To think school uniform is too expensive?

[Loveheart1133]

Secondary school is going to cost in excess of £200.

That’s just for one child. That’s for 2 sweatshirts, 1 full PE kit, tie, 2 x trousers, 5 x shirts, shoes, stationery.

The £200 is not including school bag, coat, trainers for PE.

I know that the government were supposed to be making new rules about limiting the number of branded items. But as far as I can tell the school require logo jumpers, PE kits which consists of shorts, top, socks, and tracksuit. Plus Summer polo top.

I’m lucky in that I do have the money, but I can imagine for some families especially with 2 or more children it’s completely unaffordable.

Items get lost despite being labelled never to be seen again.

I know people will say they get a lot of use out of them etc etc but honestly I begrudge paying all that money for polyester clothing to dress my child like a mini adult going to work in a bank.

Isn’t it about time that uniform has an overhaul and was actually comfortable and affordable.

Just find out whats abdolutey essential buy that
My son is 19 now but i bought a lot of stuff he didnt need
He never wore his school jumper nobody did
Or the apron for cooking
He only ever wore his short sleaved PE top never the long sleaved

Yanbu, it's a money-making exercise for schools.

Total uniform spend over 3 years of dd attending a school so bad she had to leave was something like £450. £600 including shoes and bags.

I found it really unrewarding and pointless spending £75 on two blazers, one of which was lost in week 3 of term 1, and the other she refused to wear (as did 50% of the school) and it just spent its short and ridiculous life in the wardrobe.

The nasty synthetic gym kit got about 15 wears then went to the free uniform shop to fester with all the other nasty synthetic gym kit.

Environmentally damaging too. Let them wear what they want, within reason, and concentrate on educating them not fleecing the parents.

But surely you'd need clothes and shoes & coats for children anyway?

I found when the DC started school we needed far less casual clothing as they were only wearing it on weekends.

So instead of a casual jumper they now need a school logo one, which was quite similar in price to the casual ones i had bought before. My kids wear the same trainers outside school as they do for PE so its no extra cost, same for a winter coat.

Theres also loads available second hand or people are giving it away free.

The quality is usually poor. I worked in.a school for years. The jumpers were terrible quality for the cost.

The amount of expensive items has changed since I was a secondary school. (Started in 95)
Our uniform was black trousers/skirt, black shoes, white shirt (boys) or blouse (girls). All could be bought in the supermarket.
Logo jumper and tie for the boys.
PE kit was unbranded, generic from the supermarket plus trainers. Any bags and black shoes were allowed.

By comparison my DC had to have
Grey trousers in a very specific shade which was only available in the uniform shop. £22 per pair. Although within a couple of years most DC were wearing supermarket ones.
White shirts.
Tie.
Logo jumper and blazer. They had to have both. Blazers were £48
Specific brand shorts and tracksuit bottoms for PE. Logo long sleeved and short sleeved tops. Indoor trainers. Outdoor trainers. Football boots, gym shield.
Rucksack and PE bags both bought from the school with logos on. Lab coat (which was never worn, so didn't buy one for DS2)
Plus stationery etc.

I guess that's changed with the new rules about logos.

And no, they never had designer clothes, expensive tech etc. I wouldn't have needed Football boots etc if not for school as they hate football.

It was a shock after primary school where nothing needed a Logo!

Started in 97... my unifirm was an expensive blazer (£70!), specific grey skirts, a coloured blouse, a knitted jumper, logoed pe top, coloured gym skirt, knickers and shorts, coloured hockey socks, three types of sports shoe, pe jumper. Boys needed two different rugby shirts and a pe top.

This is something I do not recognise from my experience in Scotland or those of friends up here.

For secondary my children needed:

a blazer - recycled polyester, machine washable, about £50.
a school tie - £5.

There were no other branded items even available should you wish to purchase them. Black trousers/skirt, white shirts, black cardi/jumper all bought from Asda, Tesco or wherever else you wanted. PE uniform did not exist - they were told to wear shorts/t-shirt in the summer and leggings/joggers and hoodie in the winter - only requirement was no football shirts and no alcohol/gambling branding.

If you go too cheap the clothing is rubbish and often from countries that are being taken advantage.

What our school do is

1. have a FB page where parents sell or give away uniform
2. nominated a local charity shop to accept donations and sell cheaply to parents (shop not school keep the money). Shop open 7 days a week so perfect.
   if you don’t have this maybe be the one to start it up.
   many parents never pay full price for any uniform and stops going to landfill.

I hate hearing about this. Our daughter’s secondary school have stopped producing logo gear altogether. So it’s only basic shirts, skirts/trousers, tie and blazer which is recommended, and most S1 and S6 wear, but not mandatory. They do have a logo t shirt in house colour for PE but it’s only £7.50 they get a free one in s1. They are mandatory for s1-3. That’s it.
All schools should completely do away with logo items I think, and blazers should be completely optional in all schools.

So many rules. The shoes were the worst bit - and no child wants to wear school shoes outside school. My kids are 23 and I still feel a small rage at the school and their daft uniform rules. And don’t get me started on suits for sixth formers - good practice for work is it? How does the rest of the world cope?!

