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.

I know right, honestly I didn’t even know where to start with that comment 🙄

Not to mention school children doing PE aren’t professional athletes.

None of the schools in my area have tartan as an option (except the High School of Glasgow, which is fee paying).

Primary schools are all navy, black or grey bottoms/pinafores and red, bottle green, navy, royal blue sweatshirts. Three nearest secondaries (which regularly top the league tables Scotland wide) are all black trousers/skirts, white shirts.

At my kids' primary they did sell royal blue sweatshirts with the school logo but most parents bought from the supermarket as they were cheaper, and harder wearing. Branded PE kit was not a thing, I think you could buy a white t-shirt with the school badge if you wanted but most kids just wore a plain white t-shirt.

No that isn’t what I meant. What I meant was somehow I managed to figure out how to dress accordingly for my profession and didn’t need to wear a uniform my whole school life to have figured it out. I mentioned this as a lot of people often say a uniform is needed to ‘train’ kids for the real world.

You don’t need training and that is the point.

Whole countries of people who didnt wear uniforms are managing it just fine.

Oh yeah! That stupid logo book bag that holds almost nothing. Forgot about that!

Why is so much for 2 kids in primary? Is it the school shoes or where you’re buying it from? I’ve got 5 packs of shirts for £10 dress less than £10 and his trousers were about £9 are you buying loads of uniform? Confused how you’ve spent that much

I have also seen the tiktoks/reels of the poor wee P1 girls starting school with tartan pinafores with big bows on the waist, big bows in their hair, big bows on their shoes. Awful. Definitely a class marker!

Our local charity shop sells blazers for £5-6 and everything else is either £1 or £2. Shop keeps the money, they do all the sorting and selling and open 7 days a week. Very few parents even the more well off buy brand new as actually the quality lasts for years. Local FB group most parents just give their stuff away too. It’s such a good way of doing it.

new law passed only 3 items can be branded.

Uniform stops the wealthier kids wearing the better clothes and making others feel rubbish. So most can be purchased from supermarkets.

Also speak to teachers “mufti day” (home clothes) makes behaviour worse in class.

That’s because it’s a novelty and out of routine. Surely you can see that?

I haven’t personally seen any second hand options for my local school. But I’m not denying it exists.

I‘m also not against the uniform, I can see the benefits of a uniform. But have you not read the posts about how schools are getting around the logo rules? Also £28.99 for a polyester jumper is terrible and yes you do need two of them.

Im sure it’s true that behaviour is worse on own clothes days, but is that because it’s a novelty and schools make such a huge deal over uniform? There are lots of countries in Europe that don’t require uniform at all and they must be managing.

But personally I'd rather be spending £200 on nicer clothes made from nicer material that actually fit and suit my child.

4 compulsory branded if one is a tie. We've got to pay £9.50 for a tie.
Then there is the sports items where its not compulsory to buy a logo sweatshirt but no other is allowed. So basically compulsory if you don't want to be cold.

No secondhand uniform where I am for our secondary school unfortunately. The very few there is are wrong sizes or snapped up so quickly.

Are uniforms magical clothing that grows with the kids and doesn’t need replacing then?

With vinted/charity shops/facebook give aways now if I really wanted to(i don't and they don't) I could absolutely dress my children in head to toe designer labels. I really don't think the divide is there as much as it once was.

Having a parent not interested in providing any suitable clothes is obviously a different issue and schools to step in with providing it for the child.

If anyone’s as old as me and went to school in the 80s, can you confirm whether all of this logo stuff was a thing back then?

Because my mum had 3 of us who went to school throughout the 70s and 80s and none of us had to wear logo anything and there was not a blazer in sight. It was simply school colours. There probably was logo items available but not everyone had them.

@MightyGoldBear most of the "designer" labels that people mention on threads like these (Nike, Reebok etc) are sold in Sports Direct or TKMaxx and are cheaper than most branded school uniform clothes.

Yup. We technically had uniform but no one checked or bothered with it. Blazers lived on the back of our chair all year round(no moving classrooms). We only put them on for a special event or an inspection or something. We still ended up in a sort of “uniform” . Trainers, jeans and tshirts /tops. The world didn’t end. We still got good results. We still learned. Behaviour was good and bad and anything in between depending on the teacher and the kids , just like everywhere else. You’d be surprised at how much of a difference it doesn’t make.

It’s reverse snobbery I think.

I went to secondary 86-91 but only had to wear uniform for the first 3 years.
There was no logo.
Only ties (3 different ones for the 3 "houses"). When I started only boys wore ties.
Catholic school next door also had no logo.
They had a tie.
The only difference in uniform between the two schools was the tie.
Other secondary on the other side of town didn't even have a uniform (they did introduce one in the 90s but it was just basic "wear black" and had no logo or tie).
All 3 schools are now academies and have stupid blazers, logos on pretty much everything (obviously that's going to have to change this year).
2 of the schools have kilt style skirts so you can't buy a generic one.
All 3 schools aren't even that great according to league tables 😂

It’s daft too. A pair of branded trainers tend to last longer, better than a £5/10 random pair. I’ve bought both at various times so I actually know. By the time you buy a few pairs of the cheap ones you end up paying the same amount. It’s a false economy, but hey ho , no one’s sneering at you because you bought your kid a pair of Nike.

Some people can only afford the really cheap pairs and the exasperation isn’t at the lack of branding, it’s at the fact that they know they’ll have to replace them again soon enough. It sucks.

Are they all logged? If so the school is breaking the new law. Which clearly says only 3 logged items plus a tie.

I'm one of those annoying parents who would challenge them on this.

DS has to have a blazer, PE t-shirt and PE-hoody with tie. Although you can skip the hoody but in reality they need one for outdoor PE in the winter. Everything else can be sourced from where you like as long as it fits the schools criteria for plain with no branding.

Nobody is stopping you. You can buy nicer black/grey trousers, nicer shirts, get the blazer tailored (I do this one) etc. etc.

Yes all logo’ed.

The PE tracksuit isn’t compulsory, but if you don’t have it it’s shorts and t-shirt. Which could be a problem in the Winter.

Like I say for me personally it isn’t a problem, but when I was buying it all I thought money. For some families especially if they have 2 or more children, they’d be looking at well over £500. That’s not small money for many, many people.

People can say what they like but regular clothing can be a LOT cheaper than al that. But children will still need some regular clothing plus uniform.

It’s the quality too, all horrible and plasticky.

Ive had threads in style and beauty and been absolutely slated for asking about polyester clothing, but it’s good enough for our kids apparently?

Getting the blazer tailored doesn’t change that it’s a 100% polyester piece of crap at £50. Or the plastic , shiny , dark coloured pe kits.

What a load of nonsense. If you can afford food, you can afford steak and lobster. If you can afford a car, you can afford a Porsche. If you can afford a holiday, you can afford a month long all inclusove stay at a 5 star resort. See how silly that sounds?

Fone are the days when one of the benefits of school uniform was that those who lived in poverty wouldnt sticknout so much. When I was at school, uniform consisted of a school tie and jumper with school logo. All other uniform could be bought from anywhere (e.g. plain white shirt, black trousers, etc.) Now schools are requiring branded bags, blazers, pe kit, etc. It's nothing more than a money grab.

Uniform does NOT have to have everything branded. Simply adhering to school colours with a specific tie should be good enough.

🤣 I love this description. It’s spot on.