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 went to a Catholic Grammar School it was incredibly strict about uniform. Funnily enough it was modernising it's uniform in the 80s, it had removed the need for a wool beret, a leather satchel and a long burberry style mac for winter. The only branded item was a wool blazer which was optional - the second hand blazers were prized, no one wanted a new one.
But the increasing trend (yes schools follow trends too) for fancier school uniforms with branding arrived with a new HT in the late 90s - gone were the home knitted jumpers in school colours, the PE kit was branded, school bags were branded, scarves - everything had to be bought from the uniform shop.

Like honestly, if you think nearly £50 on this (image pending for a while) is a good investment, I have a bridge to sell you.

😂😂😂

Maybe uniform was a localised thing in the 90s.

Every school had kilts or coloured skirts and trousers (blue, brown, burgundy) many had coloured blouses, boys/mixed schools had an array of coloured blazers, bow ties on girls..

Now its all black blazers as one academy chain dominates (Harris, South East London)

Fair enough. I guess I'm just not particularly bothered by it. All of DS's sports outside school wear similar nasty fabrics for their kits.

Well not really because that would have made it even more expensive.
Or I could just buy regular clothes for my incredibly short for her age child that actually fit her.
That's the difference.
At 18 she can still fit into 12-13 age clothes so that's what we buy her.
We don't buy sizes that don't fit and then have to pay out more to have it altered.
Also school skirts/trousers/shirts don't exist in "nicer" because whatever brand you get is still horrible material.

The thing with the Harris schools is they aren't black blazers.
They are black with an orange edge. Or black with a blue edge. Or black with a green edge. And so on....
(Is edge the right word?)

The PE kit material I don't mind.
It's usually loose fitting, cool to wear (as in temperature not trendy) and washes and dries really easy.
If a PE style top and shorts or trackies was the uniform I would be happy to buy that.

They are no longer allowed to do this, the law has changed and they can only require 3 logged items and a tie. Everything else has to be generic.

OP even though we can afford it, I point blank refused to buy the logged trousers when DD was at the same school. As long as I picked ones the correct colour and leg shap the teachers never noticed as the logo wasn't visible. It was covered by the blazer, I bought them when she started but they where very poor quality and more expensive then M&S. I would think that under the new law they couldn't really enforce a whole PE tracksuit with logos as that would be discrimination for those who can't afford it.

Lol my DS has a sports science degree And my partners daughter is head of pe at a school

Wonder why we all didn't freeze to death in pe kit then . Even my DDs didn't have tracksuits etc for PE. So I definitely knew about PE lessons at school

They go around that by making “optional” items only acceptable from the uniform store.

For example if girls want to wear skirts , it HAS to be the tartan ones at x shops.

If they want warmer layers for PE , it has to be the branded stuff.

We didn’t freeze because we wore tracksuits for outdoor PE in the winter. 🙄 I know I did.

A sensible winter football kit usually looks like this:

• Base layer (top skin) to help retain warmth
• Training hoodie or zipped top worn over the base layer
• Football shorts, as normal
• Base layer leggings (bottom skin) under the shorts
• Football socks worn over the leggings
• Hat, gloves, and neck warmer when needed

This setup keeps warmth close to the body while still letting players move naturally.

I didn't, nor did my daughters

I had pe top ( short sleeve polo, ) pe skirts and pe knicker type shorts underneath

But what good does it serve anyone by a school saying to children that they can only wear a branded tracksuit or none at all?

I was allowed school coloured tracksuit bottoms and sweatshirt at my school. There was no such thing as a branded/logo school PE kit.

What good reason is there for not allowing a child a navy blue sweatshirt over their PE kit if their parents can’t afford the logo one?

You used to be able to buy the badges and iron or sew them onto an item you've bought. It was tons cheaper and I don't know why they don't do this anymore other than to make money from parents by making them by the branded full items instead.

I didn’t find better quality school uniform was the same awful fabrics as the cheap rubbish. It washed well and lasted. I’d rather buy less but buy better. My dc at primary never wore trainers to school either. The head said they could wear slippers as indoor shoes. Obviously that pin pointed the poorer dc so no one did it.

At my school, sport outside was woollen grey culottes, aertex top and your standard pullover! Never had a track suit or leggings! Yes, you froze if you didn’t move.

Outside? In the winter? In the snow/rain?

At my school....yep 😂
PE kit was gym knickers, netball skirt and aertex top (when did they stop being called aertex and start being called polo shirts 🤔) plus long PE socks.
Urgh. And they wonder why teenage girls hate PE.

@ChalkOutlines Yes. We all did! Didn’t play in the rain and the hockey pitches got water logged but we were hardy! Doesn’t snow much now does it? Snow covering the pitches was a joy for us non sporty types. Humiliation avoided for another week. We had black cotton knickers for indoor pe. Netball outside was the grey wool culottes again and, they were not a soft wool either!

@DontBuyAnotherBook that's not the case in Edinburgh. State schools are mostly polo shirts, skirts, trousers, shorts, cardigans sweatshirts that can all be bought in supermarkets, you don't have to buy the branded logo stuff.

Yes, if they can wear generic high street shirts, skirts/trousers, jumpers and T-shirts/shorts for PE. As soon as you add in branded items from specialist suppliers it makes much less sense.

Yes, while the teachers huddled up in ski jackets and jogging trousers we froze our arses off in shorts and T-shirts, it kept you moving I suppose.

I actually wanted my dc to wear a decent uniform and look like they belonged to a school. They identified with it. At state primary it was a chrsp
nasty sweatshirt type thing with a badge but the badge was a bit of history. Nothing else had a badge. I would always pay for wool jumpers and cotton shirts though. It’s just nicer to wear!

That’s the thing, from my experience in primary and from what DD says in secondary there’s a lot of standing around/waiting and turn taking.You can’t just randomly start running around, jogging on the spot , moving etc. because that’s breaking the rules.

It does bug me when a bundled up teacher is sneering at a child for being cold while standing around just like they are. Take your 7 layers off then and set an example of hardiness.

They did this in the 90s too. My black blazer had a sew-on school crest.