twisted/ broken ankles without studs. Scotland so wet , slippery grass would be standard 9 months of the year.

My DC needed multiple pairs of PE shoes too.
Indoor trainers. Outdoor trainers and studded football boots. With rules regarding styles, colours and branding/logos.
They never could decide what type of PE they'd do at any point in the year so they were all needed all the time.

Of course the indoor trainers and studded football ones couldn't be worn at weekends/holidays.
And DC wouldn't have wanted to wear their sports trainers/smart school shoes outside of school either.

I feel like I've spent this on lost ties alone this year 😡

This as well.

Ours is appalling quality. Can only be bought online.

Also! The waist to leg ratio is absurd.

The leg length always too short by the end of the year, and the waist too big.....

BUT THE GIRLS CANT WEAR BELTS wtf is that about

This is the type of thing that adds nothing except costs

Same near us with a couple plus a local trust with multiple schools