Are you sure they have not updated their policy as this is no longer allowed, 3 branded items plus a tie for high school, although I think additional team, club kits are except from the rule.

My DDs school are getting around the rule by saying that branded skirts and jumpers are no longer compulsory, they are saying girls can wear non branded trousers but if girls “choose to wear skirts” it has to be branded which costs £27-32 each as opposed to the pack of 2 almost identical supermarket version for £9. Same with jumpers, they are no longer compulsory but if the children want to stay warm they have to wear the “optional” branded version again £30 each v £8-9 for a pack of 2 from the supermarket. It’s disgusting.

I don't understand why schools need anything with a logo on.
Why does anyone outside of the school need to know what school a child attends.
Many secondary schools pupils have ID badges on lanyards so that will identify to anyone in the school that they are a pupil and not just a random person who has wandered in off the streets.
What does the logo actually signify?
It's advertising really.

Honestly I don't think it's that expensive, it's a lot cheaper than kitting them out in casual clothes, at least the stuff my children want to wear. I have two a secondary school and this is what I've spent, I could've done it much cheaper if I bought non branded shoes and bags.

Child 1, age 15 (size M-L mens)
Shoes (bought in April so doesn't need new) £84
Bag £32
Trousers x4 £48
Shirts x6 £54
Socks x6 £16
Boxers X3 £20
Jumper £42
Pens £5
= £299

Child 2, age 11 (size 14-15yrs)
Shoes £88
Bag £25
Jumper X1 (already has 3) £20
Trousers x4 £26
Shirts x6 £23
Socks £7
Jacket £45
Pens £5
Pe kit, have it already
= £239

I’m in Scotland and schools aren’t allowed expensive uniforms. Everything has to be available in supermarkets.

it costs me about £40 each to kit my kids out from asda.

YABU, parents in the UK are spoilt in how little they have to pay for DC. There was a thread the other day where British parents were marveling that other countries ask parents to provide pens and paper...

Agree, this was how my schools operated too. It was very common to have second-hand uniform, and the fabrics were long-lasting. Sweatshirts definitely lasted more than a year!

Most of the time UK parents have to supply stationery.
Primary schools usually supply it (but frequently run out so parents either need to donate or raise money for more).
At secondary parents are expected to supply pretty much everything.

It depends on the school tbh the i bought most of my sons unigorm in Asda but had to buy the tie , Blazer and PE kit at the uniform shop as they had the school logo but it wasnt that bad
Academy school uniform can be very expensive though

No English style academies in Scotland either

In England at least very few local authorities now give uniform grants. It’s a very small minority and only for those on the lowest incomes, so plenty of people who are struggling get no help at all. With many things. If you fall on the wrong side of the cliff edge for support you can be a lot worse off than some who get it.

Just kitted my DS out for yr 7 at an independent school. £600 in all. Need to get trainers and rugby boots and then we are done. His school shoes were £65 from Clarks.

Complain to the school and follow the full complaints process, then complain to DfE if you still think their policy is unlawful/they haven’t had regard to statutory guidance. (Eg guidance says that unbranded versions of optional branded items should be allowed so if the school isn’t allowing them they will have to justify why they’re not following the guidance.) If schools are acting unlawfully and parents don’t complain, then the government won’t know as they can’t monitor the uniform policies of over 20000 schools.

I'm guessing this is in England? YANBU, that's insane money!

Where I live in Scotland (major city) branded uniform items are not mandatory, neither are blazers.

I got both kids each kitted out with 5 shirts, 5 polo's, 5 skirts/pinafores, 5 trousers and 5 cardigans. All for less than £150. That's 5 sets of everything for both children.

All supermarket brands with the exception of shoes. 1x indoor and 1x outdoor for each child.

Total spend including underwear, stationery and bags etc was no more than £200 for both children.

It's unbelievable how difficult it must be for parents having to fork out for all the mandatory branded items when supermarket/ m&s clothes are amazing quality and prices.

Most of us aren’t buying that stuff either! My eldest is going into year 6 and I’m dreading next September. Atm I spend very little on school uniform as none of the primary stuff is branded. I make use of the June supermarket deals and manage to get everything for £50, then Clarks outlet shoes on top. Secondary school is looking like it will cost around £200 plus shoes. There’s just no need!
And before you ask, no, my children don’t have their own iPads (we have a couple of second hand family ones that are shared), phones (eldest will get my old one as her first phone likely next year), or designer gear.

I’ve had this thought too but then it’s all school kids look the same when problems arise outside of school.

There are some schools around here that need their pupils identifying. To the HTs credits as soon as they get calls about any of their pupils that HT will be in the car and heading straight to where any trouble is happening. Personally I like the fact my DDs can walk into a shop and the staff can see which school they attend knowing that 99% of the kids in this school aren’t going to cause problems for them.

When I went to school many many years ago the only branded item we had was a badge on our blazer which was iron or sew on. What differentiated us from other local schools was the colour of our uniforms, school next to ours had blue jumpers, ours green another red…